Wellness Programs – Focus on Exercise Programs.
Benefits of Fitness Programs
Exercise reduces weight, reduces risks of heart attack and stroke, assists to control blood pressure and diabetes, and improves mood. Studies increasingly show that exercise may also help reduce the occurrence of certain kinds of cancer.
Scientists at the Centers for Illness Control and Prevention (CDC) lately documented another major advantage – exercise improves the health of the nation’s medical care expenditures.3 According to the CDC, physically active person incur $865 less each year in health care costs than inactive individuals .
Dr. Michael Moore, vice president and chief medical director at Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, maintains that exercise is the most effective tool in health maintenance. “If you could prescribe exercise in a pill, it’d be the number-one prescribed treatment in the world,” he said.
In step with Dr. Moore’s prescription, nearly one-third of U.S. businesses help personnel pay for health and fitness center memberships, as reported by an Associated Press report. Subsidizing health and fitness center memberships is just one way businesses encourage active life choices.
Well-liked fitness-forward initiatives -
o Begin a corporation softball or volleyball league.
o Compile and distribute information about opportunities to join athletic groups in your community.
o Make available partial or complete reimbursement for fitness facility memberships.
o Hold aerobics, karate, yoga or other types of fitness courses onsite.
o Give extended lunch hours for personnel who commit to lunchtime fitness plans.
o Introduce an onsite fitness facility that is free, or available at a nominal cost, to staff members and their families.
o Conduct on-site wellness fairs that include fitness demonstrations and promote fitness activities and resources.