More white-collars are sub-healthy

As high as 96 percent of local office workers were found to have health problems during check-ups least year, rising from 87.6 percent in 2011, according to a survey report released today by Shanghai Foreign Service (Group) Co, a leading HR management agency serving global clients, including many foreign ventures in Shanghai.

Overweight, fatty liver and hyperlipidemia are the top three health risks among the white-collars, said the report based on health record of 500,000 office workers in Shanghai. Among them, the overweight rate increased from 15.1 percent to 35.3 percent within the recent five years.

The three risks were more frequently seen in male workers. The report showed that 53.2 percent of the male while-collars had overweight problems, while 46.4 percent have fatty livers and 26.3 percent have hyperlipidemia.

For women, the top risks were breast lobular hyperplasia, thyroid abnormalities and external hemorrhoids. Almost 85 percent of the surveyed female workers had lobular hyperplasia, while the rates of the other two problems were 33.9 and 23.4 percent respectively.

The sub-healthy conditions were mainly caused by unhealthy life style like rich diet and a lack of physical exercise, said the report.

It showed that though more and more white-collars paid attention to health, they actually lack health management awareness and practice, as well as scientific guidance.

The report said the rate of office workers who paid great attention to their own health had grown to 84 percent, but the rate of people who really conducted health management had decreased to 64 percent last year from 77 percent in 2015.

It meant their behaviors did not match their awareness, said the report.

Though 75.6 percent of the office workers said they could keep healthy diet and 42.5 percent said they kept doing physical exercise,the rates of overweight, fatty liver and hyperlipidemia suffers kept growing.

Experts from the HR service provider said they lacked scientific and systematic guidance targeting their real problems, therefore their efforts could not transfer to healthy results effectively.