By Benecia Beyer
Many companies are starting to sound like moms: They are pushing employees to eat their vegetables and go outside and play. And they are not being gentle about it.
L.L. Bean actually shuts down its manufacturing line 3 times a day for mandatory five-minute stretches, designed to prevent the most common injuries workers suffer. At retailer Replacements LTD, 250 employees take part in a walking program organized by the company nurse. T-shirt manufacturer American Apparel has 80 loaner bikes, locks and helmets for employees and hosted an employee screening of "Fast Food Nation", a film where the villain is the meat industry.
Mounting health care costs are driving the changes. Employee assistance company ComPsych Corp. runs what it calls "trainwreck exercises" in which insurance companies compute how long they can absorb healthcare cost increases before they become unprofitable. Health insurance premiums for 2006 rose 7.7% - twice the rate of inflation.
While some companies are responding to higher healthcare costs by cutting employees' coverage and shifting more of the cost to the employee, others are doing everything they can to convince employees to adopt healthier habits in the hopes they will avoid diseases caused or complicated by eating poorly and being inactive.
Because employees spend so much of their day at work, it is important that some healthy eating habits and exercise be incorporated into the work day. For example: if workers don't have access to fruits and vegetables on the job, they will need to consume between one and two servings every waking hour after work to meet the goal of eating 5-9 servings a day. And to reach the recommended 10,000 steps a day, sedentary workers would have to spend most of their evenings in motion.
Try to make some changes into your daily work lifestyle: incorporate little exercise breaks in the work day, park your car farther from the building, take the stairs instead of the elevator, organize a "walking meeting" instead of around the conference table.
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