Corporate Fitness and Active Aging

In the health craze of organic and all-natural food, it's easy to get confused and not know where to turn. What exactly is organic? How do I know I can trust what’s on the label? Is organic really better for me? These questions and more have been up for debate for years and will continue to be for many to come.

What Is Organic Food?

Organic food is defined by the USDA to be grown “free of synthetic substances; contain no antibiotics and hormones; has not been irradiated or fertilized with sewage sludge; was raised without the use of most conventional pesticides; and contains no genetically modified ingredients.”

Many true organic farmers feel we have a long way to go beyond this definition. For example, animals must be given access to the outdoors, but for how long and under what conditions isn’t defined. Furthermore, most farmers who practice sustainable farming and are organic in spirit operate on such a small scale that they can’t afford the expensive requirements to be certified organic by the USDA.

Organic Does Not Necessarily Mean Local, Healthy, or Inexpensive

A common misconception is that organic means local. This is not true. You could buy organic salmon from Chile, but what kind of carbon footprint are you leaving behind?

Organic also does not mean healthy. In this article in the New York Times, Marion Nestle, a professor at New York University’s department of nutrition, food studies and public health, says, “Organic junk food is still junk food.”

Additionally, organic foods are more expensive. If you can manage spending a few extra dollars, WebMD recommends buying the following organic foods:

• Dairy products
• Beef
• Spinach
• Apples
• Berries
• Peaches
• Pears
• Green beans
• peas
• squash

Another option is frozen organic produce.

Organic Does Have Some Health Benefits

In a recent study conducted by the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and highlighted in this article, organic tomatoes were found to have nearly twice the levels of quercetin and kaempferol as regular tomatoes. These two compounds are known as flavonoids, which have been linked to a reduced rate of heart disease.

So far, more money has been spent on marketing organic foods than on the nutritional benefits of organic products. So more it will take more time, money, and research before people understand the full effects of organic foods.

Are You Confused Yet?

So if you are now more confused than ever, it's quite understandable. Starting your own garden is a great option, but it's not always feasible. The point here is to buy local, buy seasonal, and if possible buy organic local products. Being an informed consumer is always a good thing.

If you have access to corporate wellness programs or an onsite fitness center, don’t hesitate to ask your worksite wellness staff for more information on organic food and other health topics.

TRX is billed as "the original bodyweight Suspension Training system consisting of 12 feet of nylon-webbed straps, handles, and various anchors that can be attached to any sturdy weight-bearing base." Here are some ideas for using it in your corporate fitness program.

1. TRX adds a new and fun way to take workouts to the next level. At my corporate fitness center, we just bought a TRX for our members, and it’s created quite a buzz both for members and my staff. In fact, the first time I ever used it I couldn’t walk very well the next day due to muscle soreness. I had worked my muscles in a new way and it was a great feeling (at least to me!).
2. TRX doesn’t take up much space. It can be placed around a secure post or pole, or you can purchase door anchors for the unit. You can put it up and take it down easily. You really only need enough space to complete the exercises. If you have available meeting room space or a storage closet, the TRX is a great way to convert that space into a worksite fitness center.
3. TRX is great for cardio and strength. For example, you can do a one-leg burpee followed by a pushup, and then go into a knee tuck for an abdominal exercise. These unique upper- and lower-body exercises will help keep your body from reaching a plateau.

You’re an avid exerciser, hitting the gym five days a week. You think, “I’m doing great with my active lifestyle.” Well, think again! According to recent research highlighted in an article by Men’s Health, it may not be that simple. “The more hours a day you sit, the greater your likelihood of dying an earlier death regardless of how much you exercise or how lean you are,” says the article.

For example, a “standing” worker (salesclerk) burns about 1,500 calories at work, whereas a person with a desk job might expend only 1,000 calories. Although 500 calories may not seem like that much of a difference, extending that over weeks or years may go a long way in explaining why people gain 16 pounds within 8 months after beginning sedentary office work. Check out the study behind the startling numbers.

Even worse, it’s not just weight gain we’re talking about. Sedentary lifestyles can also impact heart health; lead to muscle stiffness; contribute to poor balance and mobility; and result in lower back, neck, and hip pain.

Corporate wellness programs can help reverse these effects. Implementing regular stretch breaks, office walking programs, trained and certified staff to educate employees, and small-step incentive programs will help encourage employees to move their sitting-versus-standing spectrum in the right direction and improve the company bottom line.

What are you doing to get your employees out of their seats?

Richard Simmons is on to something (he has been for years). Not only are his outfits shocking enough to make people watch him work out, but he has also grasped the value of camaraderie and support when it comes to exercise. Case in point: His website offers a “Clubhouse” where members can become a part of an “interactive health and fitness family.” Along with recipes and daily motivation comes the support of others who are trying to get healthy and stay positive.

Use Camaraderie in Your Corporate Fitness Program

Online motivation and support is a great tool, but getting support from people we can’t see doesn’t work for all of us. Worksite wellness programs and corporate fitness centers can offer the same benefit just by having an available facility for members.

