[citation needed] Approximately half of all current workplace health promotion programs are based on physical activity interventions given the relative ease by which employers can advocate such efforts to employees.
[12] Women frequently demonstrate lower participation in workplace exercise programs than men, and young, single individuals are often more predisposed to pursue employer-sponsored physical activity initiatives.
[13] In many cases, exercise-based workplace health promotion programs struggle to attract those who would benefit the most from such fitness efforts, including aging, sedentary, blue-collar, female, or less-educated employees.
[14] The sedentary nature of many modern workplaces increases negative metabolic risk factors such as high body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, and blood pressure and elevated fasting glucose and triglyceride levels.
[15][16] Specifically, utilization of portable pedal exercise machines in office environments has been shown to improve employee health, and use was demonstrated feasible during working hours.
[15] Interventions using pedometers to influence employee behavior, decrease the duration of sedentary periods, and increase total movement during the work day have also proven successful.
[12] Seeing that exercise and dieting produce immediate discomfort, the benefits of weight loss are often not noticeable in the short-term, and many people seek long-term health but succumb to near-term temptations of unhealthy eating and inactivity (hyperbolic discounting), maintaining employee involvement in wellness programs is difficult.
[22] Though lack of participation remains a problem even among well crafted FRPs, attrition is not random and greater weight loss success is associated with a reduction in later program dropout probability.
[29][30] Additional improvements have been noted following workplace health programs in injury incidence, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, body mass index, cardiovascular disease risk, dynamic muscle performance, and maximal oxygen consumption.
[14] Summarily, the expected outcomes of an ideal workplace health promotion program include:[citation needed] Approximately half of employees in the United States are employed by small (less than 1000), low wage industries.
[33] However, less than 10 percent offer wellness health promotion programs[34] due to lack of financial resource, time and hesitations rooting from investment return.
[33] It was also revealed in the Seattle/King County metropolitan area study how although the impact of chronic disease are prevalent in low-wage workers, high earners are the group who are more inclined in participating in work health promotion.