Weight-loss challenges at local firms raise money for charity

Here’s one weight-loss challenge that didn’t result in mandatory sensitivity training.

Employees
at five different companies collectively lost 805 pounds over six weeks this summer. They also raised $805 for Big Brothers/Big
Sisters of Central Indiana.

Spectrum Health Systems, a health-management company, and Allied Group Insurance Services
created the competition in order to help a client, the engineering and architecture firm American Structurepoint, lower its
weight risk.

Four more companies with headquarters or offices in Indianapolis—G3 Technology Partners, Ronald
Blue & Co., Baden Retirement Plan Services and Major Tool and Machine—joined the competition. Their goal was to
lose the greatest percentage of body weight.

The companies also agreed to donate $1 for every pound lost in their
offices to the winner’s charity of choice. The winner was Major Tool and Machine, where employees lost 283 pounds and
2.97 percent of their collective body weight.

Spectrum is planning more weigh-offs for this fall, and says participating
firms don’t have to be clients.