Benefits Of Exercising On The Workplace

After a long day at work, people tend to participate in leisure activities such as eating at one of the restaurants or going to a bar for a few pints and don’t leave much time for fitness activities that has a bad effect on your

The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, with the intent of ensuring that most people in the United States have medical insurance. With this new healthcare system came the responsibility that individuals would have to take initiatives in an effort to stay healthy or at the least, increase their level of activity and health awareness, making them more responsible for their own wellness. The preventative care portion included in the Affordable Care Act is one of the fundamental items of the law and is a particularly meaningful, very positive attribute in health care reform for the American people. Wellness in the workplace has become an essential issue to help reduce companies’ medical cost, and to help employees get on track to know their numbers, get healthy, and have a positive healthy mental attitude. Many employees do not understand or know how to achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle. With the rising cost of healthcare, especially relating to people not taking care of their bodies, wellness in the workplace has become even more critical. Author Lori Breiner (2007) “believes wellness in the workplace has economic benefits for organizations, because if workers are healthy, they miss less time from work.” Breiner’s theory would suggest that better health increases productivity and profits in the workplace.

Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases are a growing problem around the world today. Not only do diseases such as diabetes and heart disease affect individuals and their lifestyles, they also affect the economy, politics, education and the professional work environment. 20-26% of individuals in the United States live with heart disease, and obesity and high blood pressure compose the greatest factors for developing this disease [20]. Studies have shown a direct correlation between the amount of sedentary time and cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk, regardless of baseline measurements [20]. Thus, increase in physical activity will decrease cardiometabolic risk factors [8]. Several studies indicate a positive correlation between physical activity and decreased cardiometabolic risk markers [2,4,11,16]. However, we now know that an individual who is getting the recommended physical activity per day can still have a large amount of sedentary time.

Foremost, the healthier a society is, the more productive employees are, which boosts revenue. When an employee’s health is in question, an employer may actually lose 77 percent of productivity, making the loss greater than that of health care expenses. These numbers go up with the combination of lack of exercise, 96 percent loss, and unhealthy eating habits, 93 percent loss, said a study from Brigham Young University, according to an article in a 2012 Education Letter. The study included “those who did not believe their workplace environment would support them in becoming physically and emotionally healthier were more likely to

When a business hires an employee they are looking for a person to do a job to the best of their ability and poor health could hinder those efforts. When a person is inattentive and lackadaisical during a work day they are wasting that companies time. Employers should be encouraged to set into place requirements for exercise and healthy eating of all their employees to ensure the utmost productivity of that company. Companies with cafeterias could make sure that only or mostly heathy food is served for breakfasts or lunches. They could also have exercise classes available for employees at lunch time, if they have the space. Or they could try to arrange a discount deal for employees at a nearby gym. This way they would be encouraging employees to be healthy and also helping to keep the business

The publics idea of health has evolved over the decades, similar to fashion in that it is continuously morphing and even trends have resurrected with new twists. Recent developments have seen widespread awareness of the importance of regular exercise and many benefits of a balanced diet. Yet despite the plethora of health and fitness methods and resources, the general population has never been so physically sedentary and out of shape. According to the national center for health statistics, America life expectancy has declined despite advances in the fitness industry, concerns over secondary conditions such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes has created an urgency of public health officials as they try to mandate new strategies to fight this national epidemic.

Lynn Ostrowski believes that if patients would take control over their own health by preventative measures and diet, it could cut down on the need of seeing a doctor. She says, ‘Seventy percent of chronic conditions are the direct result of people’s own life choices,’ (1). She suggests that much of the preventative-health measures would be best promoted in the workplace (3). People consume most of their daily intake of calories at work, during the workday. And for most people this is the part of the day where they are least active. Ostrowski states that workplaces have a unique position in helping create healthy employees and families, because they pay for insurance and lose productivity due to sickness or disability (3). She

Best health practices and worksite wellness program is about engaging with employees to understand what they want, taking a tactical method about looking at health holistically. According to Lacoma, (1999 -2014), these worksite wellness programs are intended to help the workers upgrade their health and maintain healthy lifestyles. This package includes exercises, variety of care and treatment for various illnesses (mental and emotional health), healthy food, on time check up reminders, outlined health checks assessments, consultations and therapy. Moreover, Engelman (2012) determined that many of the conditions impacting workers were preventable and requires increased amounts of education, screening, encouragement and benefits to help understand how these affect the quality of their lives. These shifts gained prominence during the 1990s from increased research, about the importance of prevention and the advantages it can provide employers inside the marketplace.The recent Affordable Care Act workplace wellness provisions on implementation and expansion of employer wellness programs serves a great means to offer great opportunity of improving the citizen 's health and also control health care spending. The effectiveness and benefits of such programs should be evaluated to encourage opportunities to support healthier workplaces (Kisberg, (2014).

