Workplace wellness still doesn't work

The mainstream diet industry is having financial difficulties as more people are realizing that they are a waste of time and money. Unfortunately people are turning to DIY and fad diets which also haven't been proved to work, but are at least cheaper.

One place that seems to be making money is workplace wellness. Granted, it too, is a waste of time and money, but it like the diet industry, has bamboozled HR managers with the same empty promises. It seems to have promised to make the workforce slim and trim and lower health care costs despite the RAND's report that this is not even a little true.

Now workplace wellness has gone a step further: you will do this "voluntary" dieting or exercise or face penalties. It doesn't matter if you (a) regularly exercise, (b) eat healthy or (c) have nothing physically wrong with you, (d) have tried every single method to lose weight only to lose weight, gain it all back plus more. This time it will be financial penalties that will try make the failed programs work. You will be thin or else. Despite that yet another study came out showing you can be fat and fit.

They found that fitness levels, not weight, predicted whether or not a participant had died in the study's intervening years. Unfit people, regardless of their weight, had twice the risk of dying during the study than fit people, and overweight and obese people who were fit had similar mortality risks as fit, normal weight participants. Another way of putting it: thin, unfit people had twice the mortality risk as obese fit people.

Workplace wellness eliminates your right to have a life outside of work and it's extremely discriminatory as poorer people tend to have a higher BMI and may not have access to healthier foods and gyms (I know that when my salary went up, I was able to afford more organic food). Try telling a working mother that she has to find 30 minutes per day to walk or pay $300 more a year.  And even if she does manage to find the time, if she doesn't lose weight, she'll still have to pay $300 or more.

“Employers are at risk of creating a wellness system that is used not to improve health, but to discriminate against those with obesity in order to improve their bottom line,” stated Dr. Tsai. “Employers should avoid BMI targets as the basis for any financial penalty or incentive, and instead reward employees for engaging in specific behaviors. Corporations need to encourage employees to maintain healthy eating habits, increase exercise and participate in weight management programs.”

To me this is all a big trick to make money for workplace wellness companies and for employers to get rid employees that are deemed "unhealthy" and shift their costs away from them and unto their employees. 

Meanwhile there is no proof that shaming and penalizing a person will making them lose weight and keep in off.

But there is proof it makes things worse.

Participants who experienced weight discrimination were approximately 2.5 times more likely to become obese by follow-up (OR = 2.54, 95% CI = 1.58–4.08) and participants who were obese at baseline were three times more likely to remain obese at follow up (OR = 3.20, 95% CI = 2.06–4.97) than those who had not experienced such discrimination.

Comments

[Nancy Lebovitz]

If employers actually want to improve their employees' health, they could try things like having schedules which permit employees to get enough sleep and enforcing anti-bullying policies.

[Chris]

I opted not to participate in my office's wellness program because I didn't have time while training for the Leadville 100 (mountain bike race) and various other events throughout the year. I wasn't penalized, but I found out later accidentally that I could have taken advantage of their financial incentives by logging my solo exercise activities even though I'd initially been told that I had to frequent one of a few gyms on an approved list.