Posted 06.01.2010

The great expansion

Colorado's reputation as the land of the thin(ner) has become a marketing tool for business - but we're starting to pack on the pounds

By Rob Reuteman

Tom Clark hung up the phone, baffled by what he'd just been asked.

The year was 2003. The executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. had fielded a call from a national site selection firm, hired by a large company to find a suitable area in which to expand.

The site selector asked Clark if he could provide a county-by-county obesity index for metro Denver.

"I'd never ever heard that question," Clark recalled recently. "But immediately I sensed a sea change. We didn't know where in the world to look for such a thing, but I said, ‘We're sure someone does that. We'll get right back to you.'"

The closest Clark could come at the time was an annual survey done by the state health department on the prevalence of diabetes, a disease closely linked to obesity. Obesity is shown to be a major risk factor for other chronic ailments, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, heart disease and asthma. For employers, studies show that poor employee health leads to lower productivity, lower morale, higher absenteeism and higher insurance claims.

Why an obesity epidemic in the workplace? Jobs that have become mostly sedentary. The transition to a "knowledge economy," in which workers sit in front of a computer all day. People too busy to cook healthy meals. Video games, huge flat-screen, high-def TV screens.

"Productivity matters," Clark said. "It's never a deal-breaker for us, but it's definitely a factor when you're a high-priced market surrounded by low-cost competitive states with more money for economic incentives."

Clark and his team began to research the issue. "We began looking at the cost of obesity in the workplace and how it manifests itself," he said.

What they found was almost too good to be true. And it may not be true for long.

The national Centers for Disease Control consistently ranks Colorado as the least obese state in the country in its annual obesity index. In 2008, only one state - Colorado - had a prevalence of obesity less than 20 percent. Thirty-two states had a prevalence equal to or greater than 25 percent. Six (Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia) had obesity rates equal to or greater than 30 percent.

Also, the nonprofit Trust for America's Health says Colorado has some of the lowest rates in the country of overweight residents, physical inactivity, hypertension and childhood obesity. Overall, Colorado ranks as the leanest state in its study.

"We found we had a lot to brag about, so we did," Clark said.

The MDEDC began touting Colorado's newfound "skinniest state" reputation as a marketing tool for economic development. It embarked on a five-year, $4 million, national ad campaign - Energetic Bodies, Energetic Minds - branding the region as a prime place to locate a business.

"Metro Denver is one of the nation's fittest cities with the nation's second-highest percent of physical activity and the highest percentage of residents with health club memberships," the ads read.

Lisa Bailey loved the campaign. Since 1983, her Broomfield company, Health Promotion Management Inc., has implemented employee wellness programs for clients.
"We've got a healthy community. Let's publicize it," Bailey said. "It's a benefit, a marketing opportunity."

But a nagging negative trend has developed, one that may strip us of our bragging rights:

• According to a report released in February by the state health department, Colorado's obesity rate rose 89 percent from 1995 through 2008, while the national rate rose 67 percent.
• Over the past 15 years, the percentage of obese Coloradans has grown faster than any other state, except Virginia.
• The percentage of Coloradans classified as obese went from 10.1 percent to 19.1 percent during that time - still lower than the national rate of 26.6 percent, but discouraging.

What's happening?

"We've basically engineered physical activity out of our lives," said James Hill, a University of Colorado pediatrician who heads the Center for Human Nutrition, funded by the National Institutes of Health.

"Colorado, more than any state, has a culture of health," Hill added. "We value health, fitness, healthy eating and an outdoors lifestyle. But we're lapsing into a ‘culture of un-health' like most of the rest of the country. Even here, it's become too easy to make wrong choices about physical activity and eating.

"We're on a bad trajectory," he said. "Unless we do something soon, we'll fall in with the rest of the pack."

For shock value, Hill is fond of saying that Bill Gates has contributed as much to the obesity epidemic as Ronald McDonald.

"You don't have to be physically active to be productive any more," he said. "You can sit at a computer all day; sit in front of screens all night. It's not intentional, but you don't have to be active to be successful any more."

In Colorado, some even blame the problem on migration from other states. From 1990-2002 alone, nearly 2 million people moved to Colorado from other states. Nearly 20 percent - 349,402 people - came from the 10 states listed with the highest obesity rates in 2002. The problem is especially worrisome in the workplace:

• Obese employees cost U.S. private employers an estimated $45 billion yearly in medical expenditures and work loss, concluded a 2008 report by the Conference Board business research group.
• Medical expenses for obese employees in 2006 were 42 percent higher ($1,429 per employee) than for a person with a healthy weight, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
• Obese adults are 21.7 percent more likely to report having one or more poor physical health days per month, according to a 2009 report by the Colorado Business Group on Health.

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