Worried about lack of progress on employee obesity?
Look to targeted, personalized programs for small groups of employees, coupled with more general nutrition and fitness activities encompassing a broader range of people.
According to a report from Northeast Business Group on Health, "Tipping the Scales on Weight Control: New Strategies for Employers," segmenting employees by body mass index can be helpful in increasing the effectiveness of employers' efforts to tackle the obesity epidemic.
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While employers are trying to target obesity because of its relationship with "high-cost diseases such as cancer," the report says, results have not been particularly effective. Although traditional strategies like nutritional education, subsidized gym memberships and exercise competitions have had limited success, they often fail to get employees to buy in, in part because they are too generalized and fail to address specific individual issues.
Some of the reasons programs have not achieved better results, the report says, were a lack of employee engagement, accompanied by stigma and embarrassment; employers' hesitation over the cost of implementing new programs, coupled with uncertainty about the return they would get on their investment; and overall employer doubts about the effectiveness of a whole range of interventions.
In addition, the report says, "many employers do not know how to effectively use their data to stratify populations and appropriately match interventions for specific subgroups."
The report arose out of interviews and a December 2015 workshop attended by 40 stakeholders, most of them employer benefits and/or wellness professionals. Executives from PSEG, Aetna, and Montefiore Medical Center discussed successful weight management interventions within their own employee populations, while weight control experts related their perspectives on effective approaches within the workplace.
Some of the successful tactics mentioned during these events were data-driven understanding of prevalence and risk for weight issues among employee populations; the availability of basic interventions, such as nutrition and fitness programs, across a full employee population; personalized programs with targeted communications for employees most at risk; and ensuring convenient access to programs at work and at home.
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