This guide provides a summary of obesity information for organisations, including the business cost of obesity, definitions of obesity and overweight and causes of obesity. The guide then proposes ways to support and encourage weight management and provides further resources.  It is important to evaluate the success of an intervention thus the suggestions for measuring the impact at the organisational and employee level are discussed.  Links to further support are provided.

This short document discusses worksite obesity prevention  programmes.  The recommendations are drawn from a range of experts, for example the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The American Medical Association, The Obesity Society, the World Health Organization, the Wellness Council of America and others.  The report discusses relevant obesity prevention elements that can be added to wellness and health promotion programmes, how to design effective worksite wellness programs and incentives that can be provided to employees to promote healthy behaviours.  Additionally, recommendations for how to create a healthy worksite food environment and recommendations for how to promote physical activity at work are provided.

This guidance covers obesity prevention for adults and children 2 years old and over.  It covers identifying and assessing obesity in primary care, clinical management of morbid obesity and prevention in those who are a healthy weight.  Within this section interventions in specific environments and communities are discussed.  The workplace is one of the environments.  The workplace guidance applies to senior managers, health and safety managers, occupational health staff, unions and staff representatives, employers' organisations and chambers of commerce and health professionals working with businesses.  There are two types of recommendations provided: those that all organisations might be able to implement and those that only larger organisations, with on site occupational health staff, may be able to achieve. 

This document provides guidance on how to use the Standard Evaluation Framework (SEF).  The document defines the SEF as "a list of data collection criteria and supporting guidance for collecting high quality information that supports the evaluation of weight management interventions across England."  Four target audiences for the SEF are proposed, one of which is organisations running weight management interventions.  The guidance document discusses evaluation, the core elements of the SEF including essential and desirable criteria and finally a guide to using the SEF and further explanation. It is hoped that this will add to the standards of evaluation and increase the evidence-based approach to weight management interventions.

This document provides a short overview of evidence relating to weight management at work to help in designing health programmes that specifically target weight. The potential positive outcomes of weight management programmes and principles for designing a health and wellbeing programme, such as "consult employees on the priority areas for action" are discussed. The paper then describes aspects of programmes that research has shown to be effective, for example environmental components and involving participants in the planning and implementation stages of programmes. Furthermore examples of weight management approaches that research has found to be effective are discussed e.g. behavioural counselling.

This guidance is not specific to the workplace and therefore does not solely focus on the workplace but it does include a focus on weight management programmes that are based in workplaces.  It provides recommendations on providing effective multi-component lifestyle weight management services for adults who are overweight or obese.  17 recommendations are proposed, it then details which recommendations apply to those who are providing a lifestyle weight management service e.g. a workplace.

Weight Watchers is a commercial weight loss programme that helps individuals to lose weight and maintain weight loss.  It can also be used as part of a weight management programme within a workplace. Weight loss is achieved through a points system.  Individuals receive a personalised SmartPoints budget when they join which is based on their weight, height, gender and age and tools are provided to help individuals count SmartPoints.  An alternative approach is the No Count approach which is also possible. There are weekly group sessions run by trained leaders which can be attended face to face or online.  Please note that it is not free to join however there are a range of subscription options.

Slimming World is a commercial weight loss programme that helps individuals to lose weight. In 2001 Slimming World on Referral was established which enables GPs to refer patients who require weight loss management to a local group for 12 weeks which is provided to the patient for free.  It can also be used as part of a weight management programme within a workplace.   Individuals are provided with a healthy eating plan, Food Optimising and a lifestyle activity programme, Body Magic.  Individuals can join online or find a local group with a Slimming World Consultant. Please note that it is not free to join however there are a range of subscription options.

This guidance produced by IGD is based on research conducted by the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge. This research involved 17000 people, 19 workplace restaurants and 14 major food and grocery employers. The research involved three interventions: offer a balanced choice, reduce portion sizes and provide calorie information. Results showed that increasing the proportion of healthier options significantly reduced calories purchased across the six worksites by an average of 7%, reducing portion size reduced the calories purchased at all six sites, but this was not statistically significant and labelling calories significantly reduced energy (kcal) purchased at one site by 6.6% but not at the other five sites. The guide contains lots of tips and advice along with more information about the research. 

This toolkit provides a guide for employers to promote physical activity, healthy eating and healthy weight. Multiple suggestions are recommended, such as providing healthier food and drink options, allowing opportunities to be physically active, helping staff access appropriate support, creating a supportive environment for employees, reducing weight-related stigma, encouraging managers to lead by example, and creating awareness of information and support. The toolkit also provides a checklist of actions to support organisations when developing an environment that is supportive of healthy lifestyles.