{"id":14159,"date":"2016-07-07T14:00:08","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/2016-07-07-study-enhanced-walking-programs-deliver-results\/"},"modified":"2022-10-17T04:16:02","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T08:16:02","slug":"2016-07-07-study-enhanced-walking-programs-deliver-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/2016-07-07-study-enhanced-walking-programs-deliver-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: \u201cEnhanced\u201d Walking Programs Deliver Results"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to a new <a href=\"http:\/\/ahp.sagepub.com\/content\/early\/2016\/06\/24\/0890117116658012.full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study<\/a> from Independence Blue Cross, \u201cenhanced\u201d walking programs encouraged people to walk more and resulted in weight loss and improvements in mood, energy levels, and overall feelings of well-being.\u00a0 Published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, the study comprised of 460 employees from six employer groups and analyzed results from standard walking programs relative to enhanced ones.\u00a0 The standard program included resources such as flyers and posters for promoting the program, but employers could do as much or as little promotion as they wanted.\u00a0 The enhanced walking program included incentives, coaching, feedback, competitive challenges, and monthly wellness workshops.<\/p>\n<p>During the nine months of the program, participants in the enhanced walking program averaged 726 more steps per day compared with those in the standard condition.\u00a0 A 1000-step increase in average daily steps was associated with significant weight loss for both men (3.8 lbs.) and women (2.1 lbs.) and reductions in body mass index (0.41 men, 0.31 women). \u00a0Higher step counts were also associated with improvements in mood, having more energy, and higher ratings of overall health. \u00a0The study concluded that \u201can enhanced walking program significantly increases participation rates and daily step counts, which were associated with weight loss and reductions in body mass index.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One dynamic worth noting that is often the case in most walking or physical activity programs is the drop in engagement over time.\u00a0 Since a wellness program\u2019s impact is limited by the number of participants in the program, sustainable engagement is critical.\u00a0 As highlighted in the exhibit below, both programs struggled to maintain engagement throughout the nine months. However, the enhanced program did have significantly more engagement (40% vs. 24%) at the end of the program despite both groups starting at similar points.<\/p>\n<p><!--space--><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"buyer-beware\">Buyer Beware<\/h4>\n<p>Before everyone gets excited about the results, it is worth noting the shortcomings, some even noted by the researchers, of this study. First, participants reported daily step counts rather than having these measured and verified. As a result, there is no way to determine the validity of the steps that participants recorded, which increases measurement error and reduces the likelihood of finding statistically reliable effects of step counts on outcome measures. Also, participants in the enhanced condition had higher average step counts at baseline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Study: \u201cEnhanced\u201d Walking Programs Deliver Results<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-facts-and-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.6 (Yoast SEO v24.8.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Study: \u201cEnhanced\u201d Walking Programs Deliver Results | Wellable<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Study: \u201cEnhanced\u201d Walking Programs Deliver Results\" \/>\n<meta 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