Health at Every Size: Is There Room in Today's Wellness Approach?

The numbers are staggering. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 35% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight in 2008, and 11% were obese. More than 40 million children under the age of five were overweight in 2011. And overweight and obesity are the fifth leading cause of death. Employers are grappling with the impact of this condition in a variety of ways, from programs and benefits designed to support weight management to changes in the built environment that encourage healthier food choices and increased physical activity.

Employers have also turned toward incentives and penalties tied to body mass index (BMI), a population-level measure of overweight and obesity. On today's show we welcome Dr. Jonathan Robison. Dr. Robison holds a doctorate in health education/exercise physiology and a master of science in human nutrition from Michigan State University, where he teaches in the Nutrition and Physiology Departments as an Adjunct Assistant Professor. He's served as co-editor of the journal Health at Every Size and is in the process of writing a book on organization and employee well-being, How to Build a Thriving Culture at Work: Featuring the 7 Points of Transformation. He joins us to discuss what he calls a "war" on obesity and to explore what limits existing weight-management approaches.