Employer Incentives to Lose Weight
At least three times this week, I have watched news segments that mentioned employer incentives to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. I can’t remember the company’s name, but I heard they were offering each employee an extra $150 per pay period (up to $300 per month) to eat healthy, exercise, and report their daily health regime on the company’s database – specifically created to monitor employees’ progress.
The intent, of course, is to motivate others towards a healthier lifestyle, but also to save money on health insurance costs. According to Wellness MD, obesity (30+ BMI) is the #1 killer in America. It’s a major factor for heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, etc. All of this results in very expensive health care costs for everyone.
From a business perspective, an incentive to live healthier makes perfect sense. It reduces the cost of group health insurance premiums, reduces absenteeism, and increases productivity. From an employee perspective, earn extra money and be motivated to live healthier. It’s a win win. Although it’s a sad reflection of our society that we have to be paid to do what we should be doing anyway, I’m just glad this idea is not subsidized with government tax dollars. I commend any corporation that jumps on the bandwagon.
As for me, I need to lose weight but my arse is lazy. Outside of work and mommy duties, my lifestyle is pretty sedentary. I cook a healthy meal at least 4x per week, but I’m also a junk food junky. Add in my new found love for wine and I’m done. But if my employer offered to pay me an extra $300 just to eat healthy and exercise – and held me accountable – I’d be all over it!
What do you think of this new incentive?
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Work to achieve, not to acquire.
And as always, BE FABULOUS!
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Roche does that!
How do you measure the “healthy living” results? Does your health club membership card record your visits & transmit them to your employer? Do you bring in your grocery receipts? Do you take a set of vitals (blood pressure, cholesterol levels, etc.) at the beginning of the experiment and at the end and look for improvement? Or is it just taken for granted that fat people are unhealthy and that “healthy living” is anything that causes weight loss?
I see an administrative nightmare waiting to happen…
@ EM – all good questions! Wish I knew the answers. I only heard from the brief news segments that some employers have created a database for tracking purposes, but I’m not sure if it’s on an honor system or what. For liability reasons, I’d assume they’d also hire a nutritionist or health care professional to consult with the employees throughout their journey.
I love, love, love it! They should also require everyone to watch The Biggest Loser. These people are experiencing what we all experience in trying to lose weight (willpower, losing a lot one week and possibly gaining the next week, etc).
my company took a slightly different approach: Fill out the assesment or else pay $125
yeah they pay you $300 per month to eat healthy but it actually cost $2,000 *chuckle* and then they reduce the cost of your health coverage. Ummmm . . . .
I think this is a great idea. Many people believe that eating healthy needs to be more expensive and/or difficult to do.
When me and my family started actually doing it, we found that raw veggies cut up with a little bit of thousand island made a great easy replacement for starchy carbs. (I dropped 15 lbs) Then we decided to eat less red meat and have a huge salad with lots of goodies in it at least 2 nights a week. (lost another 10lbs)
The overall change in my budget was non-existent. We are a family of 3 and eat really well on a $400/month shopping budget
Singlema–I saw the same report on TV, the company is IBM.
I think if you have to be paid to take care of yourself that you don’t love yourself enough. It must be a desperation move, but it will only be successful with those already moved to be healthy.
The very term junk food makes me think of dumpster diving. Who does that?
$300 per month income if you do care and do eat like a human being? What’s the outflow if you don’t and end up with a stroke, cancer, or an early heart attack? What price watching your child grow up not getting the connection?
I read about this a few weeks back I think the idea is a great one. As a woman who has been blessed with excellent metabolism genes I really do not need to diet. I could probably stand to loose 5 pounds but I doubt health wise I would qualify for their extra $$
Too bad some people can find a negative in everything. Eating healthy does not have to cost that much more per month – especially if you plan your menu.
I’d be all over that. But I think the company would be better off offering the resources instead of the incentive. How about a gym on the work site, a cafeteria that only serves healthy food (at a discount of course), a vending machine that only sells water or other healthy alternatives? I wish my company had that. I would be all over that too. :-)
I would take on the challenge and save all that dough (well attempt to anyway) and use it as a lump sum reward when my goal was met.
As much as I reflect on myself and go within to find ways to better myself inside and out this is one area that is hard.
But to answer the question I think its a good idea. I think its sad that its come to this AND yep I’d do it.