Weight Loss Programs and the Work Place

Recently in the news Whole Foods new employee weight management program has created quite a stir. The summary of the new voluntary program is that employees who are categorized as healthier can get a larger employee discount on purchases, from the normal 20% to up to 30% off. Participating employees would be categorized based on four criteria: nicotine use, blood pressure, cholesterol, and BMI. Employees would be placed into one of four categories being either platinum, gold, silver, or bronze, or technically none of the above if a participating employee did not qualify for any of the categories.

Of course this is causing a lot of controversy and I have to say my stomach flipped when I saw this. Trying to wrap my head around the reasoning behind a program like this I tried very hard to convince myself that this was not sprouting from hatred of overweight people but that there is some good intentions here. This is what I came up with:

Healthier people are happier and that makes a better appearance at a store.

Healthier people cost the company less in cases where health insurance is provided.

And basically that's all I got. Notice that I am using the term "healthier" and not "skinnier" because a lot of people can confuse the two. Now I personally think there is a huge flaw in the system because it judges you based on your lowest category. So if I was overweight with healthy blood pressure, cholesterol, and didn't smoke I could not qualify for a larger discount. Or if you were a body builder and had a large BMI (because we all know that BMI is not a great measuring device) then you could also place yourself out of the discount level. And to make it worse is that if there are employees who don't qualify, wouldn't you WANT to give them a bigger break. If you want to give incentive to buy more healthy foods at a health food stores you should give it to those who would need it most. On top of that, I feel that you would never want to set up something where your employees have the chance to judge each other further. Imagine buying some items at Whole Foods where you worked and having to get rung up by a fellow employee. They would see what discount you had gotten and,whether or not they wanted to, start to form opinions about you. And lastly, I don't think it's wise for an employer to document this health information. It seems like they are setting themselves up for a law suit. What if someone is fired, whether for legitimate reasons or not, and they claim they were fired because they were fat. The same goes for promotions or scheduling issues. Having that information on file is very dangerous for the employees and the employer.

Read the article here and see what you can come up with.

Then, of all things, this crept into my own workplace with the suggestion of company wide Weight Watchers meetings being implemented. Again, my stomach flipped. Since this was really just a rumor I went straight to the Weight Watchers site myself to see how they conduct meetings that are held for a company.

After reading their brochure here are my concerns :

Weight Watchers says "There is no question that active, physically fit employees have better work performance." Since when? I am overweight and I perform just as well (sometimes better) than my skinnier coworkers. There are many lifestyle choices that cause someone to be a bad worker but I have never heard that being overweight automatically makes you one. I have never taken more than 50% of my allotted sick days and usually have vacation left over at the end of the year. I don't come in late, leave early, or take super long lunches. I eat at my desk at least twice a week. So while there may be research to say that overweight people might have more personal issues to deal with in some polls, it is not fair to make the blanket statement that we are poor workers. It is very discriminatory and it's disappointing coming from Weight Watchers. I always thought Weight Watchers was there for the individual, that they wanted you to succeed because you wanted to succeed. But for their corporate brochure to flat out insult overweight people is a big slap in the face to their customer base. I imagine if I had decided to do Weight Watchers as an individual and upon enrolling they asked me if I was trying to lose weight so I would be a "better worker" I think I would have walked out right then and there. Being overweight doesn't automatically mean you can't do anything and everything that a skinnier person could. And until I truly can't perform the way I should I think I'm going to pass on the free weight management programs.

You can see the Weight Watchers brochure here.