How to help your employees be healthier

As health care costs continue to rise employers are beginning to ask themselves "is there more we can do to promote healthy with our employees?"And the answer to that question is undoubtedly "yes" there is more you can do.Encouraging a healthy lifestyle in the workplace is the best place to start.Employees across America work about 2000 hours a year.Health and Wellness among employees is directly related to the quality and quantity of productivity within a company.Your company, we can then say might thrive on your employees.How well will it function if they are not healthy?Poorly is right, if that.You may find your company out of business if you don't get a hold on this right now.

Chronic disease is becoming a growing epidemic and has been correlated with obesity.More than two thirds of the American population is overweight or obese.And excess body weight increases the risk of developing a chronic disease.The increasing rate of obesity is largely due to poor nutrition and lack of adequate physical exercise.With most people spending a large part of their lives at work, we have the opportunity to address those issues and encourage them to live healthy.Most of your employees would like to be healthier; they would like to go and work out; they'd like to eat better; they just haven't been properly motivated.In order to do this you must practice what you preach.Here are some ways to help your employees be healthier.

1. Support. In order for your employees to be motivated they need to see that they have the support from the upper management.All company leaders need to take an active role in promoting healthy and wellness.Make sure your upper management is on the same page as you and they value a healthy lifestyle as much as you do.

2. Environment. Creating an environment that encourages healthy living through proper nutrition and physical activity is important to maintaining health and wellness.There are many ways to do this without breaking the company budget.

- Encourage employees to walk instead of using the elevator by posting signs that promote the use of stairs.

- Plan a company "fun run" to kick of the health and wellness campaign.Employees can walk or run whichever they choose but the point is that you all do it.

- Publish a company cook book that anyone can contribute their favorite healthy recipes to.Along the same lines would be to also have a company cook off.

3. Provide Incentives.Children aren't the only ones who live doing things for a reward; adults love it too.Promote health and wellness behaviors by offering your employee incentives.This can include extra time during work for some physical activity or game, discounts on health care premiums, or even some extra vacation time or days off.

4. Food Changes.In order to maximize our efforts to helping employees live healthier you need to engage them in developing ways to eat healthy foods.Slight changes around the workplace can do just that.Instead of eating donuts or pastries switch to bagels.It is also a good idea to look at the food choices in the vending machines.The unhealthy snacks can easily be changed out for healthy snacks.

One of the first company priorities in order to maximize productivity should be figuring out how to help your employees be healthier.You can do this by helping them take small steps toward the big one.