All It Takes Is a Few DVDs and a Place to Work Out

Before you see big dollar signs flash before your eyes, consider the value of a few good DVDs and the group fitness groupies in your workforce.

From my experience as a corporate fitness professional, videos are a great way to get through your workouts while forming relationships at the same time. I hardly ever see anyone going into our aerobics room to do a video on their own. Instead, it’s always a herd of people following the one holding the video of the day.

By the time I see them, they have already communicated through e-mail chains, getting a count of who will be there and who won’t. After all, exercise is more fun when there is someone there to endure the challenge with you, and its much easier to bounce back from a couple of days off when there is someone in the group that can relate and pick you back up!

What can you do to build a DVD-driven group exercise program at your worksite?

Your employees will soon be considering their New Year’s resolutions. And there’s a good chance that, shortly after they make those resolutions, they’ll break them. The failure rate for resolutions—75% or higher, according to a Wall Street Journal report—is startling.

Don’t miss this chance to maximize the New Year as an avenue toward a healthy workforce. Consider the following tips to create easy healthful opportunities for your employees:

1. Create ways for your employees to exercise. Bring group exercise onsite. Make a worksite fitness center out of unused meeting-room space. Establish a walking program or partner with a local commercial fitness center for reduced-rate memberships.
2. Get creative with signage at work. Fran Melmed of Free Range Communications offers an intriguing blog on ways to maximize signage at work to help employees make better choices. My favorite idea is to post notes on vending machines indicating how many minutes on a treadmill will be required to burn off the choice candy bar that costs more than $1.
3. Encourage healthy food choices. Speaking of food, a study just came out indicating that when people use cash to pay for food, they tend to make healthier choices. Apparently those in the study were less likely to make impulse buys on unhealthy foods when they were paying cash for their groceries. Perhaps worksite cafeterias should initiate a cash-only payment policy.

How will your worksite leverage New Year’s resolutions to create a healthier workforce?

This blog was submitted by an employee at a NIFS corporate fitness center.

It is our secret society...the gym. When the double doors open to the corporate fitness center, we leave behind, if only temporarily, any thoughts of the business we conduct upstairs. The agenda is no longer focused on a project plan and deadlines. Instead, we have one agenda in mind: to let everything go and enjoy the ride.

As we enter the fitness center, our corporate environment becomes the locker room. Where photos and paintings once hung, now hang towels drenched with hard-earned sweat, reminding us of our achievements of the day. File cabinets that once housed documents now are lockers and gym bags holding pairs of athletic socks, t-shirts, and gym shorts.

While our peers are e-mailing about deadlines, we are using e-mail to motivate and encourage our coworkers to get pumped up and be ready to work out. The ritual e-mails start about 45 minutes before class; a sort of buzz begins like bees to a hive.

When we come together for a group fitness class, for one hour we are all on the same playing field―incognito, no different from one another. For one brief hour at our corporate fitness center we are trying to motivate each other and to achieve similar goals, and we work harder than we ever have. If there is competition, it’s only to inspire those who need it and to push those who are up to the challenge.

I wonder if the trainers we entrust with our everyday routines understand the effect they are having on our lives? If they were flies on the wall in the locker room, wouldn’t they be surprised to hear conversations about how their classes have motivated us to do things we didn’t know we were capable of?

I wonder if our supervisors know how many endorphins have been released after our workouts to ensure that the rest of our working day is productive.

After class when we pass each other and exchange glances at the elevators in our business attire (which clearly separates us as Managers, Associates, or Supervisors), we just flash each other a smile, because for one hour of the day we are no different from each other. We are just employees, our guard down, laughing, sweating, and coming together….a priceless camaraderie.

So for now, as we leave the worksite fitness center through the double doors, we leave behind our secret society with a few more smiles and a few more friendships! 

NIFS would like to thank Hollis Mills for this blog.  Tell us what you like best about your worksite fitness facility!

The current healthcare model in this country is scary.

It’s scary from a cost standpoint, to be sure. We spend more than $2 trillion annually on healthcare, and according to the American Medical Association, 75 percent of U.S. medical care dollars are spent on preventable illnesses like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. U.S. healthcare can be scary from a user standpoint, too.

A Frightening ER Adventure

I recently had an experience with strep throat while I was out of town. Unfortunately, my best Jedi mind tricks couldn’t beat his bug, so one raging fever and a wicked sore throat later, I found myself at the hotel lobby at 11:30 p.m. asking for help finding an emergency room.

The ER waiting room was an adventure in itself. After having to weave through a maze of men who appeared to be “sleeping it off,” I noticed that the waiting room smelled like urine. One of the would-be patients was vomiting in the most gut-wrenching way possible every two or three minutes. And there was this weird guy sitting in front of me who wasn’t wearing a shirt, had a gaping wound on his forehead, and (of  course) he felt it was acceptable to take off his shoes and socks to lay down on the lounge chair.  In a creepy (but I think well-meaning paternal) way, he repeately asked me, “Honey, are you OK?”

