Pilot test of an interactive obesity treatment approach among employed adults in a university medical billing office.

Background: There is a need for workplace programs promoting healthy eating and activity that reach low-wage employees and are scalable beyond the study site. Interventions designed with dissemination in mind aim to utilize minimal resources and to fit within existing systems. Technology-based interventions have the potential to promote healthy behaviors and to be sustainable as well as scalable.

Development of a scalable weight loss intervention for low-income workers through adaptation of interactive obesity treatment approach (iOTA).

Background: Describing how and why an evidence-based intervention is adapted for a new population and setting using a formal evaluation and an adaptation framework can inform others seeking to modify evidence-based weight management interventions for different populations or settings. The Working for You intervention was adapted, to fit a workplace environment, from Be Fit Be Well, an evidence-based intervention that targets weight-control and hypertension in patients at an outpatient clinic. Workplace-based efforts that promote diet and activity behavior change among low-income employees have potential to address the obesity epidemic.