TL;DR: The 10-Year Workforce Health Report reveals a steady decline in normal blood sugar levels among employees, mirroring national prediabetes trends. The report examines what changed and where organizations can take action.
You probably don’t wake up every morning thinking about blood sugar. It’s one of those things that doesn’t grab headlines the way burnout, mental health, or new weight-loss treatments do.
But look a little closer at a decade’s worth of employee biometric data, and a pattern starts to show up.
Across ten years, blood sugar levels have been inching upward in workplaces everywhere. It’s not a dramatic spike that screams “crisis.” It’s more like a slow drift — a subtle rise you might miss if you only glance at one year of data at a time.
That gradual rise often begins in what clinicians call prediabetes, when glucose levels are higher than normal but not yet in the type 2 diabetes range. At this stage, the body is starting to develop insulin resistance. The encouraging part is that this phase is often reversible with the right support and changes.
When a slow shift shows up consistently across a decade of data, it deserves a closer look. Below, we dive into the blood sugar trends and what they reveal about the health of today’s workforce.
Each year, TotalWellness reviews data from biometric screening events to understand how employee health is trending across organizations nationwide. Those annual snapshots are useful, but they only tell part of the story.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the Health Status Report, TotalWellness analyzed aggregate biometric screening data from employees across the United States in 2015 and 2025. Looking at the same measures ten years apart offers a rare opportunity to move beyond short-term fluctuations and ask a more meaningful question:
How has workforce health actually changed over time?
The answer is nuanced. Some measures, particularly those tied to managing specific risk factors, remained stable or showed modest improvement. Others, especially those influenced by daily habits, stress, and how work is structured, shifted in more concerning ways.
One of the clearest examples of that shift appeared in blood sugar.
When we compared blood sugar results from 2015 and 2025, a clear pattern emerged. Normal levels dropped from 85 percent of employees to 73 percent.
This shift mirrors what is happening nationally. In 2015, an estimated 84.1 million U.S. adults had prediabetes. By 2023, the most recent year available, that number had grown to 115.2 million. That means well over one in three adults are now living with blood sugar levels that are higher than normal but not yet in the diabetic range.
That shift did not happen in isolation.
During the same ten-year period, the percentage of employees in the normal BMI range also declined. A healthy BMI is generally defined as 18.5 to 24.9. Movement away from that range does not automatically mean disease. But at a population level, even modest weight gain can affect how the body processes glucose.
Blood sugar and body weight are deeply connected. As weight increases, especially when accompanied by lower activity levels and higher stress, insulin sensitivity can decline. The body has to work harder to move glucose into cells. Over time, that strain shows up in screening results.
Blood sugar, also known as blood glucose, refers to the amount of sugar circulating in the bloodstream at any given time. Glucose is the body’s primary source of energy, particularly for the brain. Every time we eat, carbohydrates are broken down into glucose, which enters the blood and is moved into cells with the help of insulin.
When this system works efficiently, blood sugar remains within a stable range. Energy feels steady. Focus is sharper. Hunger signals make sense
When regulation begins to shift, even subtly, people may experience:
These changes can happen long before a clinical diagnosis. That’s why blood sugar is both a long-term health marker and a short-term performance indicator.
It affects how people feel at work today — not just what their health might look like years from now.
There is no single cause. The data reflects overlapping changes in how work and life operate today.
Workdays have become more compressed and cognitively demanding, with fewer natural pauses. Meetings often stack back to back, leaving little time for movement or regular meals. Many employees delay or skip lunch, rely on quick snacks, or eat later in the day than they once did.
Stress levels have also increased over the past decade, driven by workload intensity, constant connectivity, a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, and blurred boundaries between work and personal time. Chronic stress raises cortisol, which directly affects blood sugar regulation, even in people who otherwise appear healthy.
Sedentary time has increased as well. More work happens at screens, often without built-in movement. Even small reductions in daily movement can affect how efficiently the body processes glucose.
Sleep patterns have shifted too. Longer work hours, after-hours communication, and digital distractions have made consistent, restorative sleep harder to achieve for many adults. Poor sleep compounds the effects of stress and inactivity on blood sugar.
Taken together, these changes help explain why blood sugar trends may be shifting gradually across the workforce. The data suggests not a failure of individual behavior, but the cumulative impact of how modern work and life are experienced.
Supporting healthier blood sugar doesn’t require turning managers into nutrition coaches. It requires reducing friction in the workday.
Employers have real influence in a few key areas:
Protect time to eat, not just time to work.
Meeting norms that allow real lunch breaks matter. Skipped meals are not a productivity badge. Over time, they destabilize energy and focus.
Break up long sitting stretches.
Extended sitting affects glucose regulation. Shorter meetings, movement breaks, or walking check-ins can make a meaningful difference over time.
Make fiber-rich options easier to choose.
Fiber supports steadier blood sugar by slowing digestion, but many employees fall short during busy workdays. Offering balanced snacks and meals that include fiber, protein, and healthy fats during meetings and events helps stabilize energy.
Reduce constant urgency.
Chronic stress raises cortisol, which impacts blood sugar. Clear priorities, fewer unnecessary deadlines, and realistic workloads support metabolic health more than any awareness campaign.
Support sustainable, modest weight changes.
For employees with elevated blood sugar, even a 5 to 7 percent reduction in body weight can significantly improve insulin sensitivity. That is not a massive transformation. It does not require extreme dieting or intense fitness regimens. It often begins with small shifts in movement, meal quality, and sleep consistency.
Use data to spot trends, not judge individuals.
Blood sugar trends are a signal. They point to where systems need support, not who needs fixing.
Blood sugar is only one part of the story. But it’s a powerful lens for understanding how work, stress, habits, and health intersect over time.
In The Health Status Report of America’s Workforce: 10th Anniversary Edition, we explore ten years of employee health data to understand not just what changed, but why it changed and where organizations have the greatest opportunity to make a difference.
The full report looks at multiple health measures, how guidelines and context shape what we see, and what employers can do to move from reacting to risk toward supporting long-term life quality.
👉 Download the full 10-Year Workforce Health Report