Workplace Interventions to Reduce Obesity and Cardiometabolic Risk

Abstract

The worksite is ideal for implementing interventions to reduce obesity and cardiometabolic risk factors. Although worksite health promotion is not new, employer-sponsored wellness programs have become more widespread due to the rising prevalence and high cost of obesity. Over the past two decades, employers and researchers focused efforts on individual-based programs to change employees' nutrition and exercise behaviors, but more recently, the worksite environment has been targeted. Overall, there is good evidence that individual-based worksite programs can produce modest weight loss, but the evidence for effects on other risk factors and on long-term health outcomes and costs is inconsistent. There is less evidence for the benefit of environmental-based interventions, and more data will be needed to establish conclusions about the benefits of these types of interventions. A major challenge for employers and researchers in the future will be to find the balance between effectiveness and economic viability of worksite wellness programs.