A Multicomponent Intervention Reduces Body Weight and Cardiovascular Risk at a GEICO Corporate Site

Purpose: To determine whether a multicomponent nutrition intervention program at a corporate site reduces body weight and improves other cardiovascular risk factors in overweight individuals.

Design: Prospective clinical intervention study.

Subjects/setting: Employees of the Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO) (N = 113), aged 21 to 65 years, with a body mass index > or =25 kg/m(2) and/or previous diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

Intervention: A 22-week intervention including a low-fat, vegan diet.

Measures: Changes in body weight, anthropometric measures, blood pressure, lipid profile, and dietary intake.

Analysis: Multivariate analyses of variance were calculated for clinical and nutrient measures, followed by univariate analyses of variance, to determine the significance of differences between groups in changes over time.

Results: Intervention-group participants experienced greater weight changes compared with control-group participants (mean, -5.1 [SE, .6] kg vs. + .1 [SE, .6] kg, p < .0001), as well as greater changes in waist circumference (mean, -4.7 [SE, .6] cm vs. + .8 [SE, .6] cm, p < .0001) and waistratiohip ratio (mean, -.006 [SE, .003] vs. + .014 [SE, .005], p = .0007). Weight loss of 5% of body weight was more frequently observed in the intervention group (48.5%) compared with the control group (11.1%) (chi(2)[1, N = 113] = 16.99, p < .0001).

Conclusions: Among individuals volunteering for a 22-week worksite research study, an intervention using a low-fat, vegan diet effectively reduced body weight and waist circumference.