**3. Work conditions in the corporation**

We hypothesize that corporations promote obesity in families through three aspects of the employment relationship: low wages, long hours, and unpredictable hours. Low wages strain a family's ability to buy healthy foods, live in neighborhoods where fresh produce is more likely to be available, and enroll family members in exercise programs. In 2009, 5.2 million families were living below the US poverty level, despite having at least one member in the labor force for half the year or more. The 2009 figure increased from 4.5 million in 2008 and continues to trend upward [15]; inequality across households is widening in the United States [16]. The plight of the working poor [17], whose employment does not yield sufficient income, widens the gap in well‐being. Even the conditions of the unemployed poor may be determined in part by corporate labor policies, particularly where unemployment or part‐time work status is involuntary. Corporate investors in the United States have long pressed for employment practices that maximize shareholder wealth but negatively impact work conditions and workers; layoffs increase stock prices [18] but strain households, wages are depressed in the lowest positions [19], and US jobs are outsourced [20].

Long hours of work tax the ability of family members to engage in physical activity and the ability of parents to prepare healthy foods from fresh ingredients each evening. Work hours in the United States increased steadily from the 1970s [21], especially for families where parents' low wages require their taking a second job. Increased working hours for men are found primarily among high socioeconomic score (SES) brackets [22], and thus, a key mecha‐ nism behind pediatric obesity likely depends on the intersection of low SES with *female* hours worked. Specifically, working mothers in the United States spend significantly less time with their children than nonworking mothers, in each of several dimensions (eating together, unstructured playing together, playing sports together, custodial care or supervision) [23].

Long hours worked by mothers are associated with childhood obesity in the United States [12, 24, 25], the United Kingdom [26], Australia [27], and Japan [28]. Working mothers frequently express preferences for sustainable jobs at 20–30 h of work per week [29] and limit on the pressure to do involuntary overtime [30], but corporations typically do not provide such employment options. At the same time, father's as well as mother's work conditions are increasingly having a negative impact on pediatric obesity. A study of 434 9‐year olds in an Australian birth cohort, 22.8% of whom were overweight or obese, found that father's non‐ standard work hours, but not mother's, were significantly associated with the child's being overweight or obese [31].

Families composed of middle class and white collar professional parents might compensate for longer hours by hiring child care providers who facilitate children's after school physical activities or by purchasing time‐saving and healthy already prepared foods. Women in lower SES strata do not have these options. Parents in low‐wage jobs cannot afford many of the child care options available. If they must rely upon food stamps, the US government's food subsidy to offset poverty, as many families do when corporations pay low wages [32], they cannot use these food stamps to buy prepared meals. Thus, the intersection of low wages and long hours for parents likely increases the hazard of obesity for children.

Unpredictable and nonstandard hours may make it difficult to create healthy conditions for children. For example, parents in retail jobs with varying schedules that include weekends may find it difficult to create exercise routines or help their children participate in organized sports. Service sector jobs are increasingly affected by this type of instability, which is some‐ times attributed to the intrinsic nature of the work and the corporate necessity of coping with steep competition. Researchers are asking "Are bad jobs inevitable?" [33] in the competitive global economy and concluding that the answer is No. Alternative employment strategies can support stability and better wages, more evidenced in European than US employment [34]. Consider an example: In Massachusetts, in the United States, in 2009, the Hyatt Corporation dismissed its domestic staff who were earning living wages of \$17 per hour. They replaced them with an outsourced housekeeping staff earning \$8 per hour. The negative economic and health repercussions for these families linger, but of special note, the other hotels in this particularly competitive sector did not follow suit [35]. The downward spiraling "race to the bottom" in working conditions is not inevitable [36].

Whether hours are variable or standard, parents in low‐wage jobs often find that they lack flexibility in when and where they are able to accomplish their work. They are less able to take time midday to bring their children for preventive and nonemergency health care [37, 38], which may diminish the possibility of early detection of increasing BMI and the provision of essential education. Flexibility for working parents is an intervention that could improve the health of children [39]. Early intervention can reshape the course of widespread diabetes onset in increasingly young people.
