Purpose:

Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption is high among US adults and associated with obesity. Given that over 100 million Americans consume food or beverages at work daily, the worksite may be a venue for interventions to reduce SSB consumption. However, the level of support for these interventions is unknown. We examined associations between workday SSB intake and employees’ support for worksite wellness strategies (WWS).

Design:

Cross-sectional study conducted using data from web-based annual surveys that gathers information on health-related attitudes and behaviors.

Setting:

United States

Subjects:

Randomly selected 1,924 employed adults (≥18 years) using probability-based sampling.

Measures:

Self-reported independent variable was workday SSB intake (0, <1 or ≥1 times/day) and dependent variables were employees’ support (yes/no) for the following WWS: 1) Accessible Free Water, 2) Affordable Healthy Food/Drink, 3) Available Healthy Options, and 4) Less Available SSB.

Analysis:

Multivariable logistic regression was used to control for sociodemographic variables, employee size, and availability of cafeteria/VM.

Results:

About half of employees supported Accessible Free Water (54%), Affordable Healthy Food/Drink (49%), and Available Healthy Options (46%), but only 28% supported Less Available SSB. Compared to non-SSB consumers, daily SSB consumers were significantly less supportive of Accessible Free Water (adjusted odds ratio [OR]=0.67, p<0.05) or Less Available SSB (OR=0.49, p<0.05).

Conclusion:

Almost half of employees supported increasing healthy options within worksites, although daily workday SSB consumers were less supportive of certain strategies. Lack of support could be a potential barrier to the successful implementation of certain worksite interventions.