Resolve to Help Employees Lose Weight

Happy New Year!

It's that special time of the year when people managers across the nation and in every industry face millions of holiday-bloated employees requesting weight-loss programs and diet-friendly cafeteria options.

Lexington Medical Center in West Columbia, SC, hopes to capitalize on employees' resolution-fueled demand for healthier, lighter fare with its "Better Choices" nutrition program. The program is several months old and already has registered better-than-expected participation from employees opting for healthier, less-fattening food when given an informed choice.

Better Choices uses the hospital's intranet to post daily menus for employee cafeteria fare that includes a breakdown of fats, carbohydrates, sugar, and other dietary information. A little green apple icon is attached to food that is either less than 500 calories per serving, or derives less than 30% of its calories from fat, or represents one serving of fruits or vegetables. Posters on the walls in employee areas, hallways, and the cafeteria provide useful hints about proper nutrition. Little paper pop-up tents on lunch tables provide quick "Did You Know" tips on healthy foods.

Steve Howell, director of nutrition services at the 384-bed community hospital, says Better Choices was created at the behest of employees. "They contacted us and asked for help to know what to eat," Howell says.

That's not as easy as it sounds, as Howell quickly determined. The hospital has plenty of full-time and part-time employees, and at any time any number of them could be on any number of diets; low fat; low carb; low or no sugar; Atkins; South Beach; the Zone; and Hollywood, to name a few. In addition, there are plenty of physician-crafted diets for employees with special health concerns.

"So many of these people are on different diets and we felt there was no way we could comply with every single diet that was out there," Howell says. "They were trying to eat healthier but they didn't know how. So, we tried to get the educational piece down and set some parameters to help them and educate them."

Coming from the Midwest, Howell says he was taken aback by the Southern diet. "I had people asking me if fried okra and french fries were a vegetable," he says. "You try not to laugh because you don't want to embarrass anybody, but it was just a real eye-opener."

Lexington opened the Better Choices campaign in August with a barrage of announcements and posters and the posting of dietary information on the intranet. Howell says it cost Lexington about $10,000 to set up the Better Choices program, with most of the money going toward marketing, a software package, posters, and other printed materials.

Howell found that an earlier attempt to provide nutritional information had not fared well, so he had to rebuild employee trust in the accuracy of the program. "We bought some new software to enter in our recipes and that has gotten the biggest response from everyone," he says. "I got flooded with e-mails the first two weeks telling me 'this is exactly what I need to determine what I can and cannot eat down there.' Now if I don't have the nutritionals out there every day I hear about it fast."

It's a time-saver too. Employees with only 30 minutes for lunch can access the daily menu at their desks and pick out what they want ahead of time, which also leads to healthier, better-informed selections. It's like going to the supermarket with a list drawn up beforehand.

At the urging of hospital senior management, Howell combed through existing recipes to make them healthier. "It's a lot easier when you have the administration supporting you. So, we've been able to make some changes in the recipes that weren't there to make the foods healthier, such as adding half turkey and half beef to the meatloaf, or making the cream sauces with non-fat milk," he says. "These are changes the public doesn't even realize we've done."

Howell says he's been pleasantly surprised by the employees' response to the program. "We are looking at 20% to 30% participation, which is a lot higher than what I was expecting, which was about 18% to 25% of total cafeteria sales," he says.

In addition to Better Choices, Lexington provides employees with an optional in-house physical assessment that targets health goals like weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol reductions. As an incentive, participating employees are given a small deduction from their health insurances costs, which amounts to $10 a month. Lexington also encourages Weight Watchers, Biggest Losers, and other weight-loss programs, and intramural contests to see which employee groups can shed the most pounds.

In May, armed with months of data, Howell says he'll review Better Choices to see where it can be tweaked, both in cost-effectiveness, and in employee participation. He says Lexington may look at incentives like lowering prices of healthier foods and raising prices of less healthy items to encourage better diets.

For anyone trying to entice employees toward healthier eating, Howell says be patient, because you're trying to alter decades-long, entrenched, lifestyle choices. "If you try to change a culture it's not something you can do overnight," he says. "You have to go slow and steady knowing that your goal is going to be attained eventually but it is going to take a long time."

(If you want more information about Better Choices, or you're thinking about setting up a similar program at your hospital, Steve Howell says he'd be happy to help. You can reach him at sjhowell@lexhealth.org.)