Effectiveness of Nutrition Education and Fitness Tracking in a Large Corporate Healthcare Wellness Program

In the United States, greater than two-thirds of adults are considered overweight or obese – making the treatment and prevention of overweight/obesity a public health priority. In response, employers are recognizing that promoting and maintaining employee health is beneficial, so the implementation of corporate wellness programs is on the rise. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a ten-month multicomponent employee corporate wellness program on two health-related outcomes: weight loss and step count. The study was used to determine how active utilization of program components would affect the achievement of health-related outcomes among participants. This retrospective chart review compared data within two wellness tracks (BMI and healthy) that were assigned to participants based on BMI findings from their Health Risk Visit assessment with their primary care provider. Participants in both tracks were offered four campaigns and a nutrition-focused series delivered by a registered dietitian. A positive relationship was observed among Healthy Track participants, as those who were active participants in at least one campaign (76.4%) reached an incentive level versus those who were not active participants (37.9%). Participants in the nutrition series had a mean loss of 1.46% BMI percentage change versus a mean gain of 0.10% BMI percentage change among those who did not participate (<em>p </em>= .0475). Additionally, no relationship was found between the use of a fitness tracker and changes in BMI percentage for participants in either track (<em>p </em>= .962).

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nutrition

Year dc:date.available

2019

Author dc:creator

• Tyrrell, Jess

Contributors dc:contributor

• Nicole Stendell-Hollis
• Dana Ogan
• Timothy Englund

• Corporate wellness programs
• healthcare employees
• employee wellness
• obesity
• nutrition education
• Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd/1308

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.cwu.edu:etd-2313