How The Office Can Help With Weight Control

In the fight against obesity, emphasis is often focused on stops for fast food and snacking at home. But most people spend eight hours a day at work. Could the workplace be a key to keeping the weight off? (Read consumer complaints about weight loss programs).

It appears the answer is yes. A report appearing in the March Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine suggests some simple changes to promote healthy habits at work can help prevent employees from packing on pounds.

Simple steps

The measures studied are indeed simple. Researchers at the University of Georgia and Emory University surveyed several Dow Chemical Company worksites. The company had launched a few low-cost interventions, including encouraging workers to use the stairs instead of an elevator and replacing vending machine pastries with healthy snacks.

Dow had also instituted a voluntary, low-intensity individual weight-management program for employees. The program was popular, with about 60 percent of eligible workers participating.

"However, employees who participated in the individually focused intervention were no more successful at losing weight than those who were only exposed to the environmental interventions," the researchers write. In all groups, about 13.5 percent of workers reduced their weight by five percent or more.

Sedentary time

The results could be significant because people spend so much time at work, and a lot of that time may be spent seated at a desk or computer terminal. A sedentary day, combined with too many calories, will lead to weight gain. The more employees exert themselves physically at work, the more calories they burn.

It's significant to note that the measures at Dow Chemical did not actually help anyone lose weight. The goals were more modest than that. It was simply to help people stop adding to their weight, and this may become a trend for the future.

What about weight loss?

"Low-cost environmental interventions provide an opportunity for worksites to encourage weight maintenance and control in the general employee population," the researchers conclude.

They say they would like to see further studies to see if more comprehensive worksite programs can succeed in promoting weight loss. For now, they say, stopping weight gain may be a victory in and of itself.