FitFeud Corporate Wellness Blog

Practical tips on how to run a successful office weight loss competition

At FitFeud, our main job is to help our clients structure the most successful weight loss competitions possible. The thing is, we also help anyone else that asks us. Each week I talk to people who are not potential prospects for whatever reason - company is too small, timing isn't right, budget, etc. - that want to run a weight loss (or other fitness-related) competition as part of their corporate wellness program.

When people ask for help, they don't want high level strategic stuff. How many times have you heard the advice that "getting senior leadership involved" is important? Gee, thanks. Thus, this post.

Here are a few practical tips for how to run a successful office weight loss competition.

• Keep the competition short (but not too short).
  Weight loss competitions should be 12-weeks long and never any shorter than 8 weeks to ingrain positive new behaviors and discourage unhealthy tactics. On the contrary, a walking competition should usually never be longer than 8-weeks, since people get bored and you start to see engagement fall off after that timeframe.
• Keep the competition simple.
  This could be an entire blog post itself, but don't structure your competition around multiple metrics (e.g. weight, steps, and calories). This causes confusion ("What exactly are we competing on?"), lowers motivation, and lowers participation (do you really think people are going to keep tracking all that data?).
• Keep the prizes small.
  A good rule of thumb is keep any individual prize value under $100. This amount is just enough to jumpstart the motivation and participation but not enough that the motivation is there to cheat or do anything unhealthy. To be clear, we advocate giving prizes, but generally counsel against using actual cash-money as a prize.
• Keep the prizes fitness- or health-related.
  Combined with the under $100 rule above, a Fitbit (a fancy pedometer) is a great prize. For smaller, interim prizes, think water bottles, gift cards to a sports store, or even a subscription to a local CSA. Whatever you choose, keep it related to the goals of the competition.
• Keep competition on the calendar.
  Make competitions a regular part of your corporate wellness program, so people can look forward to and prepare for them each year. For example, do an "exercise minutes" competition in the winter, a weight loss competition in the spring or summer and a steps/walking competition in the fall.
• Keep your other programs going.
  A weight loss competition is not a corporate wellness program in and of itself. It's important to use competitions in conjunction with other programs like exercise classes, health or nutrition coaching, health screenings, etc. In fact, weight loss and other fitness competitions can increase usage and ROI of all your other programs, so they are a perfect match.

Are you thinking about using competition as part of your corporate wellness program? Whether you use FitFeud or not, we'd be glad to help you structure a competition that fits within your current program, is a match for your organization's size and structure, and helps you achieve your goals. Please email our CEO, Nicholas, directly at nicholas@fitfeud.com.