Companies save money when workers lose weight
Filed under: Food, Saving, Career, Health
Employers are beginning to see the results of wellness and fitness programs and the sound is Kah-Chink in their coffers. In a time of annual double-digit health care cost increases, many companies have found wellness programs are an inexpensive and effective way to stabilize costs. It is estimated that for every $1 spent on wellness, $16 is saved in productivity, absenteeism and health care premiums. Cheetos have given way to fruit with workers walking on their lunch hours.
Some companies are reporting a change in corporate culture where employees scold each other for unhealthy choices and the cafeteria has only balanced meals. Workers know that their health care costs are affected by the utilization of services and they urge each other to get healthy.
Well, it is about time. I have been preaching the removal of the soda machines, pastries in the kitchen, and candy at every desk for a very long time. Hopefully the days of eating any dried up piece of donut next to the coffee maker are gone. Employers should be leading the way to a healthier lifestyle. After all, they are the ones paying the tab.
Now if we can just get Wisconsin to go smoke free, we will have made some real progress.
Barbara Bartlein is the People Pro. For her FREE e-mail newsletter, please visit: The People Pro.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-24-2008 @ 1:41PM
Tessa said...
I was a little overweight my whole life. When I started working, it just got worse. Coffee break was a donut or coffee roll and lunch was always a big helping of fried stuff from the salad bar.
I switched jobs to working for a company that gives out fruit at 10 am and has a cafeteria that has healthy options. It helped me start my journey of weight loss and I am a better worker as I am no longer tired in the afternoon.
I strive to eat healthy and lead by example for my daughters and to feel better about myself. I eat flax every morning for health and weight loss reasons. I have the same breakfast now every day. I recently lost 30 pounds following the
weight watchers program http://www.weightwatchers.com and I now just
am more watchful every day of what I eat. I have a banana low fat yogurt with golden roasted flax for breakfast every day. It is filling, keeps me regular and tastes fabulous (kinda like sesame seeds). My Weight Watchers leader recommended fitflax to me and it definitely helped the last 10 pounds to melt off. It is low carb and low cal. It is a flax and chia blend and I think I read about it in O mag. They also listed a code to get 10% off. The site is http://www.fitflax.com and the code for 10% off is
FIT10
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11-25-2008 @ 10:00AM
Joe said...
This is interesting....
The reason fat people find it hard to lose weight is found
http://www.curiousread.com/2008/05/reason-fat-people-find-it-hard-to-lose.html
Joe
11-25-2008 @ 11:10AM
giff said...
wellness saving a company money is a duh....what's important is to have more definitive studies that give the facts of the money saved....
being overweight in many cases is a choice...it's an emotional one, and one of medicating ones self with food in order to not feel the feelings one has...it's a way of avoiding being in the present moment....
it's not any different than alcohol or drugs or sex or shopping when it's used like that, to attempt to make one self feel okay instead of dealing with what's going on...
the unfortunate complication is that the overeating doesn't handle the problem...
as for the exercise part...yes, that can be a challenge however, exercise isn't about looking good it's about having the vitality sustainable in ones body....
I agree it's tough for those overweight to get committed and stay committed, and at the same time...that weight will catch you later on and cause ALL kinds of havoc and increase the physical ailments people are subject to....it's smart to start on a lifelong engagement with better physicality....notice I didn't say skinny, slim or any of the other words that people object to in this situation because it isn't about those words...it's about having vitality and a physicality that supports the body instead of breeding illness, disease and physical constraints...
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