There’s nothing like a scary ER waiting room in a strange town to make you think twice about just how sick you really are!

Can Worksite Wellness Be the Place to Start?

Forgive me this sweeping generalization, but I think promoting better health really is the answer to this country’s scary sick-care model. If we can keep more people well, it will take some of the burden off of our overworked system (and hopefully help keep our emergency rooms from looking like something out of a horror film).

Worksites really do have a captive audience to target for worksite health promotion. Unfortunately, it seems that building a healthier workforce is getting scary, too. There are legal landmines to navigate, value-based benefits design to decode, communication strategies to build, and leadership to get on board. And if that isn’t a scary enough to-do list, many worksites are embarking on these healthier strategies with an army of one (or sometimes half of one) person.

“It’s scary” isn’t a reason to not get to work incentivizing better health in your workforce (it’s never wrong to do the right thing), but it certainly has stalled the best-laid plans.

What is your worksite doing to bravely improve employee health?

With money being tight in just about every organization these days, companies are looking to cut costs any way they can. At first glance, adding corporate health and wellness programs doesn’t seem like a very cost-effective move, especially if you're looking at building a corporate fitness center complete with an onsite fitness center. Upon closer examination, though, it’s clear that the benefits of worksite health promotion programs far outweigh the initial start-up costs of implementing them.

A recent study at the University of Michigan showed just how much a company can save over the long term by focusing on worksite wellness. The corporate wellness program of a large utility company was studied over a period of 9 years. The cost over that time period was rather large at $7.3 million, but it was found that the same “expensive” program saved the company $12.1 million over the long haul, for an overall savings of $4.8 million.

This study is believed to have found the true cost of implementing worksite health promotion programs because both the direct and indirect costs were measured. It may be a tough decision for the leaders of an organization to make because of the initial and ongoing costs of offering corporate wellness programs, such as staffing corporate fitness centers, but there seems to be a high return on the investment.

We all know the benefits of regular exercise and seeking to live a healthier life. Those who strive to live in this manner are a welcome relief to many employers. For those who need a little extra motivation, though (or even for those who don’t but like the convenience of onsite wellness opportunities), investigating how your company might be able to move forward with a corporate wellness program is a win-win situation.

Your employees are your most valuable asset. What are you doing to help invest in and protect them and thus protect your company's bottom line?

With our busy lifestyles, running to the pharmacy is just that: racing in and out as quickly as possible. Is this placing employee health in danger? Well, it could be. It's ultimately up to each of us to filter what substances go into our bodies.

Check Your Medicine

Even before paying for the medication, you should check the name, medication, and dose to ensure that the prescription has been correctly filled and belongs to you. Pharmacies require personal information such as name, date of birth, Social Security number (for insurance), or driver’s license number to guarantee that the medication is dispensed to the right individual. But it doesn't hurt to check.

Prescription Questions

Be aware of what you are putting into your system. Ask questions. The pharmacist is there not only to fill prescriptions, but also to answer questions. Know the answers to these questions before taking the medication:

• What is the name of the medicine?
• What is it supposed to do?
• How and when do I take it and for how long?
• What do I do if I forget to take the medicine?
• Are there any side effects?
• What should I do if I experience any side effects?
• Is there an information sheet about this medication?
• Are there any interactions with other drugs you are taking? (Check here to find out.)

Next time you head to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, don’t rush. Take the time to check the prescription and ask questions for your own safety.

This much-debated topic has gone round and round in the medical and fitness community. Is it possible to be overweight and still be healthy?

On one side of the coin, researchers speculate that if an overweight or obese person has normal blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose levels, there is no reason to push weight loss. On the other side, a study published by Circulation online in 2009 concluded that overweight (body mass of greater than 25) individuals with no abnormalities of blood pressure, cholesterol, or glucose have a 50 percent increased risk of developing heart disease compared to those of normal weight (body mass of less than 25). Beyond being bad for your heart, increased weight increases the risk of cancer and type 2 diabetes.

Regardless of what side of the debate you fall on, one thing is unanimous: Fitness is key and pounds matter less than type of body fat. That is where a worksite wellness program and corporate fitness staff can come into play to help you identify and reduce your dangerous fat.

Recently there has been a push to look beyond the standard BMI (body mass index) measurement and into true body composition testing. Skinfold testing, BOD POD, and underwater weighing are just a few of the tests available to determine the true percentage of body fat.

BMI does serve a purpose, but it also has its shortcomings. For example, check out the Shapely Prose blog by Kate Harding. She runs a “BMI Project,” a series of photos of individuals of different sizes with their BMI levels. It’s a glaring example of how skewed the BMI measurement can be at times. 

The fact is that being overweight or obese is not necessarily good for you, but more importantly being overfat is the largest concern. So eat a balanced diet, get plenty of exercise, and take care of yourself. Regardless of the debate, you have only one body, so take care of it!