Incenting Weight Loss
In the continuing category of When Good Measurement Goes Bad, today’s question is about Whole Foods. These nice folks, who are (in my humble opinion) the quintessential yuppie expression of enlightenment, have recently decided employees can get an even better employee discount if they are healthier, specifically if they have lower cholesterol, don’t smoke and have a lower BMI.
My hope and expectation is that someone at Whole Foods who is paid to analyze finances, as opposed to being paid to select local organic oranges, ran the numbers on increasing health insurance costs for the coverage provided to employees and determined that these deeper discounts were worth it if they could inspire a healthier workforce and lower some of those costs.
So here’s the rub. It seems sort of uncomfortably oligarchy-ish for Corporate America to incent good behavior this way. Whole Foods is not the boss of their employees’ bodies, darnit!
But didn’t Corporate America kind of already incent us to develop the crappy eating habits that led to all this food-related unhealthiness? Diabetes and obesity and the myriad other maladies that go along with poor eating habits? Didn’t Corporate America, in order to line its already plush pockets, create fast food drive-”thrus”, high fructose corn syrup and Lunchables, and haven’t all of those things already screwed up our quality of life?
I think I’m OK with this. I think I’m OK with Corporate America (in this case, Whole Foods) responding to the only thing that matters to them…how to make more money or spend less money. In this case, if their desire to reduce costs leads them to reward healthy behavior in their employees, I’m all for it.
Go forth and measure…
~Geek~
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