Obesity causes a drop in productivity in workplaces
International health and wellness coach and autho Ephraim Marobela has found that South Africa is faced with a serious obesity crisis that keeps increasing at an alarming high rate.
Marobela, founder of Marotech Healthy Living, has conducted research about obesity and found it causes more than 18 deadly diseases that do not provide any symptoms until it’s too late.
He is also hugely concerned as it is directly impacting the productivity in the country.
For this reason he is looking to work closely with the Ekurhuleni Business Initiative to conduct workshops to raise the alarm on how obesity is negatively impacting businesses.
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“Because of obesity being a silent killer, it cans strike while driving, running on a treadmill, or while sitting down in Parliament,” said Marobela.
The survey he conducted reveals that one of the causes of drastic drop in productivity is due to the fact that South Africans are overweight and obesity has increased from 61 per cent to 68,2 per cent.
“We need to realise that obesity is, these days, affecting every company’s bottom line, as it also results in absenteeism due to other illnesses, such as high blood pressure.”
Marobela said obesity has an added impact, as it causes additional life challenges such as being very sickly and taking overdoses of medication without even reading the side effects.
“Obesity is intensely more dangerous than HIV/Aids, most of our taxi drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers, and even most drivers in general are overweight or obese,” he explained.
“South African children are now also the third heaviest in the world. We are in a serious crisis as a country that needs extraordinarily urgent attention to address these issues.”
Marobela said that fighting obesity and winning against it will yield endless ripple effects of which future generations will be proud.
According to him, when he conducted the research he realised that people are very good at pointing fingers and complaining instead of doing something.
“We, as South Africans, need to roll up our sleeves and accept that we have a mammoth task that lies ahead to tackle obesity.
“We need to wake up from the insanity that has engulfed us,” he warned.
“The research also serves as a warning that non-communicable diseases, like obesity, will kill more than 52 million people in 2030, costing the world more than $47-trillion (about R700-trillion). Sadly, most of this damage can be prevented.”
q Marotech Healthy Living provides customised results-focused programmes for employers and employees focusing on overweight and obesity solutions.
“The programmes increase the company’s productivity in a totally different way that no one has ever realised and imagined. Results are achieved from month one and are on-going as people adopt a new healthy lifestyle. ,” said Marobela.
Anyone interested in engaging in this programme, endorsed by the EBI, may contact Marobela on ephraim@marotech.co.za or 0719224602.
