UT Federal Credit Union staffers are a few steps closer togetting healthier.

To jump-start a 2012 wellness initiative, employees not onlyreceived pedometers but were surprised by Antone Davis, who placedsecond for the most weight lost on season 12 of “The BiggestLoser.”

Davis, a former University of Tennessee, Knoxville alum and NFLfootball player, recently helped kick off the Knoxville,Tenn.-based credit union's 10-week wellness challenge.

“His story of his struggle with weight was just inspirational,”said Stephanie M. Efird, vice president of human resources at the$196 million credit union. “One of our training initiatives thisyear is to build upon the wellness programs we developed at thebeginning of last year.”

With a limited budget, UTFCU's wellness initiative began simplywith wellness tips emailed to employees. Last fall, just before theholidays it expanded to include a “Maintain Don't Gain” challenge.Any employee who signed up for the contest and didn't gain morethan two pounds over the holidays would win prizes such as movietickets. Of the 75 employees, 35 participated.

“It was such a small thing, and we found that it didn't reallymatter what the gift was because our employees loved thecompetition,” said Efird. “I also think it appealed to theemployees because it was something they wanted to do for themselvesanyway. The contest was just an added incentive.”

According to a Society of Human Resources Management Wellness inthe Workplace study, wellness programs have helped control thespiraling costs of health care. Key findings have indicated thathealth and wellness resources are low-cost offerings that can helpemployees live a healthier lifestyle. In 2011, 75% of companiesoffered wellness resources and information, 56% produced a wellnesspublication and 39% offered health fairs.

In addition, health care premium discounts have gainedpopularity. Over the last three years, there has been a slightincrease in the percentage of companies that offered discounts forgetting an annual health risk assessment, not using tobaccoproducts and participating in wellness and weight-lossprograms.

With an eye on keeping the momentum and interest going into thenew year, UT FCU's five-person wellness committee opted to make theprogram more inclusive so that prizes for the 10-week challengewould be based on a points system.

“We have an affiliation with University of Tennessee Hospitaland were dovetailing on what they were doing, which initially was abiggest loser contest,” said Efird. “We realized that it wouldn'tappeal to people who either didn't have a lot of weight to lose ordidn't need to lose weight at all. So we began looking at the pointsystem as a more holistic approach to becoming healthieroverall.”

To that end, points can be earned for everything from doing morethan 30 minutes of cardio to eating five fruits and vegetables aday. In addition, bonus points can be earned for every 1% of weightlost or even completing a 5K race. The individual with the mostpoints at the end of the challenge will win a Wii Fit with theexercise module. Other prizes have been tiered into small, mediumor large prizes.

“We wanted it to be very inclusive and doable. The idea is thateveryday participants take steps to make incremental changes for ahealthier lifestyle,” said Efird. “I'm considered a health guruhere and even for me just getting those five servings of fruits andveggies and 8,000 steps a day has been challenging. And as far astiming, we thought wrapping up the competition at 10 weeks wouldcoincide with right about when everyone would want to get back intotheir bathing suits.”

She added that staffers were excited about the launch and nowher greatest concern is how the wellness committee will be able totop it.