According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) 68.8% of Americans are overweight or obese. This obesity epidemic costs U.S. Employers 254 billion dollars annually plus an additional 36 billion dollars a year in lost productivity.

Savvy corporations that recognize this national health crisis’ impact on their bottom line are investing vigorously in their employees through obesity/weight management wellness programs.

Which is a wise move because the statics prove that it clearly pays to invest in your employee’s health and well-being. The CDC reported that ROI on comprehensive, well-run corporate wellness programs can be as high as 6 to 1.

Unfortunately, obesity/weight management programs are the least cost effective to date with a ROI of just $1.17 per dollar invested.
By focusing on more effective obesity/weight management programs, there is an incredible opportunity to improve both the mental and physical well-being of your employees, increase the ROI of your company’s wellness program and ultimately contribute substantially to your company’s bottom line.

Your employees are overeating not because they are hungry, but to cope with stressful emotions. Their inner monologues involuntarily center around conflict rather than resolution, and emotions avoidance rather than emotions management.

Examples of stressful internal monologues:

“I’ve got a project due tomorrow I’m worried I won’t meet the deadline”.

Automatic Response: “I’ll take a break and grab something from the vending machine and then come back to this.”

“My boss is upset with me, I might lose my job.”

Automatic Response: “I’ll stop at McDonalds on the way home for a Big Mac, I don’t want to think about it right now.”

“My co-worker Mary is not doing her fair share.”

Automatic Response: “I’m so frustrated, I’ll eat these M&M’s to make myself feel better.”

This internal monologue drives the daily overeating habits that lead to excess weight, obesity and its related conditions.ny’s bottom line.

Eventually, anxiety and excess weight caused by emotional eating leads to health problems, depression, insecurity, higher levels of fatigue, procrastination, mood swings, conflicts between employees, absenteeism, mentally checked out employees and decreased productivity/creativity.

Your employees struggling with emotional eating issues are also more likely to experience self-consciousness, stress, hopelessness, irritability, indifference, withdrawal and depression. Each of these conditions impacts their performance level.

Depression, one of the most significant results of obesity and food compulsion, is a leading cause of lost productivity in the United States with an annual cost of $44 billion to employers.  Indeed, analysts believe that the indirect costs of obesity and its related state of mind may be greater than the direct medical costs (Wolf and Colditz, 1998).

Most compulsive overeaters deal with the stresses affiliated with their condition every single day. It sometimes becomes the most prominent focus in their days, often edging out work concerns by a significant margin. The exhaustive focus on their weight, its associated ailments and the self-judgment that they deal from their inability to lose weight, can deplete your employee’s ability to tackle their job responsibilities on every level. The longer they stay stuck in this overeating cycle, the more expensive it is to your corporation.

Distraction, depression, anxiety, and feelings of overwhelm prevent your employees from being fully present to their work tasks, customers and co-workers.

Additionally, when stressed and depressed, your employees are likely to have difficulty concentrating and experience forgetfulness, decreased productivity and increased apathy. They are twice as likely to develop heart disease, and twice as likely to have a stroke.

Employees who eat compulsively must learn how to control worry, self-doubt, judgments, fears and habits that make them reach for food for which they are not truly hungry. Until they do so, excess food consumption will continue to be their coping mechanism.

It is common to judge people that have difficulty in changing destructive eating behaviors. However, overcoming overeating, or any compulsive/addictive behavior is incredibly challenging. Escalating obesity rates are tragic proof of this reality. Most people who are struggling with their weight want desperately to overcome overeating…they just don’t know how. This is why consistently dedicating time and energy to behavioral education and training is mandatory to make permanent change. This change requires significant early investment in building mental/emotions management skills.

Acquiring effective stress management techniques, changing the daily internal monologues, and teaching people how to eat in synchronicity with their physical appetites rather than their emotional appetites constitute the most powerful combined strategies for healthy and permanent weight loss and maintenance.

Behavioral education in the healthy weight management field includes:

1. Identifying internal and external triggers leading to overeating

2. Distinguishing how to differentiate physical hungers from emotional hungers

3. Learning coping techniques and mind management skills to reduce anxiety and overwhelm

4. Engaging in daily behavioral education training at the early stages of changing destructive eating habits

5. Setting goals around physical activity, strategizing for higher success and accountability and “reward” practices

6. Providing support networks for interaction, encouragement and ongoing education

Without these strategies in place, even the most sincere commitments to change are futile.

In order to support your employees in reducing stress, and developing the perspectives and behaviors that help them to maintain a healthy weight, they must begin by learning the basics of overcoming emotional eating.

Consistent daily access to educational behavioral trainings in the early stages of changing their automatic responses to stress induced eating habits helps them to assimilate more easily to the new healthier behaviors. This can build self-esteem and confidence in their ability to overcome overeating. They must learn how to redirect the stress producing thoughts that make them turn repeatedly for food and find powerful and calming alternatives to eating to manage their emotions.

The Mindful Eating Method was designed with these exact dynamics in mind.

