The food, alcohol, and tobacco industries have been blamed for “manufacturing epidemics” of chronic disease, but they’re just trying to sell more product like everyone else. And so, if that means distorting science, creating front groups, compromising scientists, blocking public health policies… they’re just trying to protect their business.
It’s not about customer satisfaction, but shareholder satisfaction. How else could we have tobacco companies, for example, “continuing to produce products that kill one in two of their most loyal customers?”
Civil society organizations concerned with public health have earned a reputation for being “anti-industry,” but the issue is not industry, but that sector of industry whose products are harmful to public health. We like the broccoli industry. In fact, the corporate world might end up leading the lifestyle medicine revolution.
As shown in my video, Plant-Based Workplace Intervention, the annual cost attributable to obesity alone among full-time employees is estimated at 70 billion dollars, primarily because obese employees are not as productive on the job. Having healthy employees is good for the bottom-line. Every dollar spent on wellness programs may offer a $3 return on investment. And if you track the market performance of companies that strive to nurture a culture of health, they appear to outperform their competition.
That’s why companies like GEICO are exploring workplace dietary interventions (see my video, Slimming the Gecko). The remarkable success at GEICO headquarters led to an expansion of the program at corporate offices across the country, with test sites from San Diego to Macon, Georgia. Given that previous workplace studies have found that workers who ate a lot of animal protein had nearly five times the odds of obesity, whereas those that ate mostly plant protein appeared protected, obese and diabetic employees were asked to follow a plant-based diet of whole grains, vegetables, beans, and fruit while avoiding meat, dairy, and eggs. Compliance wasn’t great. Fewer than half really got their animal product consumption down, but there were definitely improvements such as significant reductions in saturated fat, an increase in protective nutrients, and even noted weight loss, lower blood cholesterol levels, and better blood sugar control in diabetics.
And this was with no calorie counting, no portion control, and no exercise component. The weight reduction appears to result from feeling fuller earlier, due to higher dietary fiber intake. The difference in weight loss could also be the result of an increase in the thermic effect of food, allowing a small extra edge for weight loss in the vegan group. Those eating plant-based diets tend to burn off more calories in heat.
Eating plants appears to boost metabolism. This may be due to increased insulin sensitivity in cells, allowing cells to metabolize carbohydrates more quickly rather than storing them as body fat. “As a result, vegan diets have been shown to increase postprandial calorie burn by about 16%, up to three hours after consuming a meal.”
Imagine how much money companies that self-insure their employees could save! See, for example:
- Eliminating 90% of Heart Disease Risk
- How Many Meet the Simple Seven?
- Lifestyle Medicine: Treating the Causes of Disease
Find out more on some of the potential downsides of corporate influence in videos like
- Collaboration with the New Vectors of Disease
- Taxpayer Subsidies for Unhealthy Foods
- Big Salt – Getting to the Meat of the Matter
- How Smoking in 1956 is Like Eating in 2016
In health,
Michael Greger, M.D.
PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my free videos here and watch my live, year-in-review presentations:
- 2012: Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death
- 2013: More Than an Apple a Day
- 2014: From Table to Able: Combating Disabling Diseases with Food
- 2015: Food as Medicine: Preventing and Treating the Most Dreaded Diseases with Diet
- 2016: How Not To Die: The Role of Diet in Preventing, Arresting, and Reversing Our Top 15 Killers
