What a bunch of losers: Company makes weight loss employees' business

ORLANDO, Fla. — At a small Sanford, Fla., company, everyone's talking about weight.

Walk in wearing a new dress, as Paulette Howard did one day last week, and everyone oohs and aahs — and wants to know what size it is. Every week, they want to know how much their colleagues have gained and lost.

The weighty discussions started six months ago, when the company launched its own version of "The Biggest Loser" contest — and 25 of the 71 employees signed up. They formed teams, held weekly weigh-ins followed by salad-bar lunches. At the end of their first 12-week contest, the group had lost 400 pounds collectively and the winners walked away with cash prizes of $150.

"It used to be that no one wanted to talk about their weight or being fat. Now it's all we talk about," said Kevin Glennon, the 49-year-old vice president of Total Medical Solutions.

Other companies may want to emulate their efforts. Last week, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonprofit health watchdog group, issued its annual report on obesity in America. Researchers found that, while Americans are fretting about childhood obesity, two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. In adults, obesity is defined as having a body mass index of at least 30.

Across the country, obesity rates have steadily climbed over the past 20 years. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate over 20 percent. Today, 31 states have a rate above 25 percent. Florida — where 24.1 percent of adults are obese — is on the verge of joining that group. And a recent analysis commissioned by Trust For America's Health found that the baby-boomer generation has a higher rate of obesity compared with previous generations.

This could hit the United States government right in the wallet. As baby boomers age, obesity-related costs to Medicare and Medicaid are likely to grow significantly because of the large number of people in this generation and its high obesity rate. To tackle the problem, health-care reforms will give employers incentives, starting in 2014, to spend more money on wellness programs.

While school systems and pediatricians debate how to prevent childhood obesity, no one is quite sure what to do about adult obesity.

For decades, businesses have tried to entice employees to get in better shape by handing out pedometers, water bottles and T-shirts that encourage walking and exercise programs. Or they've gone a more traditional route, holding Weight Watchers sessions in the workplace.

But obesity researchers still haven't found a program that works for everyone — one that encourages people to lose weight and keep it off.

Kevin Volpp, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Incentives at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, has conducted studies on how to motivate employees to lose weight and quit smoking. What works best, he found, is money — rewarding employees with cash prizes if they reach a certain weight goal or quit smoking.

But money isn't the only answer. "It works better for smoking than it does for weight loss," Volpp said. "With smoking, we've had much better long-term effects. With weight loss, people tend to regain the weight over time.

"That remains the big challenge for fighting obesity."

Under the new health-care reform law, Americans will likely see an increase in workplace wellness programs.

Beginning in 2014, employers can offer greater incentives to those who participate in corporate wellness programs or who meet certain health criteria, such as a certain cholesterol level.

This is an idea corporate America already is embracing. In a survey of the nation's businesses conducted earlier this year, the Society for Human Resource Management found that 28 percent offered rewards or bonuses to employees for completing certain health and wellness activities.

Expect to see that number increase dramatically as the new health-care reform allows employers to spend 30 percent — and possibly as much as 50 percent — of an employee's health-care premium on rewards that could go back to the employee.