Abstract
Overweight and obesity before, during, and after pregnancy are associated with adverse outcomes for mothers and their offspring. Workplaces have been identified as important settings for improving health and wellbeing. However, the value of workplace interventions for women across the reproductive life stages has yet to be realized. This paper aims to explore the potential of workplaces to facilitate healthy lifestyle behaviors, prevent further weight gain, and devise tailored interventions for working women, specifically during the preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum periods. Workplaces can be used to engage women, including preconception women, who are detached from clinical settings. Potential benefits of workplace health promotion for women and employers include improved employee wellbeing, productivity, and corporate competitiveness. However, workplaces also need to overcome implementation barriers such as activity scheduling and availability. A systems approach may address these barriers. Consequently, designing and implementing workplace health promotion interventions to meet the specific needs of working women of reproductive age will necessitate collaboration with a range of key stakeholders across all stages of intervention design. Given that these women make up a considerable proportion of the workforce, workplaces can help optimize the health status of employees and prevent excess weight gain during the preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum periods.
Highlights
Two-thirds of women from high-income countries have overweight or obesity [1], which are important risk factors for many chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and dementia [2]
High weight status before pregnancy is associated with increased risk of maternal morbidity or mortality, and higher rates of obstetric complications [3]
These generational factors contribute to a cycle of overweight, obesity, and increased health risk with measurable adverse health impacts for offspring and women across the preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum periods
Summary
Two-thirds of women from high-income countries have overweight or obesity [1], which are important risk factors for many chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and dementia [2]. Given the number of women in the workplace [4,6] and the potential benefits to the employer, the aim of this paper is to highlight the workplace as a key public health platform to promote healthy lifestyles and reduce the burden of weight gain for preconception, pregnant, and postpartum women. Children born to mothers with high weight status are more likely to be affected by overweight or obesity as they grow [13,15] These generational factors contribute to a cycle of overweight, obesity, and increased health risk with measurable adverse health impacts for offspring and women across the preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum periods. Despite calls to design and implement health promotion programs for preconception, pregnant, and postpartum women within the workplace [9,22], to our knowledge, there are no workplace health promotion interventions focusing on improving lifestyles and preventing weight gain in this population
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