Your workplace -- health help or minefield?....
Today's post: Monday, 6-16-2008
Some workplaces are literal minefields of foods & drinks that will make you fat & sick.
In fact, from what I’ve heard & seen, that may be more likely for most people today.
From vending machines with soft drinks & unhealthy snacks to free donuts to birthday parties & even company events where commercial baked goods & other unhealthy fare is plentiful, just showing up at work is a health minefield.
And, if you skip breakfast, it can be extremely hard to nearly impossible to turn down all these goodies.
When people who don’t exercise or eat that well at home work in such places, they tend to get really fat.
Even worse, many people who know better & eat good foods at home wind up eating enough of this fare to be much fatter & heavier than they should be.
It is possible to overcome such a workplace, particularly if you know how bad these foods are for you. Many of our posts have been on the now documented fattening & sickening effects of “foods” that mostly contain refined grains, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, & trans fats.
But it IS unfortunate as it makes it difficult to follow a good health lifestyle at work.
And, it COSTS the companies in which this is common practice too.
Health care costs go up driven by illnesses a better workplace policy might have avoided. Absenteeism goes up for people going to the extra doctor visits or staying home sick. Some key employees become incapacitated or die from the illnesses they could have avoided. And, the average competence & productivity of their employees is less.
So, far employers have largely been unaware of what they need to STOP doing. And, with rare exceptions, they make efforts in the right direction that are close to ineffective.
My wife works at a workplace that does both.
It offers massive amounts of free or low cost unhealthy foods daily & more on special occasions.
Recently, apparently due to a suggestion or request from their health insurance provider, they have been offering fresh fruit as an alternative food.
They also set up a mini-gym with some strength training equipment at their facility.
A small number of their employees happily use these new resources. My wife is one of them.
But, with no supporting education as to the value of these changes, no reduction or elimination of the unhealthy choices, & no interactive checking to be sure they provide the fresh fruit or other healthier alternatives that people would most like, the program gets very little use by most of the employees.
The bad news is that with their businesses to run & less knowledge themselves of why all this is important, few businesses as yet have done well in this area.
The good news is that each part of what employers could do differently is fixable.
They could, & are welcome to, email our posts to all their employees & read them themselves. That way, their employees can begin to know why to eat differently. This costs very little to set up & almost nothing to continue.
They could begin to cut back or eliminate these unhealthy foods as an expected & routine part of their workplace.
And, they could let their employees know that fresh fruit will be provided as well as foods like relish trays with a variety of vegetables & health OK dips. Then they could generate a large list of things they could provide & ask everyone to pick the ones they would most like to be included.
Even the employees who don’t reply to this invitation or have much interest in it initially will use the new resource more because they were asked.
And, since they share preferences with the group that does respond, this is particularly true.
This increase in use will even happen from people who already make healthy choices. To use me as an example, in a company that provided celery sticks & grapefruit halves, they’d see very little response from me. But if they had fresh strawberries that already had the green leaves removed & guacamole, I’d use it almost every day.
And, inhouse exercise facilities or deals with nearby gyms to make it easier for employees to exercise can be very effective. This is particularly true if the employers educate their employees about how incredibly much regular exercise does for them & arrange for free introductory classes on how to do strength training and interval cardio programs.
So dramatic improvement IS possible.
If you would like to see these changes in your company, your CEO or Human Resources Director are the people who would be most likely to make them.
By all means pass on this post to them.
And, if it’s your company, because you ARE the boss, see if you can find a part of this set of things or two that you could try first. Even one or two of these things done well can help.
Today's post: Monday, 6-16-2008
Some workplaces are literal minefields of foods & drinks that will make you fat & sick.
In fact, from what I’ve heard & seen, that may be more likely for most people today.
From vending machines with soft drinks & unhealthy snacks to free donuts to birthday parties & even company events where commercial baked goods & other unhealthy fare is plentiful, just showing up at work is a health minefield.
And, if you skip breakfast, it can be extremely hard to nearly impossible to turn down all these goodies.
When people who don’t exercise or eat that well at home work in such places, they tend to get really fat.
Even worse, many people who know better & eat good foods at home wind up eating enough of this fare to be much fatter & heavier than they should be.
It is possible to overcome such a workplace, particularly if you know how bad these foods are for you. Many of our posts have been on the now documented fattening & sickening effects of “foods” that mostly contain refined grains, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, & trans fats.
But it IS unfortunate as it makes it difficult to follow a good health lifestyle at work.
And, it COSTS the companies in which this is common practice too.
Health care costs go up driven by illnesses a better workplace policy might have avoided. Absenteeism goes up for people going to the extra doctor visits or staying home sick. Some key employees become incapacitated or die from the illnesses they could have avoided. And, the average competence & productivity of their employees is less.
So, far employers have largely been unaware of what they need to STOP doing. And, with rare exceptions, they make efforts in the right direction that are close to ineffective.
My wife works at a workplace that does both.
It offers massive amounts of free or low cost unhealthy foods daily & more on special occasions.
Recently, apparently due to a suggestion or request from their health insurance provider, they have been offering fresh fruit as an alternative food.
They also set up a mini-gym with some strength training equipment at their facility.
A small number of their employees happily use these new resources. My wife is one of them.
But, with no supporting education as to the value of these changes, no reduction or elimination of the unhealthy choices, & no interactive checking to be sure they provide the fresh fruit or other healthier alternatives that people would most like, the program gets very little use by most of the employees.
The bad news is that with their businesses to run & less knowledge themselves of why all this is important, few businesses as yet have done well in this area.
The good news is that each part of what employers could do differently is fixable.
They could, & are welcome to, email our posts to all their employees & read them themselves. That way, their employees can begin to know why to eat differently. This costs very little to set up & almost nothing to continue.
They could begin to cut back or eliminate these unhealthy foods as an expected & routine part of their workplace.
And, they could let their employees know that fresh fruit will be provided as well as foods like relish trays with a variety of vegetables & health OK dips. Then they could generate a large list of things they could provide & ask everyone to pick the ones they would most like to be included.
Even the employees who don’t reply to this invitation or have much interest in it initially will use the new resource more because they were asked.
And, since they share preferences with the group that does respond, this is particularly true.
This increase in use will even happen from people who already make healthy choices. To use me as an example, in a company that provided celery sticks & grapefruit halves, they’d see very little response from me. But if they had fresh strawberries that already had the green leaves removed & guacamole, I’d use it almost every day.
And, inhouse exercise facilities or deals with nearby gyms to make it easier for employees to exercise can be very effective. This is particularly true if the employers educate their employees about how incredibly much regular exercise does for them & arrange for free introductory classes on how to do strength training and interval cardio programs.
So dramatic improvement IS possible.
If you would like to see these changes in your company, your CEO or Human Resources Director are the people who would be most likely to make them.
By all means pass on this post to them.
And, if it’s your company, because you ARE the boss, see if you can find a part of this set of things or two that you could try first. Even one or two of these things done well can help.
Labels: employee health, increase productivity, lower employee turnover, lower health care costs, reduce absenteeism, workplace wellness
posted by David at 1:16 PM
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