* The 10 keys to “Eating in Alliance” with your body for healthy, pleasurable and permanent weight loss

* Proven and immediate stress reduction techniques for transcending the urge to overeat when employees are not hungry

* How to think more “proactively” and “positively” so employees can live free of the stresses that accompany a negative internal dialogue

* How to develop a healthier relationship with their body in order to promote healthier food and lifestyle choices

* How to determine the source(s) of their emotional appetite in order to master it

* How to quiet/silence the voice in their head that makes them reach automatically for food they are not hungry for

The Mindful Eating Method is a practical, groundbreaking and proven approach to weight loss and a perfect match for your employees who use emotional eating to deal with life stresses.

The Mindful Eating Method online program provides tools that support your employees in overcoming overeating as they learn to train their minds to work for them rather than against them, to think accountably, proactively and positively … the foundation for all change.

Once they “graduate” from the program and are free of emotional eating patterns, considerable mental and physical resources will be freed up.

The program will improve your employee’s focusing and problem solving capacity, emotions management ability, creativity and overall job satisfaction…leading to lower turnover rates and higher loyalty to your company.  Your employees will come to work more motivated, more creative and more likely to get along with their peers.

No longer a victim to their emotional appetites, and free of the weight that they found limiting, discouraging and energy draining, your employees will experience the freedom and personal empowerment that accompanies releasing weight that is not healthy for their bodies. They will become a “healthy” employee, which translates to a “happier” employee. And a happier employee is more productive, creative, dependable and engaged.

The “happy” factor in your workforce has tremendous positive influence. Positive emotions enable people to be more productive and creative. In fact, studies show that if people are happier on a given day, they are more likely to come up with a new idea or solve a complex problem that day but also to do so the next day. (Teresa Amabile & Steven Kramer, The Progress Principle).
This is why the Mindful Eating Method Wellness Program benefits every facet of your business. As your sales force and customer service departments are engaging with current and potential customers, their personal healthy/happy factor contributes to every interaction, influencing their ability to keep current customers satisfied and recruit new business. Studies show 78% of happy/engaged employees would recommend their company’s products or services, opposed to 13% of the disengaged (Gallup Poll).  Keep in mind that besides customers, employees are the most trusted source of information about your company and ultimately your brand ambassadors

* Decreased insurance premiums and claims
* Decreased prescription costs and disability
* Shorter hospital stays
* Improved job performance
* Increased employee morale
* A healthier, happier and more dynamic corporate culture
* Decreased absenteeism
* Lower turnover due to higher personal and workplace satisfaction
* Improved team dynamics from a more relaxed and positive work environment
* Happier customers being served by happier employees
* Decreased recruiting costs
* Retention of your most talented employees

Employers have come to realize that they will not be able to control medical claim costs unless the demand for care is changed. This demand is driven by diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea, depression, joint problems that are caused or exacerbated by obesity. Therefore, be proactive and include this revolutionary program in your current wellness program to guide your employees to better health and greater productivity.

* Access to top tier training from the privacy of their homes at their convenience, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

* Learning and practicing new mind management skills at their own pace without comparison to others or exposing their personal issues in a group support setting (group participation is an option for employees but not a requirement)

* Flexibility to fit their program around their unique lifestyle and review the courses at their convenience and during times when typically therapists are not available such as at night or on the weekends.

* Connecting with other program members anonymously for support, guidance, inspiration, friendship and engagement.

* With the daily training that this program provides, your employees’ health related goals will be more likely to remain on the dashboard of their priorities rather than the back seat where they are likely to get ignored or put off.  You eliminate the confusion that prevents your employees from getting started on their new health regime by providing this highly effective and convenient training that is crucial to their success.

Weekly training, coaching or therapy, to change an old habit is not usually enough to change habits. Weekly hour long sessions from therapists, weight coaches or personal trainers do not provide adequate support to overcome an engrained habit. The Mindful Eating method gives your employees the support they need every single day.

The Mindful Eating Method is a full immersion audio program that engages employees, resulting in immediate and gradual weight loss. The daily listening provides an undiluted consistent focus, which is the key to shifting away from compulsive behaviors.

Other compulsive eating recovery programs that provide daily support, like Overeaters Anonymous, are a great resource for those struggling with food addiction recovery. However, OA programs provide commiseration and support networks, not evidenced based strategies to help change eating behaviors. And, the support to transcend overeating is not available around the clock like it is with the The Mindful Eating Method online training.

Unlimited access to the program provides the necessary availability and repetition to help employees expedite absorption of the program information and shift more rapidly to healthy behaviors.

The 11 training courses are broken into twenty-minute segments. It is suggested that employees listen to one segment or more every day to get off to a powerful start in their commitment to their health. They can listen in their homes, cars and even during lunch breaks from their computers or smart phones.

The Mindful Eating Method restructures the employee’s self-destructive old thought patterns and resets the thought centers towards a more positive outlook. Thus, this revolutionary program is the ultimate support tool.

Please contact us here for more information and for a virtual tour of the program:  Contact Us