Good nutrition is an essential part of a person’s overall health and well-being. Most Americans, however, do not have a healthful diet and are not physically active. Adults in the U.S. consume fruit about 1.1 times per day and vegetables about 1.6 times per day. Americans’ average daily fruit and vegetable consumption does not meet intake recommendations.
Ensuring that all Americans have a healthful diet, participate in regular physical activity, and achieve and maintain a healthy body weight is critical to improving the health of Americans. Worksite obesity prevention interventions are one of the efforts that combine education, environmental change, physical activity opportunities, and incentives for healthy behavior.
This can include individual or group counseling, improvements in access to healthy foods such as changing cafeteria or vending machine options, and opportunities to be more active at work such as establishing on-site facilities for exercise or standing/walking workstations (Meng 2017, CG-Obesity).
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/diet-and-weight/
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends 30 minutes of physical activity a day for adults, at least five days a week. Being active doesn’t require joining a gym. Look for ways to increase your heart rate during your daily routine, there are plenty of ways to get moving. Here are different types of Physical Activities as well as guidelines.
https://www.hhs.gov/fitness/be-active/ways-to-be-active/index.html
For More Information:
- Worksite Health Promotion recommends worksite programs intended to improve diet and/or physical activity behaviors based on strong evidence of their effectiveness for reducing weight among employees. http://www.thecommunityguide.org/obesity/workprograms.html
- The CDC offers a free obesity-reduction resource. You will be able to calculate your company’s ROI using CDC’s Obesity Cost Calculator. http://www.cdc.gov/leanworks/costcalculator/index.html
- If you want to know more about how to prevent obesity in the workplace, find out at https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/aag/dnpao.htm
