Integrating Physical Activity and Healthy Eating into the Workplace Routine: A Pilot Study

INTRODUCTION: Researchers have proposed establishing health promotion interventions in workplaces as a strategy to improve working-age adults' physical activity and healthy eating behaviors. This study describes a pilot cluster-randomized controlled trial of a health promotion program designed to influence employee behaviors through changing company norms concerning on-the-job physical activity and eating healthful snack foods. METHODS: Organizations were block-randomized to one of three study conditions. Prior to randomization, organizational assessments and employee anthropometric and survey data were collected. Follow-up assessments were collected 6 and 12 months later. Organizations in the comprehensive condition received a physical activity and healthy eating intervention, organizations in the standard condition received a physical activity intervention and the waitlist control group received no intervention until after the six-month follow-up. RESULTS: Twenty-five organizations (representing 399 employees) participated in the study. Most participants were overweight or obese. Approximately 60% of participants spent 17.5 minutes or less engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity. Most (50%) participants were highly sedentary and ate too few daily fruits and vegetables. Regression analyses revealed the ratio of employees reporting their health as “very good” to be positively related to the number of physical activity policies endorsed by the organization (z=1.99, P < 0.05). Perceived workplace social norms for physical activity and nutrition covaried with the number of organizational health promotion policies in force. DISCUSSION: We found that organizations involved in the study were supportive of workplace health promotion activities. This study highlights the feasibility of low-cost worksite-wide wellness strategies for improving employee health.