Published January 2003

Companies bring
Weight Watchers to work

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

For 40 years, Weight Watchers has been helping men and women lose weight with its philosophy of healthy living and long-term weight management. And while thousands of people attend weekly meetings at local churches or community centers to take advantage of the program, others have to travel no farther than their workplace.

Like the employees of Providence Everett Medical Center.

This past quarter, Providence signed on for Weight Watchers’ At Work Program, a 15-week series in which a trained Weight Watchers leader holds weekly meetings in the workplace. Members receive information on nutrition, the importance of exercise, weight-loss tools and motivation tips from the group leader, as well as encouragement from one another.

Providence, which has had a wellness program in place for the past decade, decided to add Weight Watchers to the mix to give employees different options for weight management, said Charity Kalbrener, health promotions specialist at Providence.

“We found that a lot of people were participating with Weight Watchers outside of work. By bringing it in, it saves them time and makes it more accessible,” she said.

The program, which requires at least 25 attendees, filled up during its first run at Providence’s Colby Campus, Kalbrener said. To meet future demand, there will be two At Work series starting Jan. 13 — one at each of the hospital’s campuses.

“It’s been absolutely great,” she said of the response the program has received.

Cost for the 15-week program is $159 per attendee, said Evie Chestnut, a Weight Watchers corporate account manager. Some companies pay a portion of the cost; others don’t.

At Providence, employees pay the total cost up front, Kalbrener said, but employees who complete the program receive points toward the hospital’s Wellness Challenge. Those who accumulate a certain number of points in various wellness categories during the course of a year receive a monetary bonus.

At Washington Mutual, employees who participate in the At Work Program receive a subsidy to cover some of the cost, said Priscilla Lauris, who manages the company’s corporate wellness program.

“It’s very popular,” she said of the program, which has been offered at a number of Washington Mutual facilities throughout the country for the past couple of years. But Lauris said she was wary at first about getting the company involved with a commercial weight-loss program.

“I kind of hesitated to do anything with one of the established diet vendors, but finally, I was getting enough requests for Weight Watchers to do research on it,” Lauris said.

What she found was a program that uses “common sense,” she said. “It’s focused on lifestyle approach. It’s not about dieting; it’s about looking at all foods, looking at how to include the things you love as well as lose weight.”

“It’s creating an awareness, which is what we try to do with our wellness program, so it’s a nice complement to what we’re already trying to do,” Lauris said.

Because the At Work Program does have a class-size requirement, Washington Mutual hasn’t been able to offer Weight Watchers to its smaller offices, but that could change with Weight Watchers’ recent addition of an online program, Lauris said.

The program, an Internet subscription product, offers 24-hour access to weight-loss tools, information, meal plans, a weight tracker and other resources and can be integrated into a company’s intranet.

A three-month package costs $59.95 per person, Chestnut said, but if a company can get 25 employees to subscribe, the rate is discounted to $49.95 per person.

Besides opening a door to smaller companies, Weight Watchers’ online program opens the door to people who might be more comfortable following a weight-loss program on their own, she said.

For more information on Weight Watchers, call Chestnut at 425-451-7397 or visit online at www.weightwatchers.com.

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