Weightview Diet Blog

If you are reading this blog, you are looking to either lose weight or learn how to stay fit efficiently.  And I believe I’ve been clear in saying that you can’t do it all by yourself.  That is why I am always searching for additional resources to help supplement your efforts.  And this week a great company called OptumHealth announced results from a recent 12-month study that found individuals who completed OptumHealth’s Online Health Coach weight management program were 44 percent more likely to lose weight compared with those who did not complete the program. The study also found that individuals completing the program lost 63 percent more weight than those in a control group that did not go through the program.

In presenting a demonstration of the Online Health Coach during the Health 2.0 Conference – one of the nation’s largest gatherings of health care providers, payers and e-health technology companies – OptumHealth Consumer Solutions senior vice president Scott Heimes said, “These results show that online interactive programs can successfully encourage people to change behaviors that can otherwise cause health problems. When consumers proactively engage in healthier behaviors at home and at work, the result is a better quality of life along with reduced health care spending and reduced absenteeism.”

OptumHealth’s Online Health Coach is an evidence-based online consumer engagement tool that is personalized for the user. Participants are involved in a highly interactive coaching experience that provides structured weekly to-do lists, tools, trackers, slide shows, meal plans and motivational messaging to address lifestyle behaviors that contribute to obesity and help them stay focused on achieving their goals. This tailored coaching process is based on a transtheoretical model of behavior change, or “stages of change” theory, and includes eight coaching modules available across wellness and chronic disease conditions.

The Online Health Coach is one of several useful tools OptumHealth provides to help consumers become healthier and stay healthy. It is available to employees and health plan members through private and secure Web portals, which serve as a foundation for building a culture of health and wellness within an organization by integrating content, wellness programs, phone-based disease and case management programs, tools and trackers.