When I walk into my workplace each day, I’m walking into a diabetic snake pit. I’m sure my employer doesn’t intend to do everything possible to complicate my Type 2 diabetes or create opportunities to raise my blood sugar, but it is a death trap nonetheless.

At least once a week, students at Columbia College Chicago where I teach journalism are camped in the entrance, recruiting and raising money for student clubs and programs. They sell candy, doughnuts and pastries, chips and soft drinks. When I tell them I would like to support their cause, but that I am a diabetic and have a carbohydrate-restricted diet, they look blankly at me, unless someone says, “Oh yeah, my grandmother has that. But she cheats sometimes.”

I usually offer a contribution if they promise to have fruit or protein next time, but college students have notoriously weak memories for information that won’t be on a test next week.

In my office suite, a kind colleague is likely to have brought bagels (higher carbs than many doughnuts even without the sugar), or homemade cake. My dean is fond of doughnut holes as a meeting snack.

Since many classes overlap traditional lunch hours, I tend to delay meals, but my students ignore rules about no food in classrooms and routinely eat pizza, burritos and subs at the conference table or at their computers. During class, my exercise is limited. I occasionally stand up and write on the white board or walk around the room, looking over my students’ shoulders as they write their assignments on their computers.

When a three-hour class is over, I’m ravenous, and those bagels are looking really good—especially with a late afternoon faculty meeting on the schedule—with chocolate chip cookies as the snack du jour.

None of my colleagues has ever disclosed that they are diabetic, too, but the odds are good someone is, or will be. According to new research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about one in three U.S. adults could have diabetes by 2050 if current trends continue.

Diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in 2007, and is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults under age 75, kidney failure, and non-accident/injury leg and foot amputations among adults.

People with diagnosed diabetes incur medical costs that are more than twice that of those without the disease. The total costs of diabetes are an estimated $174 billion annually, including $116 billion in direct medical costs. About 24 million Americans have diabetes, and one-quarter of them do not know they have it.

That means that one in 10 U.S. adults has diabetes now and the situation is likely to get worse over the next 40 years as the population ages and as people with diabetes live longer. The CDC report predicts that the number of new diabetes cases each year will increase from 8 per 1,000 people in 2008, to 15 per 1,000 in 2050.

“These are alarming numbers that show how critical it is to change the course of Type 2 diabetes,” says Dr. Ann Albright, director of CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation. “Successful programs to improve lifestyle choices on healthy eating and physical activity must be made more widely available because the stakes are too high and the personal toll too devastating to fail.”

Lifestyle or wellness programs can work, she says. The Diabetes Prevention Program clinical trial, led by the National Institutes of Health, has shown that comprehensive prevention can reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 58% in people at higher risk of the disease.

Who’s at risk? Virtually everyone in a diverse workforce.  Risk factors for Type 2 diabetes include older age, obesity, family history and genetics, having diabetes while pregnant, a sedentary lifestyle and race/ethnicity. Groups at higher risk for the disease are African-Americans, Hispanics, American Indians/Alaska Natives, and some Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Employers are accustomed to scary statistics, but these metrics are particularly alarming and could give benefits producers another talking point to encourage employers to make a stronger commitment to wellness programs and healthy workplaces.

My own employer does some of the right things. Employees are incented to do annual health screenings—and I know exactly what my blood sugar A1C readings are, along with my blood pressure and cholesterol numbers. Every few months, a health coach calls my office and offers some helpful advice.

However, the program tends to focus on me—the middle-aged fat guy who takes lots of pills, instead of my healthy-appearing colleagues, my students eating and selling snacks, or the workplace environment that discourages healthful living.

The wellness program misses individuals who may be missing more days of work than they would if they were healthier, on margin, or the students and employees who would be more productive if they ate better, got more sleep and managed stress more effectively.

That’s one of the problems with traditional wellness programs, notes Dr. Nina Taggart, corporate medical director and vice president of clinical medical programs with AllOne Health in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

“Diabetics are getting younger and younger,” she says. “And even younger employees need to be taking better care of their health—whether they are diagnosed with an illness or not. They need to be managing their stress, getting enough sleep and participating in preventive screenings to identify problems as soon as possible.”

One of the most common causes of disability is cancer, she notes, which strikes both young and old individuals and may appear in individuals who seem otherwise healthy. “If employees are healthy, they want to keep their health. That’s one of their main life assets,” says Taggart.

AllOne, an occupational health consulting company, recently partnered with Reliance Standard Insurance Co. in Philadelphia to form RelianceONE, a health and productivity program for employers. Taggart says that unlike other workplace wellness programs, RelianceONE integrates wellness, disease management and employee assistance programs with disability and absence management tools. The program is open to all employees and their family members, including those who don’t participate in an employer’s health plan.

The program costs range from $5 to $7 per month per employee and involve health screening, individual participant coaching and wellness education. The program is not restricted to a specific health plan or network of medical providers.

Taggart describes the program as “holistic” because it includes all employees and family and isn’t restricted to at-risk groups or disease management. She says the program is outcomes-based and focuses on multi-year strategies and metrics that can demonstrates to an employer and participants that the program is making a tangible improvement in individual health, health care costs and other measures such as absenteeism and on-the-job productivity.

The program is also open to disabled workers and employees on medical leave and can be incorporated into return-to-work and workers compensation programs.

It’s a big commitment, she notes, and agents and brokers who are encouraging comprehensive wellness programs like hers need to seek support from the very top of their clients’ leadership and a multi-year strategic commitment.

But the results, she says, are real, measurable and a substantial return on investment.

I doubt that a more comprehensive wellness program at my college will put more healthful snacks in the hands of my students, or get me to ride a bicycle around the classroom, but a higher awareness could only help. I don’t want any of my colleagues joining my diabetes club now or ever. In this case, misery doesn’t love company.

The author

Len Strazewski has been covering employee benefits issues for more than 30 years. He has an M.S. in Industrial Relations from Loyola University in Chicago.