Determine Activities

The needs assessments you conducted in the Plan phase will help you determine suitable activities for your employees. Refer to your Health Risk Appraisal, Health Culture and Environmental Audit, Employee Interest Survey, and Mission, Goals, and Objectivesdeveloped during the Plan phase to narrow down your activities.

To determine which approaches can have the most benefit for your organization consider the following:

• Has the activity or strategy been shown to change behavior or weight?
• How many employees will be affected by the program?
• How big of an effect is the program likely to have?

Regardless of where you are in the process, there are many different activities you can implement. The research findings from the Community Guide Recommendation summarize what is known about the effectiveness of worksite obesity prevention and control interventions that combine nutrition and physical activity.

Listed below are worksite interventions that are promising in helping employees lose weight. Each section includes a description of the strategy, definition, and examples of how they were implemented.

Worksite Strategies and Promising Practices

Environmental and Policy

• Enhanced access to opportunities for physical activity combined with health education.

Health Education

• Multi-component educational practices.
• Exercise prescriptions alone.

Behavioral

• Behavioral practices with incentives.
• Behavioral practices without incentives.
• Weight-loss competitions and incentives.

Also in This Section

• Environmental and Policy Strategies
• Health Educational Strategies
• Behavioral Strategies
• Additional Strategies
• Create an activity action plan
• Expert Interview - Kristi Schalow
• Expert Interview - Tonya Vyhlidal
• Expert Interview - William B. Baun
• Expert Interview - David M. DeJoy

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