Full-time U.S. workers who have chronic health troubles or are overweight cost more than $153 billion in lost productivity each year, according to a Gallup-Healthways study released Monday.
Those conditions result in an estimated 450 million additional days of work each year compared to healthy workers. Only about 14 percent full-time U.S. workers are of "normal" weight and have no chronic illnesses, the study says.
That's a big difference from our neighbors across the pond. The $153 billion in annual lost productivity costs linked to those unhealthy workers in the United States is more than four times the cost in Britain. That's partly because twenty percent of workers in Britain are healthy, the report says.
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