Families Live Healthier with Worksite Encouragement

When workers receive a cash incentive from their employers to make healthy family lifestyle changes, it makes a difference, says a new study.

"Employers spend a lot of time thinking about how to get their employees healthy, and while the employee is an important factor, what about the family?” says study author Dee Edington, Ph.D., at the University of Michigan Health Management Research Center.

“When you have a sick child, you also have a sick employee,” he says. “So, if you're going to have a healthy culture, you need to think about having healthy families, as well.”

Study results were reported in the medical journal Pediatrics.

Variety of activities

In the study, IBM offered its employees $150 to participate in a 12-week program in which they were given a list of health-promoting activities to choose from, such as adding more vegetables to the family diet, exercising more as a family, and reducing family TV and computer time.

The researchers found that more than 50 percent of the employees who chose to participate completed the program.

"I think this program was likely successful because once these activities were pointed out to the employees, they probably felt like it was a no-brainer,” says Dr. Edington. “They could make their families healthier and receive the incentive.”

In 2008, IBM offered its U.S. employees with children between the ages of 2 and 18 a chance to participate in the "Children's Health Rebate" program. The company has more than 40,000 employees in the U.S., and those employees have more than 80,000 children insured by IBM's health insurance plans.

More than 22,000 employees enrolled in the 12-week program, which had four main areas of concentration: healthy family meal engagement, consistent healthy eating, collaborative physical activity, and positive parental role-modeling.

Families were asked to select between three and 10 action goals to strive for during the program. Each family was given a tracking sheet and asked to record how they did with meeting their goals.

"Families sat down together, and children were part of the decision-making on goals," says study co-author Chifung Lu, at the University of Michigan Health Management Research Center. "Filling out the tracking inventory became a family project."

Spending time together

More than 11,000 employees - 52 percent of those enrolled - completed the program. Those that finished it reported increased physical activity, reduced time spent on electronic entertainment, and healthier family meals.

The study found that family physical activity done more than three times per week went up 17 percent during the program, and that eating healthy dinners five or more times a week went up by nearly 12 percent.

The number of children who cut their TV or video game time to less than an hour a day increased by 8 percent.

"It's hard to say if this really works or not,” says Goutham Rao, M.D., at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. “There's a definite bias because it's self-report, and a bias in the population because IBM employees tend to be highly educated.

“But it probably does help to an extent, because you would hope it would inspire parents to think about healthy eating and physical activity habits,” he says. “And, the program materials probably add to their knowledge."

Always talk with your doctor to find out more information.