New evidence today suggest that the more hours that you sit, the greater likelihood of dying an earlier death regardless of how much you exercise, or how lean you are ( Masters, 2010). The fact is that millions of Americans think they are being healthy by working out at the gym on a daily basis. These people do not realize that the exercise they are doing in the gym is not able to counteract the effects of the “desk job.” These same people think they are living an active life by working out on almost a daily basis. The truth is that this is considered to be living an inactive lifestyle. The red flag is now raised. These same people that work out at the gym daily are now grouped into the dreaded sedentary lifestyle. Being a member of this group increases your chances of diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, and coronary artery disease. On top of all this, it increases the chances of obesity. Obesity notably increases when a person is living a sedentary lifestyle.

There are a lot of people who say it’s all about food. But the work environment has changed so much we have to rethink how we’re going to attack this problem (Parker-Pope). Back in the days people were very active. They did many physical works that prevented them from getting fat. However these days, the workloads are very less. Dr. Church also notes that in 1960, one out of two Americans had a job that was physically active. Now it is estimated that only one in five Americans achieves a relatively high level of physical activity at work. (Parker-Pope). People are less into occupations like farming that requires physical strength. Many people are involved in service and desk jobs that have always involved only light activity. They are now moving less than ever. Hence, their physical activity is lost during the working hours and during the remaining hours they are busy relaxing. Different experts have different opinions on obesity. While some experts consider food as the main reason behind obesity, some consider workplace and the eating habit too.

Health in the United States has become a serious issue. With about six in every 10 people suffering from either being overweight or obese in addition to other unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, heavy drinking or lack of exercise. These lifestyle choices have caused a number of chronic illnesses to skyrocket to high rates. “These chronic conditions have become a major burden, as they lead to decreased quality of life, premature death and disability, and increased health care cost” (pg xiii). What the workplace is trying to do is promote a healthier lifestyle for the employee. Some reasons for doing so is that the employer cares about the well being of their employee so that they can be more productive and to help reduce the risk of getting a chronic disease. Since these chronic diseases are becoming more life threatening and the cost of health care is increasing the employers are implementing health promotion and disease prevention strategies also known as workplace wellness programs. “Workplace wellness takes advantages of employers’ access to employees at an age when interventions can still change their long-term health trajectory. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act supports this trend with several provisions regarding health promotion and also mandated this study” (pg xiii).

Many people spend on average eight hours of their day at work, often sitting at desk, their evenings taking care of others, going to social events, or completing chores. Often, it is time for bed before they have had the chance to realize how much they have eaten and how little they have exercised. People in our society are always being rushed and therefore, stressed, which helps to contribute to unhealthy eating and overeating. Sometimes the stress of the day is motivation for a workout, but sometimes it is too exhausting to even consider making time for a

The continuous rise of health care costs has meant many companies turning toward health and wellness as a potential solution to save money: ‘research is showing that it’s more cost-effective to invest in preventive health practices, such as screenings, immunizations, health risk appraisals, behavioral coaching, and health awareness/education [and] best-practice research is demonstrating the total value of an integrated, population-based strategy that addresses the health needs of all employees, dependents, and retirees across the health care continuum’ (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2009). Employers should balance providing wellness initiatives that address both lifestyle risk factors (such as physical activity, nutrition and stress) and clinical risk factors (such as obesity, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels). Both of these types of risk factors can be tied to the workplace environment, and both types of risk factors can be positively impacted with an environment that supports health and wellness. Top risk factors like physical activity and nutrition can be greatly supported by improving workplace environments to supplement the programming tied to these initiatives.

Wellness in the workplace needs to be taken seriously by all employers, and employees. There has been evidence that making sure employees eat healthier leads to lower call out rates and more savings on health plans. In an article in Employee Benefits magazine it states that “Wellness management does not need to be complicated, or costly. A few simple steps could help to mitigate long-term problems, such as introducing early intervention activities that red flag cases identified via an absence reporting mechanism, the proactive management of musculo-skeletal conditions and stress, introducing a smoking cessation program or running regular health wellbeing days. “Workplace wellness as a concept has been used extensively in recent years by management in business and industry, health professionals, fitness experts, and others. This is a policy that should be implanted in all jobs. Wellness may not

Health and wellness in the workplace is crucial to business success. Increasingly, it is recognized that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people’s health. When people are satisfied with their job, they are more productive and tend to be healthier. When employees feel that the environment at work is negative, they feel stressed. Stress has a large impact on employee mental and physical health, and in turn, on productivity. Companies that promote healthy lifestyle habits for employees to improve their health, often take the success of the company to heart and are likely to be absent less often for health related reasons.