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Physicians were among the most physically fit, a Gallup survey found.

Does this job make me look fat?

If you are a bus driver, the answer is probably yes. The news is also bad for manufacturing and production workers, as well as installation or repair workers, according to a survey for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

Transportation workers have a 36-percent obesity rate, the highest rate among 14 occupation groups measured by Gallup based on interviews with more than 139,000 American workers from Jan. 2 to Sept. 10, 2012. For manufacturing and production workers, 30 percent are obese, followed by 28 percent of installation or repair workers and 26 percent of office workers.

On the lighter end of the scale, 14 percent of physicians were obese, followed by 20 percent of business owners and 21 percent of teachers.

The study found several factors for worker obesity, including exercising fewer than three days a week, not eating healthy, limited access to a safe place to exercise, a history of depression and skipping annual dentist visits.

The bad news for transit workers is no surprise to Ed Watt, who drove a bus in Brooklyn and Manhattan for 20 years and now serves as the Director of Health and Safety for the Transport Workers Union of America AFL-CIO. It’s a job that leads to higher rates of medical issues for a number of conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure, carpal tunnel syndrome and chronic obstructive lung disease, according to information from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

“First the sedentary nature of the work, sitting much of the day with the inability to move around, even for bathroom breaks,” Watt said via email. “The second is the mobile nature of the job leaves poor food choices. So fast food rules.“

“The other factor is that these jobs are highly stressful,” he said. “The stress of the jobs results from high demand and low control over the work. Traffic, people and schedule are all big items that are beyond your control as a driver. As a result of the stress, many are inclined to mal-adaptive coping mechanism."

The good news, Watt said, is that part of his job is working to make it easier for the transportation workers to lose the top spot on the Gallup list.

Production workers, the game is on.

Share Your Stories: Have you cut back on medical expenses?

Prescription drug prices are increasing fast than inflation, which means some Americans can no longer afford to pay for them.

What’s driving costs: Brand-name drugs paid for by insurance that are often heavily advertised.

But there are ways to save, thanks in part to the burgeoning generic drug industry. Generic drugs can be made by multiple companies, which compete on price. Four of every five prescriptions are for generics, which can cost one-fourth or less than the brand name version.

Experts recommend shopping around, as some of the big drug store chains and big discount retailers offer less expensive prices, especially on the most widely prescribed drugs.

Some people may not need pills to mediate mild depression, says Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist. Saltz tells TODAY that some can forego the medicine – she says pills are as effective as placebos for mild depression – and focus on getting enough exercise and the right social support.   

“Therapy or learning particular coping skills can not only be an effective treatment, it can also be protective against future relapse of the problem,” she said. “The ‘cost’ of not doing these treatments in terms of future ability to function, lost work time, meds taken that may result in complications, is substantial.” 

Other tips include asking a doctor for a free sample if only a small amount of medication is needed. Always ask for a generic prescription and shop around. 

Companies that provide employees with generous benefits, including contributing more to retirement funds and absorbing health insurance hikes, are often financially healthier because of it.

A study released Wednesday found employers that offered substantial programs focused on the long-term financial health of their workers saw a host of business dividends as a result, everything from lower turnover to better customer service.

Harvard Business Review Analytic Services surveyed 58 of the 100 companies named to “The Principal 10 Best” list over the past decade and also conducted interviews with executives from 20 employers included on the list. Three quarters of those polled reported that benefits contributed to employee retention and 72 percent said they impacted employee loyalty.

The survey was commissioned by the Principal Financial Group, although companies studied did not necessarily use Principal services.

Despite the tough economy in recent years, firms in the study said they had maintained or increased their benefits packages, including raising retirement contributions in some cases. While some did have their employees pay more for health insurance benefits, the majority ate the increased costs.

Virtually all the firms agreed that they have a "strong sense of responsibility when it comes to providing benefits that protect the financial well-being" of employees and their families. When asked to identify the most significant thing they are doing to impact employees’ financial security, nine out of 10 respondents mentioned retirement programs and cited generous employer contributions.

The majority of companies surveyed also provided one-on-one financial help for employees for retirement planning and have added wellness programs.

As a result of the generous benefits, the employers surveyed said they saw a host of benefits, including:

• Enhanced recruitment
• Committed, engaged employees
• Excellent retention
• Deep organizational expertise
• Safe workplace practices
• Strong customer relationships

The question of whether these employers are more likely to have lucrative benefits because they’re successful, or they’re successful because they provide such perks, wasn’t answered by the study, said Luke Vandermillen, senior vice president of retirement & investor services with the Principal Financial Group. However, he said there is “a paternalistic feeling that cuts across these companies.”

