Science Based Wellness

Do employer weigh loss programs work?

Michael Benedict MD is assistant professor in the department of internal medicine at the University of Cincinnati. In 2008 he surveyed the results of 11 studies on the efficacy of employer weight loss programs. According to the University of Cincinnati news release the answer to the question is a qualified “yes.” Employees who participated in worksite weight loss programs lost between 2.2 and 14 pounds. Non-participating employees either lost very little weight or gained weight.

Does that settle the issue?

It does not. According to the news release there is no evidence that employees who lost weight succeeded in keeping those extra pounds off. Losing weight is easy. Staying thinner is the hard part.

There is also no evidence that the employer gained any benefit.

What follows are my own comments on the University of Cincinnati news release:

1. To the extent that some employees may have felt bullied into joining the employee weight-loss program the program may have done more harm than good.
2. Participants were self-selected. For whatever reason they chose to join the weight loss program. Had the employer not offered a weight loss program many of them may have attempted to lose weight anyway.
3. Comparing employees who participated in the weight loss program with those that did not is statistically spurious. Did non-participants need to lose weight? What was the average body mass index of participants as opposed to non-participants?
4. Dr. Benedict’s study was published in the American Journal of Health Promotion which is not a leading scientific journal.

Conclusion: The University of Cincinnati news release is froth not worthy of serious consideration.

I have been unable to find credible studies that demonstrate any benefit to employers or employees of employer wellness programs.

Evidence rating = 0.

A new development. (Added 16 April 2009)

According to CNN a growing number of companies are adopting mandatory employee wellness programs. The title of the article, “Unhealthy habits cost you more at work”, spells it out. Shape up (literally) or ship out.

The CNN article reports on a survey of 453 large employers. Of those surveyed:

• More than 50% of the surveyed employers offered their employees “incentives” to get into shape.
• The number was likely to rise to 74% in 2009.

The article states that on average health coverage for “high risk” workers costs employers an extra $1,503 per year. To the extent that a wellness program can reduce the number of high risk employees this is a definite benefit to the employer.

Again according to CNN, employers that penalise employees who do not look after their health have managed to contain their health care costs. It is not clear from the article whether this is because the health of employees improved, whether unhealthy employees were less likely to be hired in the first place, or whether unhealthy employees left.

So employee wellness programs do benefit employers.

Do they also benefit employees?

I’ve revised my evidence rating:

Evidence that wellness programs benefit employers: 6

Evidence that wellness programs benefit employees: 0

I am indebted to Dr. John Shannon of La Trobe University for drawing my attention to the CNN article.

Tags: employer, loss, weight

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 1:21 pm and is filed under weight loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.