An Hour a Day May Keep the Doctor Away

Although the phrase “sitting is the new smoking” is a bit sensationalized, it does make a great argument for remaining active in our ultra-convenient, modern world. Inactivity is a dangerous lifestyle factor, greatly increasing the risk of chronic disease and even the risk of an early death. Thankfully, this risk factor is a modifiable behavior.

Some health recommendations for physical activity are to walk 10,000 steps a day or to complete at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week, but can these recommendations undo the damage sitting all day does to our bodies? A recent meta-analysis published in The Lancet looked into this question to determine how much physical activity it would take to reduce these health risks -- if that was even possible.

Thankfully, the results were promising: the analysis concluded that 60 to 75 minutes of moderate intensity exercise (e.g., walking at 3.5 mph) per day was sufficient enough to reduce the risk of early death associated with sitting for over eight hours per day.

On a similar note, a recent study looked at blood glucose levels in sedentary, overweight and obese individuals, particularly those who sit for at least eight hours a day at their job. It was found that those who moved just a little more than average, or even broke up their sitting with standing periodically, saw decreased blood glucose levels throughout the day. The activities implemented during the study included slow walking or pedaling at a treadmill desk or stationary work bike. 

Bottom Line: The gym isn’t the only way to combat the effects of a sedentary lifestyle or the 9 to 5 office job. An hour of walking throughout the day can greatly reduce your risk of chronic disease or early death. Walking to work, at lunch or during meetings is an easy way to increase your steps during the workday.

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Visit Wellness Workdays for more information about our worksite wellness programs. 

Tips for Creating a Successful Worksite Wellness Program

A successful worksite wellness program will improve the health of employees and increase an employer’s return on investment. If you are thinking of implementing a wellness initiative or are interested in revamping your current program, there are certain elements to consider in order to develop a successful wellness culture:

Health should be viewed as a fundamental business value. The health and wellness of employees should be integral in any corporate mission statement.

Survey your employees and gather information about their interests, their time limits and their goals. This will go a long way in helping you design a program that is well utilized.

Make sure upper management is on board and participates in programs. The most successful wellness programs are ones where executives are visible participants and proponents of the wellness programs.

Market and brand the wellness program in a way that attract employees and highlight the goals of the program. Use different forms of communication to frequently promote current and upcoming wellness programs and events (i.e., email, social media, posters and newsletters).

Find employee leaders and ask them to take on a team captain role, inspiring others to join the program.

Introduce biometric screenings and personal health assessments to determine the health risks prevalent in your workforce. This, along with the survey results, will help you develop appropriate programs. These tools are also a great way to measure year-over-year changes in your workforce (i.e., weight, BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol).

Offer a variety of activities for health and wellness that target the needs of employees. Include incentives to encourage employees to achieve healthy lifestyles.

Review cafeteria menus and vending machines for healthy meals and snacks. Wellness should be an overall theme throughout the office – not just something that is done one-hour a week in a seminar.

Reflect and review any data measures and reports generated as a result of the programs. The goal is a positive workplace with healthy employees. Be ready to make changes if needed to achieve overall wellness. 

Wellness Workdays helps employers assess, develop, implement and evaluate comprehensive, strategic worksite wellness programs that target the specific health needs of each population. For more tips on creating a successful wellness program, email us.

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Visit Wellness Workdays for more information about our worksite wellness programs.

Will Exercise Lead to Weight Loss Without Proper Nutrition?

Without a doubt, exercise improves one’s overall health; however, when it comes to losing weight, recent research has shown that relying on exercise alone is not enough. Eating the right foods and consuming the right amount of calories, contribute more to weight control than exercise, according to the New York Times article “To lose weight, eating less is far more important than exercising more.”

As an example, if an overweight woman consumes 1,000 more calories per day than she is burning, the fact that she exercises for 30 minutes each day and burns 300 calories still leaves her with 700 extra calories per day – and 4,900 extra calories per week – which will lead to weight gain. Exercise consumes far fewer calories than many people think. Thirty minutes of jogging or swimming laps might burn 300 calories but many people, fat or fit, can’t maintain a strenuous 30-minute exercise regimen every day. They could, however, achieve a significant reduction in calories by eliminating two 16-ounce sodas each day.

While we firmly believe that exercise should remain a part of everyone’s day as it has been proven to lower blood pressure, reduce mental stress, and improve outcomes in musculoskeletal disorders, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, pulmonary diseases, neurological diseases and depression, for weight control, a nutritional focus on one’s diet is what works best. Dieting is often viewed as a drastic and rigid change to daily food consumption and has a high risk of putting the pounds back on.  A more successful approach is gradual change to one’s daily diet, done in a more sustainable, nutritious way. The challenge is to make healthy, dietary changes versus simply adding more exercise once metabolism slows and the desire to eat more increases.

Wellness Workdays works with a number of employers to provide its Nutrition for a Lifetime program to employees. The program focuses on building a foundation of basic nutrition knowledge, developing healthy eating habits and making small changes that lead to sustainable weight loss. We have helped employees achieve weight loss and reductions in BMI while also reducing their health risks for medical conditions such as hypertension.

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Visit Wellness Workdays for more information about our worksite wellness programs.