Calif. School Workers Compete to Lose Weight

Goals Include Changing Lifestyles and Trimming Health-Care Costs

In what sounds like a script for the latest reality-TV show, 200 teachers, administrators, and other school employees working in San Diego County, Calif., have accepted a challenge to achieve personal weight-loss goals over the next year.

Employees from 11 districts in the county are taking part in this first phase of the competition, which is sponsored and organized by the Southern California Schools Voluntary Employee Benefits Association, or VEBA, a labor and management purchasing pool for health-care services.

Participants, who had their first official weigh-in last week, will be organized into 40 groups of five. They will receive personal support from one another as well as from a “care coordinator.” They will also have access to an extensive variety of diet, nutrition, and exercise resources designed to help...