Sending Your Employees to Fat Camp

Every kid can probably remember a schoolmate who was sent away to fat camp and forced to endure not only the mockery of fellow children, but also bland, paltry portions of undressed salad and other "diet" foods. Losing weight was never cool, but with the mercurial rise of reality shows, even fat camp has been buffed to a high gloss. Shows like The Biggest Loser and other reality diet shows feature die hard trainers who effectively supplant the participants' "lack of will" with their own shrill and uberfit war cries. They harass participants through bootcamp-like workouts (4-6 hours worth at a pop) and analyze their every bite. The results are - well - dramatic enough to capture the attention of a rapt television audience.

Corporate wellness programs seem to be picking up on the trend. Home grown Biggest Loser competitions are popping up all over in America's offices. Sure, this approach can work. Particularly when on someone else's dime and exercising 4-6 hours a day, but for the average working Joe or Josephine, dramatic weight loss can be a setup for disappointment.

And for the ambitious wellness program director? For starters your program might not actually be reaching the least healthy among your workers. A skinny pack a day smoker who does not exercise (unless you count lifting beer to mouth) and has a family history of illness may not have a lot to lose when it comes to shedding pounds.

While it may be tempting to assume that we can look at someone who is obese or overweight and judge their level of health, studies show that a moderately active obese or overweight worker is at less risk of disease than a thin co-worker with high stress, sedentary lifestyle, poor sleep habits, and a lousy diet. Some of the more serious risk factors for cardiac conditions and stroke (think cholesterol and high blood pressure) are not necessarily something you can determine by looking at a scale.

On top of that, if there are big prizes on the line there are actually plenty of unhealthy ways to show dramatic weight loss (think: dehydration, binging, diuretics, stimulants). About 65% of the human body is made of water. Do the math on that. Ask any amateur wrestler (you know the guys who basically wear garbage bags as they run around the block prior to being weighed in) and they can give you a few easy hints for ways to manipulate scale weight. Such tactics can dramatically alter scale weight; however, they put unnecessary stress on the body (dehydration and muscle loss) and the results are typically temporary at best.

Additionally, men have an advantage in the weight loss game. Men's hormonal makeup allows their bodies to rev up the fat burning engines. Women, and particularly those undergoing hormonal changes such as menopause, can still see tremendous benefits from exercise, but thanks to their hormones and body composition will see more gradual weight loss than most men.

So to recap:

• 'Skinny smokers' have little incentive to get healthy - there's not much to lose and have you ever tried running a mile after a cig? It's not fun.
  
• Weight Loss competitions unnecessarily shame larger people. Health and its relationship to weight is complex. You could be singling out otherwise healthy people based mainly on their appearance, which is not exactly a textbook team building approach.
  
• The fix is in. Offering prizes can emphasize unhealthy weight loss methods and put men at an advantage over women.
• The graph below shows average excess medical cost per employee of various health risks. Do you think the Biggest Loser is going to do much to reduce the first two?

If your wellness goal is to improve the health of your workforce, emphasize friendly competition and team spirit, and improve productivity then is fat camp really for you?