Individuals with obesity who enrolled in a structured weight loss programme report fewer hours missed from work after six months in the programme, according to a study presented at ENDO 2017, The Endocrine Society's 99th annual meeting in Orlando.
"A concern shared by both employers and employees is that time spent in the programme attending the physician and dietitian visits, and the vigilance required to maintain lifestyle modifications, might diminish time and productivity on the job," said Dr Jennifer Iyengar, the study's lead author and an endocrinology fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "However, we found that participation in our program was highly valued and had a positive impact at work."
The total economic cost of obesity in the US includes indirect costs, such as missed time from work, lost productivity at work and premature death due to obesity-related health problems, research shows. Iyengar said little is known, though, about whether weight loss interventions can improve the job performance and attendance of employees with obesity. She and her co-workers studied this question in participants in the University of Michigan Weight Management Programme.
The weight management programme, according to its director and study senior investigator Dr Amy Rothberg, is a two-year, multi-component, multidisciplinary programme for people with moderate to severe obesity that involves frequent visits with physicians and dietitians. It uses a very-low-calorie diet (800 calories per day) by total meal replacement for the first three months to promote 15% weight loss, followed by gradual transition to a low-calorie, food-based diet and interventions to support lifelong behavior changes and promote regular physical activity.
For this study, the researchers evaluated 92 participants with obesity (average weight of 253 pounds and average BMI of 40 kg/m2) who had completed six months in the program and were employed full time in a variety of different occupations. At the first visit and again at six months, participants completed a self-administered, scientifically validated questionnaire regarding their work absenteeism (working fewer hours than their employers expected) and their "presenteeism," defined as the participants' rating of their own work performance.
At the six-month point, participants lost an average of 41 pounds, the research team reported.
Before the programme, participants reported that they worked, on average, 5.2 fewer hours per month than what their employers expected. After six months in the programme, they described working 6.4 hours more than expected.
There was reportedly no significant change in how they rated their overall work performance (presenteeism) on a 10-point scale, with an average of 7.8 at the beginning and 7.9 at six months. It is possible that presenteeism will improve with longer participation in the program, Iyengar said.
Improved absenteeism did not correlate with the amount of weight loss, Iyengar reported. "One possible explanation," she said, "is that the change in absenteeism rates may reflect improvements in co-existing medical illnesses or depression."
She concluded, "Our findings suggest that, through favorable effects on work attendance, participation in a weight management programme may be mutually beneficial for workers and their employers."
Abstract
Background: Indirect costs including presenteeism, absenteeism, and premature mortality contribute to a significant proportion of the total economic cost of obesity in the United States. Obesity and its associated co-morbid health conditions contribute substantially to health care expenditures. However, little is known about the impact of weight loss interventions on indirect costs. In this prospective study we assessed the impact of a structured weight management program on worker performance.
Methods: We studied participants with a BMI >32 kg/m2 (or >27 kg/m2 if of Asian descent) who were enrolled in the University of Michigan Weight Management Program (WMP), an intensive, behavioral weight management program that employed very low energy diet (VLED) for the initial 3 months and followed participants for up to 2 years. Worker performance was assessed using presenteeism and absenteeism scores from the World Health Organization Health and Work Performance Questionnaire (HPQ), a validated self-administered questionnaire developed to assess the indirect workplace costs of illness. The HPQ was administered to program participants at 3-month intervals. Participants working full-time (as defined as 30-80 expected hours of work per week) were included in the study. The primary end-point was change in HPQ absenteeism and presenteeism scores from baseline to 6-months after enrollment.
Results: Baseline data was collected from 174 WMP participants from January 1st, 2015 to March 31st 2016. Of these, 110 participants were still enrolled in the program at 6 months and 92 were eligible for inclusion in the study. Mean age at enrollment was 48.1 ± 10.1years. Baseline weight was 115.2 ±21.7 kg and BMI was 40.0 ±5.9 kg/m2. Participants lost an average of 18.5 ±9.3 kg during the first 6 months in the program (p<0.01). Work absenteeism rates significantly improved during the study from (+)5.2hours/month at baseline to (-)6.4hours/month at 6 months (p<0.01). Improvement in absenteeism did not correlate with the amount of weight loss (rs=0.06, p=0.56). There was no significant change in presenteeism with mean scores of 7.83 and 7.93 at baseline and 6 months, respectively.
Conclusions: Participation in an intensive behavioral weight management program resulted in a significant reduction in worker absenteeism. There was no effect on worker presenteeism. Interestingly, changes in absenteeism did not correlate with the amount of weight loss. One possible explanation is that the change in absenteeism rates may reflect improvements in medical or psychologic co-morbidities rather than directly correlating with the amount of weight loss. Our results suggest that participation in a weight management program may be mutually beneficial for both workers and their employers through favorable effects on worker performance.
Authors
Jennifer J Iyengar, Andrew T Kraftson, Nevin Ajluni, Nicole M Miller, Christine E Fowler, Catherine K Nay Amy E Rothberg
[link url="http://www.endocrine.org/news-room/current-press-releases/participation-in-a-weight-management-program-reduces-job-absenteeism"]The Endocrine Society material[/link]
[link url="https://plan.core-apps.com/tristar_endo17/abstract/f7e437ee5c2d999047a0315444514903"]ENDO 2017 abstract[/link]