The Harvard study shows great benefits are "not only good for employees, but good for those companies that provide well-rounded broad and deep benefit programs," he said.

A growing number of small business owners are taking a page from their bigger corporate counterparts and implementing wellness programs for their employees to curtail ever-escalating health care costs. Employers can’t just force everyone to eat tofu and do yoga, however.

That’s why Climax Portable Machine Tools based in Newberg, Ore., is taking its time rolling out a wellness program and using a carrot instead of a stick with its 160 employees. The program implemented in the last year is voluntary. Workers are offered incentives, including getting up to $40 back in their paychecks a month, for getting on the health bandwagon. Among the steps being offered are on-site medical screenings, health and nutritional seminars, daily walks and even a company basketball team.

Climax has seen its health insurance premiums rise as much as 30 percent annually, so a wellness program made sense, said Karen Kinslow, the company’s wellness coordinator. “We really wanted to look after our employees and it really helps the bottom line when you do these things,” she explained.

More small business owners are realizing the same thing. A recent MetLife survey found 29 percent of small businesses offered some sort of wellness options, compared to 22 percent last year, and 16 percent five years ago.

Such programs have been shown to pay off for employers. Research from the Partnership for Prevention found that for every $1 spent on worksite health promotion programs, a company can see an average of $3.50 in savings related to fewer sick days and health care costs.  And such programs can be a good thing for employees. An Israeli study showed that employees who engaged in some form of exercise had lower rates of depression and job burnout, according to an article in MyHealthNewsDaily.

But the strong-arm approach to getting workers healthier can run afoul of the nation’s labor laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. Implementing employee health programs come with many restrictions under several key laws – the ADA, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Under the ADA, employers are prohibited from requiring an employee to take a medical exam, and you can’t require an employee to participate in a wellness program to qualify for health insurance, said Chris Kuczynski, assistant legal counsel, ADA/GINA policy division for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

When it comes to GINA, he continued, “If you’re going to offer an incentive in connection with a health risk assessment or wellness program, you can’t condition that on whether a person gives you family history or genetic information.”

Employers can’t have blanket wellness policies, which is where companies get into the most trouble, Kuczynski stressed. If a worker is unable to engage in certain exercises because of an underlying medical condition that is beyond his control, such as a thyroid gland disorder or high blood pressure, employers can’t penalize the employee for not participating.

Climax has been cautious when implementing methods to encourage workers to participate.

Kinslow talks to workers individually and helps them come up with other options if they can’t do things like running a 5K. Employees can get points, which translate into dollars, if they attend nutrition or stress-reduction seminars on-site, or even if they take a healthy-eating cooking class. And, she added, some employees may not want their wellness tied directly to work, so they could get points for teaching a karate class to kids, for example.

When providing rewards there are limits, especially as they relate to health insurance premiums. Companies are increasingly offering employees breaks on their healthcare premiums as incentives to participate in wellness programs, but there are strict requirements under HIPAA on how that can be done. The total award must not exceed 20 percent of an employees total coverage cost. Under a provision in health care reform that number will go up to 30 percent in 2014.

As far as medical privacy restrictions, health screenings that are done by the employer must be strictly confidential. “They always have to be careful with where data goes and their access to that data,” said Joe Ellis, senior vice president at CBIZ Benefits & Insurance Services, an employee benefits consulting firm. “The employer would never see an individual’s data but they could see aggregate data.”

Another problem is potential injuries workers could sustain while exercising during work hours.

Late last year, Ged King, president of The Sales Factory, a marketing agency in Greensboro, N.C., bought four Trek commuter bicycles for employees to use on lunch runs, errands or leisurely rides.

The bikes are part of a wellness strategy King devised to help his staff of 27 get healthier.

His plan also includes rewarding workers prizes -- everything from $25 gift cards to iPods -- if they exercise more, including biking, running, or even gardening. “It makes for happier people who are more excited to come to work,” he said about the wellness program that launched last month. “You can’t be creative if you don’t feel good.”

To deal with the issue of injuries, employees at The Sales Factory were all asked to sign a “Bicycle Release Form” before King purchased the bikes. The release stated that workers were assuming “all personal liability in case of injury”.

Employees were also asked to promise to wear helmets, which he provided, when they take the bikes out. The goal of the wellness plan, King stressed, “is to make sure we’re healthier.”

Eli Meir Kaplan / The Atlantic

A produce aisle of a Wal-Mart is seen in this file photo.

Wal-Mart is unveiling a simple icon that it says will help consumers make a snap decision about whether a food is healthy, without delving into the nitty-gritty of the nutrition label.

