growing number of companies are offering their employees digital tools to help improve their eating habits in hopes of increasing productivity reducing sick days and cutting healthcare costs. Zipongo, a small digital start-up, helps employees navigate a company's cafeteria menu to find choices that best meet a set of preferences and health goals set by the workers themselves. On average, Zipongo charges employers a little more than $50 a year per employee for a complete set of its services.
Since its debut in 2011, Zipongo has connected with some 125 companies. While Google was an early adopter a few years ago, IBM was among the most recent and began offering Zipongo to its 10,000 employees in January.
Users plug in their food preferences -spicy, glutenfree, protein rich and, if they want, biometric data like cholesterol and blood pressure levels. Zipongo then creates a menu from the choices in Google's cafeteria.
Google employees using Zipongo ate more fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, calcium, fish and fiber-rich foods. Google also saw a dip in red meat consumption among its Zipongo users, which was one of its goals.
"We strongly believe eating healthy is a social endeavor, both at work and at home," said Dr. Kyu Rhee, chief health officer at IBM.
The so-called "wellness" companies are now benefiting from a provision in the federal health care law that requires insurers to cover obesity screenings and nutritional counseling for many employees.
However, Zipongo and other digital start-ups continue to raise concerns among health advocates as to whether these types of tools pose problems for protecting employee privacy.
Source : TOI
Since its debut in 2011, Zipongo has connected with some 125 companies. While Google was an early adopter a few years ago, IBM was among the most recent and began offering Zipongo to its 10,000 employees in January.
Users plug in their food preferences -spicy, glutenfree, protein rich and, if they want, biometric data like cholesterol and blood pressure levels. Zipongo then creates a menu from the choices in Google's cafeteria.
Google employees using Zipongo ate more fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, calcium, fish and fiber-rich foods. Google also saw a dip in red meat consumption among its Zipongo users, which was one of its goals.
"We strongly believe eating healthy is a social endeavor, both at work and at home," said Dr. Kyu Rhee, chief health officer at IBM.
The so-called "wellness" companies are now benefiting from a provision in the federal health care law that requires insurers to cover obesity screenings and nutritional counseling for many employees.
However, Zipongo and other digital start-ups continue to raise concerns among health advocates as to whether these types of tools pose problems for protecting employee privacy.
Source : TOI
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