Office-based Weight-loss Programs Show Promise
By Hugh C. McBride
Researchers with the University of Cincinnati and the University of Washington have discovered that office-based weight-loss programs have "enormous potential" to help employees shed unwanted pounds - but the analysts concede that work remains to be done to determine the long-term effectiveness of such efforts.
"Work sites have the advantage in many ways," Michael Benedict, a UC pediatrics and internal medicine specialist, told Cincinnati Enquirer staff writer Peggy O'Farrell for her July 4, 2008 article. "You've got a captive population. You can continually reinforce the program, and you've got repeated opportunities to contact your participants with education and reinforcement messages."
Benedict said that understanding basic human psychology is one of the keys to implementing a successful workplace-based weight-loss program. "The social network of the worksite is probably something you could really leverage to your advantage," he said. "Weight-loss competitions have some promising results. People are competitive by nature, especially at work."
Will Dunham, a staff writer with the Reuters news service, reported that Benedict's analysis of 11 office-based programs found that employees who participated in the programs lost between 2.2 and 14 pounds, while the weights of co-workers who didn't participate fluctuated from a loss of 1.5 pounds to a gain of 1.1 pounds during the same time period.
But Dunham noted that the analysis, which evaluated studies conducted in the United States, Britain, Japan, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia between 1994 and 2006, did not document the long-term results of office-based programs.
In a phone interview with Dunham, who reported on the study in a June 30, 2008 article, Benedict conceded that there were limitations to the good news indicated by his analysis.
"The programs are helpful for at least short-term, modest weight loss in people who actually participate in them," he said, adding that "the overall body of work really is still fairly incomplete."
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