The move by the nation's biggest retailer to label some food products as "Great For You," being unveiled Tuesday, could be a significant development in the fight against obesity because of the company's enormous influence in the marketplace, over both consumers and food vendors eager to sell into the Wal-Mart supply chain.

There have been fumbles in the past. In 2009, major food makers backed off a plan to label foods as “smart choices” after the Food and Drug Administration, which has been working on a standard system for such logos, noted that many competing nutrition symbols could be confusing. At the time, some food makers were criticized for trying to market items such as mayonnaise and sugary cereals as “smart choices.”

The FDA has not finished its standards, but Wal-Mart is moving ahead to slap a green jumping-jack-shaped icon onto certain in-house Great Value and Marketside products as well as on fresh fruits and vegetables.

Wal-Mart will provide detailed criteria for the "Great For You" label on its website but is trying to give an easy visual cue to busy shoppers roaming the grocery aisles in its thousands of stores.

Wal-Mart plans to slap this label on produce and some house-brand packaged food items.

“If you’re walking down the aisles you’ll basically be able to see the better choices,” said Leslie Dach, the company’s executive vice president for corporate affairs, in a news briefing.

Wal-Mart announced plans to develop the icon last year, as part of a heavily promoted initiative endorsed by first lady Michelle Obama as part of her push to fight obesity. Wal-Mart also has promised to reduce prices on healthier items, offer more stores in underserved “food deserts” and reduce sodium, sugar and trans fats in certain packaged foods.

The first “Great For You” icons will start appearing in produce aisles in April, company executives said. The labels then will gradually roll out on certain store-branded packaged items throughout the year.

Andrea Thomas, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of sustainability, said other companies that supply food to Wal-Mart could choose to use the icon if they wished. If consumers start shifting their behavior as a result of the labels, she said that could provide an incentive to other food makers to adopt the system.

Christina Roberto, a doctoral student with Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity who is studying food labeling, said the idea of a simple label is a good one – as long as the criteria for what gets the label is sound.

“It will be important to think about, ‘What nutrition criteria are they using?’” she said.

Wal-Mart said it conducted rigorous tests to make sure no unusual products squeaked through in its guidelines.

“There are no candy bars that would qualify,” Thomas said.

The company said it developed its criteria by looking at government guidelines and working with health organizations and other parties interested in healthy eating.

For example:

• Raisins will get the icon, but dried fruit with sugar added would not.
• Plain oatmeal qualifies, but sweetened oatmeal does not.
• Brown rice will get the label. White rice will not.
• Plain or artificially sweetened yogurt makes the cut, but yogurt sweetened with sugar does not.
• Skim milk would carry the icon, but whole milk would not.

Some decisions were harder than others. For example eggs ultimately were included because they are a good, low-cost source of protein despite concerns over cholesterol, Thomas said.

Thomas said Wal-Mart looked closely at FDA definitions to avoid potential conflicts but was not willing to wait for the FDA to come out with a standardized labeling system.

FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey said in an email that the government agency is still working to create a standard front-of-package labeling system, and appreciates Wal-Mart's interest in making a tool intended to help consumers make healthy choices.

Other retailers also have experimented with offering healthy food labels, as part of efforts to address nationwide obesity problems.

For example, grocery chain Supervalu has a “nutrition iQ” system that uses color-coded shelf tags to identify which foods at its stores are healthier.

But Wal-Mart, as the nation's biggest grocer, inherently has more power and influence.

Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst with NPD Group and an expert on eating habits, said new health labels tend to get noticed because consumers are always looking for something different.

But he said his research has consistently shown that people think about other things first, such as taste and value.

“Health is always a secondary consideration in the foods and beverages that you eat,” Balzer said.

What do you think of Wal-Mart's new labels? Tell us on Facebook.

Related:

Wal-Mart, other big boxes try out smaller boxes

Food makers’ challenge: Reduce salt, keep taste

It's that time of year. No, not the holidays. It's open-enrollment season, the time of year when most workers update their health insurance plans.

A recent study by The Kaiser Family Foundation found that annual premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance plans jumped by 9 percent from 2010 to 2011 to $4,129 for families and $921 for individuals.

Here are some tips to help you keep costs down:

Earn a tax break 
If you are considering any big-ticket, out-of-pocket elective operations or medical procedures (such as LASIK surgery), you may want to do it before the end of the year in order to qualify for the medical tax deduction. Basically, if your out-of-pocket health and medical and dental related expenses (including insurance premiums) add up to more than 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income, you may qualify for a tax deduction in the amount you spent above that 7.5 percent.

