Asia Pacific Environmental and Occupational Health Journal

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a weight-reduction programme for obese employees in a public hospital in Malaysia.

Method: The programme introduced multicomponent interventions, ranging from supervised exercise training to one-to-one dietary counseling. Four 3-month sessions were conducted during 2015 and 2017, involving 131 participants with a body mass index (BMI) ≥30. The measurement was performed at the baseline and the end of each session.

Result: Most of the participants were nurses (59.5%) and in the age range of 30 to 39 years (53.4%). The post-intervention reduction in body weight, BMI, weight circumference and body fat percentage was, respectively, 4.57kg (5.4%; p<0.001), 1.71kg/m2 (4.9%; p<0.001), 2.65cm (6.8%; p<0.001) and 4.48% (9.2%; p<0.001). Nearly half (46.2%) of them also achieved a weight reduction of at least 5%.

Conclusion: The results support the effectiveness of the programme. Nevertheless, further research is warranted to confirm the sustainability of health behaviors of the participants following the programme. As uncontrolled body weight of health employees has been a concern, this study suggests that a worksite intervention could be effective yet financially sustaina- ble.

Keywords: Body mass index; exercise; health behavior; healthy diet; Malaysia; obesity.