Survey: Obesity linked to long-term unemployment in U.S.

Gallup and Healthways also track the percentages of Americans who say they currently have or are being treated for health conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. In both cases, the differences between the short-term unemployed and the long-term unemployed are striking: Those who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more are nearly twice as likely to say they currently have high blood pressure, and to say they have high cholesterol.

Notably, Americans who have been unemployed for less than 27 weeks are somewhat less likely than those with jobs to have each of these conditions — but this is because they tend to be younger than those who have jobs (33.6 years vs. 42.6, on average).