Employers are always looking for the next wave in benefits trends, from artificial intelligence to mental health and everything in between. Long standing data shows that diseases considered chronic, such as hypertension (high blood pressure), cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes represent more than half of all costs incurred by employer health care plans each year.* Relatedly, the CDC lists smoking, physical inactivity, and alcohol use as the top risk factors associated with these chronic diseases.

But what about the role of nutrition in mitigating the incidence and impact of chronic disease? The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that “Malnutrition, in every form, presents significant threats to human health. Today the world faces a double burden of malnutrition that includes both undernutrition and overweight.” 

An innovation in the employer wellness space is approaching food as a form of medicine,  aiming to educate employees about food through wellness programs. The design uses predetermined employer funds to enable employees to make purchases in an online marketplace, and the employees are then rewarded for making healthy choices. More long term data correlating food choice with health outcomes provides metrics to measure the success of such an approach. By encouraging employees to consider their eating habits and food choices using wellness incentives, this approach merges more traditional areas of employer health and welfare plans.

As the need for innovation in the employer health space surges, examining the connection between nutrition and health in a tangible way can help not only control costs, but also foster a healthier workforce.

 * The CDC lists the annual costs of several chronic conditions on their website