Visit an in-store retail clinic
Pharmacies and grocery stores – from CVS to Target to Walmart – are increasingly offering clinics to treat customers with minor ailments such as earaches and sinus infections. Many also offer flu shots, some common vaccinations and allergy care. The savings can be significant. A walk-in appointment at retail clinic runs anywhere from $25 to $100 for treating minor ailments, or about 25 percent less than in a doctor's office, according to HealthPartners. (Note: only 40 percent accept insurance, so you may have to pay full price rather than just a co-pay.)  And, a new study by RAND estimates that 17 percent of all ER visits could be handled at retail clinics …saving consumers more than $4 billion a year.   

Consider opening a Health Savings Account, or HSA
If you have a high-deductible health plan (which means you pay more out-of-pocket for medical expenses in exchange for a lower monthly premium) you may be eligible to open a health savings account (HSA) to pay medical expenses. Contributions to an HSA are tax-deductible. The maximum HSA contribution this year is $3,050 for an individual and $6,150 for families. 

Check into local universities
Dentistry schools and colleges of optometry need to let their students work on patients and will often provide services you'd get a private medical office for a fraction of the price. Care is provided by pre-doctoral students or residents under the close supervision of faculty members. I used to go to the State University of New York (SUNY) school of optometry for eye exams when I was in my early 20s and money was tight. 

Keep an eye out for mistakes
You may remember just getting one X-ray, but your bill mysteriously has five line items. As many as eight out of 10 hospital bills contain errors, increasing the tab by 25 percent on average, according to the Medical Billing Advocates of America. To avoid getting overcharged, track every test and medication you get, and verify it with your medical file, which you can request from the hospital's billing department. If you see an error, send a certified letter requesting a corrected bill, and a copy of all related paperwork to your health insurance company.  

Here are more money-saving tips for health expenses.

For more from Farnoosh Torabi, visit Financially Fit.

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Do you work with a bunch of jerks? Well, you might not be lying if you stand up and shout "this job is killing me!"

The risk of premature death is greatly reduced for people who report high levels of social support at their job, according to a new study published in the May issue of Health Psychology. Workers between the ages of 38 and 43 were mostly likely to be negatively affected.

Translation: If you want to live long and prosper, work at a company filled with people you actually like.

"Develop friendship ties with co-workers," if you want to counteract job strain, said professor Arie Shirom, who led the team of researchers at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel. "They will increase your social integration and allow you additional resources to buffer the effects of stresses in your life on your health."

And there's more bad news for women in managerial roles. The study found that having higher levels of control and decision-making authority increased the risk of early death for women. For men, having perceived control at work had an opposite effect.

Shirom said most of the study participants held blue collar jobs, in which men typically had high levels of control and women did not.

The researchers reached their findings after examining medical records of 820 adults, who were followed from 1988 to 2008, and questionnaires that measured job demands, control at work and peer and supervisor support.

USDA

Nearly 13.5 million Americans live in areas where it is hard to find healthy food and fresh produce for a reasonable price.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls these regions "food deserts," and it has created a new tool that uses Census data to map out these areas. The tool allows users to enter specific addresses or zoom in to get street-level mapping.

A food desert (shown in pink above) is an area where at least 500 people or 33 percent of the population have no access to a supermarket or large grocery store within one mile in urban areas or 10 miles in rural areas. About 10 percent of the 65,000 census tracts in the United States meet this definition.

The USDA hopes the tool will assist efforts to expand the availability of nutritious food in food deserts and low-income communities, which is part of first lady Michele Obama's push to address the epidemic of childhood obesity.

From airport food that is roughly 100 percent sodium to the roof of the plane potentially coming off to a sleeping air traffic controller guiding a plane, you’d think air travel is getting dangerous.

AP

A new study says it may be. Although not in the convertible-plane or narcoleptic-controller sort of way.

The study, released Monday in the Journal of Occupational Health and Environmental Medicine, says that frequent business travelers were more likely to describe their health as “fair” or “poor.”

More than 13,000 subjects were studied from data supplied by a corporate wellness program. It looked at three groups: Non-travelers, occasional travelers (80 percent of those surveyed) and “extensive travelers” who run at the George Clooney in “Up in the Air” pace of 20 or more nights a month on the road.

Those Clooney-esque road warriors are not a healthy bunch. And they certainly don’t look like him. They are 92 percent more likely to be obese, with high blood pressure and unfavorable cholesterol levels.

Several factors could contribute to this, the researchers said, including poor sleep, fattening foods and long periods of inactivity.

We’re no scientists, but we’d guess that doubles-for-$1-extra, migraine-inducing flight delays and blood-pressure-raising bag fees also have something to do with it.

How do you try to stay healthy on the road?