Dump Your Plump is a fun and effective wellness program created in 1986
by Donald Alsbro of Lake Michigan College. Last year, this nationally
successful program last year had over 3000 participants exercising five
days a week with an average weight loss of nearly eight pounds.
"The Dump Your Plump program is good for corporations. Corporations are
anxious to have their employees more fit. The trick is getting it done.
Dump Your Plump does it."
We found that people reported exercising 46% more after participating.
Similarly we found that over 80% of the participants reported eating less
fat."
Ann Garcia, Ph.D.
University of Michigan
Fred Wilber, of the
Don’t Quit, Be Fit team from Avery International,
found a unique incentive: “I took a picture of a Hershey’s With Almonds
candy bar and pasted it right next to the calorie counter on my treadmill
at home. Each candy bar contains nearly 300 calories. You need to walk
almost a half-hour to burn that many calories. I soon found that it wasn’t
worth eating that candy bar, given the amount of work it took to burn off
all those calories.”
Cindy Dunivar from Firm Forms, a Hudson Integrated Products team,
found great support from their president, Jim Terwoord. Cindy explained,
“We had a nutritionist come in eight out of the ten weeks of the contest
to answer all the questions that we had. We put a poster in the front office
for everyone to see, including visitors, which showed progress toward the
goals of everyone in the contest. He (Jim Terwoord) said he would originally
pay for anyone who met his or her weight loss and exercise goal. In the
end he paid for everyone who entered the contest,” concluded Dunivar.
Dave Davies, team captain of Oh My Gut, from the Cleveland area
OMG Company, used email and a straight forward approach for his team’s
accomplishment of a perfect score. “We’ve done the contest in the past,”
said Dave, who simply passed out weekly newsletters and used email
to encourage each member on a daily basis. “We had a weekly team meeting
but didn’t have a lot of time to talk. We exchanged a lot of email and
recipes in encouragement to get us through.”