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Who could forget the episode of The Office when employees at the Scranton branch took part in a company weight-loss challenge? The TV sitcom played for laughs the tactics that some of the characters used in order to shed pounds for the competition, including not eating and even swallowing a tapeworm.
The Office, of course, is a comedy, and its outrageousness is meant to be funny. But the thing is, some companies still do hold weight-loss challenges as part of their wellness programs, whether it’s part of a more general “wellness challenge” or its own thing. And the implications of these in the real world aren’t always so funny.
That’s because weight-loss challenges can be extremely triggering, both for people with a history of dieting or eating disorders, as well as for folks who feel the sudden pressure of weight loss after seeing their peers and colleagues take it on. This can lead to potential problems, such as a preoccupation with food and restriction, as well as overexercising and under-fueling.
Plus, these workplace challenges don’t actually accomplish the goal that the employers likely had in mind: bettering the wellness of their employees.
As a registered dietitian, I know that there are tons of ways an employer can make a difference with regard to employees’ well-being. First, of course, comes the big stuff, such as fair pay, sick leave, paid time off, family leave, and really comprehensive health care coverage. In fact, according to a survey by insurance company Unum, the top three non-insurance perks workers want from their employers are generous paid time off, flexible work options, and paid family leave.
Once employers have put in place those big things, they can think about those wellness programs or challenges as an added measure. In fact, fitness or “healthy lifestyle incentives” ranked fourth in that survey of what employees want. Done right, wellness efforts like these can be a positive thing and promote happy and healthy employees. They can help create a supportive culture rather than a toxic one—employers just need to keep a few things in mind.
But before we get into steps that employers can take to create a wellness challenge that’s actually helpful, we need to talk about why the weight-loss component should have no part in here. Here’s why.
Weight loss doesn’t automatically equate to better health.
This is the big one: In today’s society, the pursuit of “health” is so often really just the pursuit of thinness. But weight loss is not and should not be synonymous with health or wellness. According to the Global Wellness Institute, wellness is “the active pursuit of activities, choices, and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.” It’s an “active pursuit,” meaning you actively partake in activities that can enhance health—say, for instance, riding your Peloton or adding nutrient-dense foods to your plate. Weight loss, on the other hand, is more passive; you can’t really control it as fully as you can your behaviors. Those tactics I just mentioned might lead to weight loss, but they might not. The weight loss is out of your control, but the behaviors you do are not.
Beyond this, these weight-loss challenges erroneously assume that dropping a few pounds automatically leads to better health and thus better wellness overall. But the research just isn’t there. In fact, long-term weight loss is not clearly associated with improvements in lab values such as blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, or triglycerides, nor is it reliably linked to reductions in premature death. What it is linked to? Increases in yo-yo dieting and weight cycling, which research has found does play a role in premature mortality.
There are many folks with larger bodies who check the boxes for things that are associated with being “healthy,” like eating nutrient-dense foods, getting in regular movement, managing stress, quitting smoking, and maintaining lab values within the normal range. We just can’t assume that larger bodies are automatically unhealthy. Correlation does not equal causation, and illnesses and diseases—yes, even those typically associated with weight, like sleep apnea, diabetes, and heart disease—occur in people of all sizes.
We live in a society where it’s the norm to congratulate someone who has shed pounds without knowing what prompted the weight loss or what potentially unhealthy behaviors—say, restricting eating times for certain hours, cutting out foods or food groups, counting calories, or overexercising—may have been in play there. Or if there were serious conditions, such as hyperthyroidism, diabetes, depression, or cancer, that precipitated the weight loss instead. We tend to look to weight loss, or how a body looks, to give us information on what’s going on inside, which just isn’t accurate.
Weight-loss challenges miss the mark for improving "wellness" and health because they don’t take into account all of the combination of factors that affect someone’s health. If we truly wanted to discuss health, we would be talking about equal and equitable health care, access to food, mental health, social connections, access to green spaces, and much more. We would focus less on what a body looks like and more on behaviors that can help promote actual health.
So what would boost workplace wellness instead?
The best workplace wellness programs tend to offer opportunities for collaboration, socialization, and team-building, which can be helpful for employee morale and mental wellbeing. But for these programs to become a positive thing, employers need to focus them on actual things employees could do throughout their day, rather than simply sending them to the scale and hoping for a certain number to appear.
“Healthy behaviors actually have a much greater impact on someone’s overall health and wellness,” Brenna O’Malley, RD, a dietitian based in San Francisco, tells SELF. With that in mind, here are some behaviors companies might focus on to promote wellness in their employees.
Stress can seriously mess not only with our mental health, but our overall health too—it can affect our digestive systems, suppress our immune systems, and interfere with sleep.
A good workplace wellness challenge can help ease employee stress by encouraging breaks. Actual breaks, like the ones where you close out your computer, step away from your desk, and put away your phone. Here are some ways companies can put this into practice:
- Make sure employees are free to take bathroom breaks without managers hassling them about it.
- Host stretch breaks or meditations.
- Lead walks if the outdoor area is safe and accessible to people with disabilities.
- Encourage eating lunch away from the desk.
- Let employees have the option to do something that they feel would best benefit them individually without penalty—like starting work a half hour later to get in a morning walk beforehand. This is probably the most important one, and employers need to really stand behind it. That means not scheduling meetings or setting deadlines during these times, and not expecting people to work late to make up for the work they missed during a group meditation.
I’m not talking about the 4 p.m. coffee run here—I mean the kind of hydration that works to maintain proper fluid balance in your body. Being well-hydrated improves a whole host of wellness-related factors, like sleep quality, cognition, and mood. Not to mention fluids help with easing constipation, regulating body temperature, and lubricating joints.
On the surface level, wellness programs can promote drinking enough fluids, say, by putting up signage near water coolers to promote drinking up often or encouraging people to try adding fruits to water to make it more flavorful. They can take it a step further too:
- Stock the fridge with free seltzer and have a kettle with a variety of tea bags for different kinds of hydration options.
- Give everyone nice refillable water bottles or mugs to keep at their desks or workstations.
Instead of constantly thinking in terms of restricting foods and calorie counting, employers could instead focus on highlighting new nutrient-dense foods. This would be a great time to promote foods from different cultures, since every culture has nourishing foods that are not only health-promoting but also tasty. Here are some ways employers can put this into practice:
- Host cooking demonstrations.
- Plan recipe competitions.
- Have quarterly potlucks where people are encouraged to bring in their favorite foods.
This can help solidify eating as an enjoyable experience—one that’s not only about providing us with helpful nutrients, but also about helping us share joy, memories, and social experiences, Lorraine Chu, MS, RDN, CDN, CDCES, a dietitian based in Orange County, California, tells SELF.
“Encouraging wellness in the workplace that isn't weight-focused, such as having a cook-off, is a great way to foster bonding in the workplace,” she says. “It can play a great role in creating and fostering community.”
And that’s where workplace wellness challenges can really be a positive thing: by focusing on bringing their teams together and using the positive benefits of food to do so. One of the key aspects of food is the social part of it. If we focus more on the joy, comfort, and togetherness it creates—rather than the guilt or fear that often arises when we look at it through a weight-loss lens—we can make the most out of some friendly workplace competition and camaraderie.
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