Abstract
Burnout syndrome (BS) and obesity are two growing conditions that affect employees’ health and company productivity. Recently, several studies have pointed to a possible relationship between both phenomena. However, such a relationship has not been clearly defined. This research analyzes the relationship between BS dimensions and body mass index (BMI), the latter being treated as a moderator variable among obese senior and middle managers in the Mexican maquiladora industry through a structural equation model. A total of 361 senior and middle managers (124 of them classified as obese under the World Health Organization’s criteria) completed both the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey [with emotional exhaustion (EE), cynicism, and professional efficacy (PE) as subscale dimensions] and a sociodemographic questionnaire (which included BMI). The results showed a statistically significant relationship between EE and PE (P < 0.001; β = -0.320), with BMI acting as a moderator variable. The results showed that when BMI increases as a moderator variable, the strength of the relationship between EE and PE also changes. For example, although PE had a negative value of 0.14 before the moderator effect, the value increased up to 0.32 when the BMI was factored into the relationship. Therefore, maquiladora industries are being advised to increase their investments on the identification and prevention of employees’ EE and obesity. Such interventions would promote a better quality of life and could prevent economic losses resulting from poor employee performance.
Highlights
There are two large health problems in Mexico: high levels of work stress, whose chronic form is known as Burnout Syndrome (BS), and an increasing number of obese people
According to surveys conducted by the Mexican Social Security Institute (I), Mexico features a high rate of incidence of work stress as 75% of Mexican employees experience it at work, whereas in China (73%) and the United States percentages drop to 73 and 59%, respectively (Estrés Laboral, 2013)
This paper focuses on the BS; on the mediating role that body mass index (BMI) plays in the relationships among the BS dimensions centering in detail in that one between emotional exhaustion (EE)
Summary
There are two large health problems in Mexico: high levels of work stress, whose chronic form is known as Burnout Syndrome (BS), and an increasing number of obese people. Results from a recent study conducted by the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon) among 500 Mexican professionals showed all the study subjects to feature a certain degree of BS and more than 60% of them to experience it in high levels (CIDICS 2018). Because both obesity and work stress are related to cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, they lead directly to high rates of premature death or diseases, which takes a toll on the productivity of organizations
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