© 2024 Maine Public | Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.

What's Healthier, Almond Butter or Peanut Butter? There's an App for That

Patty Wight
/
MPBN
MaineHealth employee Erin Menhennitt checks different food scores on her NutriSavings app as she shops.

PORTLAND, Maine - More than half of U.S. businesses with 50 or more employees have workplace wellness programs. The goal is to improve health and reduce insurance costs.

While recent studies have cast doubt on the overall effectiveness of these programs, the $6 billion a year industry has an ever-changing line-up of options. One of the more recent additions embraced by some companies in Maine targets an area of health often overlooked by workplace wellness programs.

Standing in the peanut butter aisle at Hannaford in Portland, Erin Menhennitt is confronted with dozens of options for making her morning smoothie more tasty and healthy. "I want to see what the difference is between the peanut butter and almond butter," she says.

Luckily, she's got an app for that. It's part of a workplace wellness program her employer, MaineHealth, offers. Menhennitt pulls out her smartphone and opens the NutriSavings app. Here she can scan an item to find out its nutrition score. Things like avocados get the highest score - 100 points. Potato chips get zero points.

"So the peanut butter has a score of 75, so in and of itself, it isn't too bad - it's an organic peanut butter," she says. But the almond butter edges it out with a score of 80, and Menhennitt places it in her cart, then heads to the next aisle.

These scores are important because if Menhennitt can earn a 60-point average for two of her grocery trips every month, she'll get back $10. And so far, she's hit her target every month. "It's exciting to earn money just for shopping," she says.

The NutriSavings program - based out of Massachusetts - started two years ago to fill a gap in typical workplace wellness programs, says CEO Gerard Bridi. "The truth of the matter is, nutrition is the cornerstone of health, and that is an area that was totally, totally overlooked and underserved."

NutriSavings' scoring system is designed to make the healthy choice the easy choice at the grocery store. At the end of the trip, a swipe of a card at participating stores tracks your grocery purchases. A few days later, NutriSavings sends an email with an overall score for the trip and offers suggestions for healthier choices.

For example, you thought that yogurt you bought was a nutrition slam-dunk, but it only scored a 30. "And we'll explain to you why it is 30 and not 70," Bridi says. "Now, we will also show you a list of alternatives of yogurts that are, in general, from the same brand, and that these score higher, and this is the reason why."

There are also financial incentives, like the $10 MaineHealth gives back, as well as electronic coupons for fresh produce. MaineHealth first offered NutriSavings to its employees about a year ago to complement other wellness programs, says Health and Productivity Director Laurie Mitchell.

"We've been looking at our data for several years and on the prevalence of overweight and obesity, and we're not really much different from the state of Maine in that regard, in that we have an issue," Mitchell says.

But just how much workplace wellness programs actually improve employee health and also reduce employer insurance costs is minimal, according to a 2013 Rand Corporation study. Senior scientist Soeren Mattke says programs that target chronic conditions get the biggest bang for the buck.

But those that target lifestyle? Not so much. "So if companies believe they want to do that, they should do that by all means. But they should not believe that this is going to reduce health care costs," Mattke says.

Laurie Mitchell from MaineHealth says reducing costs isn't the only goal of workplace wellness programs. "It's also, for an employer, about that you're an employer of choice, that people are more productive when they're at work, and they're more productive in their personal lives because they're healthier and they're happier because they're generally more engaged."

About 3,000 of MaineHealth's 17,000 employees use NutriSavings. Neither MaineHealth nor NutriSavings have any definitive data yet about the effectiveness of the program. But Mitchell says it's unique because it extends out of the workplace and into employees homes.

Erin Menhennitt says it's an easy wellness program to undertake. "By far, because you just don't have to do anything, because you're already shopping anyway, and you just have to remember to scan a card."

And though Menhennitt was already a healthy eater, she says the program has improved her diet further.