You may no doubt gain weight but it may lead to loss of your earning power too. This startling revelation came to light through a study that tried to find out the effects of weight gain on the earning power of an employee.
Important facts that sprang out of this study were-
1. Just a 10 percent increase in body mass index, a measure of weight relative to height, can cut a man’s real earnings by 3.3 percent and a woman’s by 1.8 percent.
2. Negative impact of weight on wages is stronger in the “oil belt” nations, which include Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal.
3. In the so-called “beer belt” countries of Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium and Finland gaining weight does not have a significant effect on salary.
4. Up to 23 percent of men and as many as 36 percent of women in Europe are obese.
A look at these facts clearly indicates that obesity is not only posing threat to our health but to our wealth as well. More unfortunate is the revelation according to which, mere an increase of 10 per cent BMI is capable of bringing down earning power of a person. Exposing the negative effects of weight gain on earning power of a person Giorgio Brunello, an economist at the University of Padova in Italy avers:
We find that BMI affects wages negatively in Europe, and that the size of this effect is larger for males than for females.
Personally, I believe that this reduction in earning power is somewhere associated with the fact, according to which ‘obesity to hit economies hard’. As we know obesity, gives rise to several mental as well as physical problems as a results it is quite obvious that working capacity of an employee would be lessened, which would ultimately result in the expulsion of that employee, thus would bring down his earning power.
Image credit: Jalmc
Via: Reuters
