Dieting for dollars? More US employees trying it

How much money would it take to get American workers to lose some serious weight? $100? $500?

Many employers in the United States are betting they can find that price. At least a third of U.S. companies offer financial incentives, or are planning to introduce them, to get their employees to lose weight or get healthier in other ways.

"There's been an explosion of interest in this," said Dr. Kevin Volpp, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Incentives.

Take OhioHealth, a hospital chain whose work force is mostly overweight. The company last year embarked on a program that paid employees to wear pedometers and …