Get paid to lose weight

By Melinda Fulmer

In an attempt to hold down spiraling health-care costs, many companies are paying employees to lose weight or get in better shape. Employers are doling out bonuses, insurance discounts, vacation days and even gift cards.

Highmark, a Pennsylvania Blue Cross/Blue Shield licensee, offers a health and fitness program called Lifestyle Returns that pays $225 each year to employees agreeing to medical assessments and free health and nutrition coaching. The program is open to all employees, whether they are fit or fat. Because, as Highmark Vice President Anna Silberman puts it, not only do they want to move people from high to low risk, they also want to "keep low-risk people at low risk."

"We know that 70% of chronic conditions are preventable," Silberman says. "If we can prevent adverse health effects, this is a win for the insurance company and a win for the employee."

Freedom One Financial Group, a Michigan provider of 401(k) plans, jump-started its fitness program in 2005 by offering a free four-day cruise to Jamaica for employees who met certain weight loss or body fat reduction goals. At the end of the three-month challenge, 36 of its 70 employees had together lost 310 pounds, and 21 employees were given the free cruise. Now that so many of its employees are participating in its wellness challenges, it has begun offering trips, gift certificates and other prizes to the winners of certain in-house fitness contests.

"The employees are really keen to stay on the program and stay focused," says John Young, Freedom One executive vice president of marketing, who helped launch the program and lost 64 pounds in the process.

The size of the problem

An estimated 65% of adults are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, putting them at greater risk for serious ailments including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression and certain forms of cancer. The tab associated with obesity cost American companies $56 billion in 2000 alone, the CDC estimates, and that burden is continuing to rise, experts say, as a larger chunk of Generations X and Y is weighing in heavy.

"One of the greatest concerns now for employers is the problem of obesity" and the toll it is taking on productivity and health-care costs, says Bill Whitmer, president of the nonprofit, employer-sponsored Health Enhancement Research Organization.

In 10 years, health care is expected to account for $1 of every $5 spent in the U.S., according to economists at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, up from $1 of every $6 now. And over that decade, the cost of health insurance is expected to rise at a rate of 6.4% annually.

The problem took center stage a couple of years ago when General Motors tagged the increased cost of employing its obese workers -- estimated to comprise 26% of its work force -- at $1.4 billion annually.

Analysts say companies are smart to dangle some kind of economic incentive to get workers motivated to lose weight. Money is a great motivator, and it's a drop in the bucket compared with what they will wind up paying in the long run.

"The younger work force is getting fatter faster than the older work force," says Thomas B. Gilliam, a corporate health consultant who co-authored the book "Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy: Achieving a Healthier Workplace One Employee at a Time." "Instead of having to pay for obesity-related diseases from age 50 to 65, they will now pay from 25 to 65," he says.

Gilliam has observed this firsthand, overseeing health screenings for about 35,000 new corporate hires each year, mostly for physically demanding blue-collar jobs.

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In 2000, he says, 29% of all new-hire applicants were obese. By 2006, the percentage of obese applicants had jumped to 39%, he says. It's not only straining health-care costs, he says, it's also costing companies in lost productivity and greater wear and tear on their equipment.

Weigh less, pay less

Last year, Michigan auto parts maker Affinia Group began offering an economic payoff to get more of its 4,500 U.S. employees to commit to a healthier lifestyle.

The company offered a $1,000 reduction in health insurance premiums to employees who agreed to participate in its StayWell health-management program, which includes medical screenings, weight management, smoking cessation and physical fitness plans. The tack worked. A whopping 99% of employees and their spouses now participate in the program.

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