Do health risk assessments change eating habits at the workplace?

Abstract

We test whether cholesterol screenings provided through a health risk assessment affect the eating behavior of hospital employees at the workplace cafeteria. We find that employees with high-risk levels of cholesterol make small, short-term reductions in their spending at the cafeteria, while there are no statistically significant changes among employees with healthy levels of cholesterol. We combine screening results with survey responses regarding past diagnoses to identify individuals at high risk who were previously undiagnosed, i.e. unaware of their high cholesterol. Even within this subgroup, however, changes in spending patterns are modest and temporary.