MIT Sloan Management Review

Business Ethics and Public Policy, Corporate Strategy

 

Should Business Care About Obesity?

By Kathleen Seiders and Leonard L. Berry

January 1, 2007

Obesity in the United States has reached crisis proportions. Is this yet another societal problem to be loaded onto the shoulders of business leaders? For several reasons, the answer is yes -- and some companies are already showing what can be done to turn the tide.

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Going back to the flappers of the 1920s, thin has always been in. Though for many decades concer ns about body weight had mainly to do with perceptions of attractiveness and the vicissitudes of style, circumstances have changed. Today, more and more Americans are not just a few pounds overweight but may be classified as obese. And obesity is a major risk factor for a host of health problems including diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, dementia and more.

Since the 1980s, the percentage of obese Americans has risen from one-sixth of the population to nearly one-third. The problem is particularly acute among children and adolescents, where the obesity rate has tripled in 30 years. But what should business do about this trend? Isn’t obesity really a problem of personal responsibility and self-control?

Yes — up to a point. But for at least four reasons, business leaders should actively seek to abate the problem of obesity in America. The first reason is simple self-preservation. Ever since Eric Schlosser’s immensely popular book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Harper Perennial, 2002), food and beverage companies of all sorts have been in the trial lawyers’ crosshairs. So far those companies do not seem as vulnerable to tort decisions as Big Tobacco, but the battle is a relatively new one and complacency is not a strategy.

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