Since more than 100 million Americans spend a large number of their waking hours at work, the work-site presents another opportunity for prevention programs. The U.S. Surgeon General's Call to Action advised moving beyond traditional workplace health education programs. It recommended more intensive and comprehensive efforts such as modifying physical and social environments, instituting policies consistent with the objective of preventing overweight and obesity, and extending worksite prevention efforts not only to employees but also to the families of employees and their communities.
Examples of worksite obesity prevention strategies include:
- Instituting flexible work hours and schedules to create opportunities for regular physical activity during the workday
- Ensuring that healthy food options are available
TABLE 10.14 Task force findings on community preventive services for interventions to promote healthy weight
| TABLE 10.14 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Task force findings on community preventive services for interventions to promote healthy weight | ||
| Intervention | Recommendation | Status |
| SOURCE: Guide to Community Preventive Services: Systematic Reviews and Evidence Based Recommendations, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Task Force on Community Preventive Services, July 5, 2005, http://www.thecommunityguide.org/obese/obese.pdf (accessed January 13, 2006) | ||
| School-based interventions | ||
| School-based programs for children & adolescents | Insufficient evidence to determine effectiveness | Update in progress |
| Worksite interventions | ||
| Multicomponent interventions aimed at diet, physical activity, and cognitive change | Recommended | Complete |
| Single component interventions aimed at diet, physical activity, or cognitive change alone | Insufficient evidence to determine effectiveness | Uptate in progress |
| Healthcare system interventions | ||
| Organizational-level interventions aimed at policy & decision support structures | Pending | Review in Progress |
| Provider-level interventions aimed at professional practice strategies and guidelines | Pending | Review in Progress |
| Patient group and family-level interventions aimed at diet, physical activity, cognitive change, and social support | Pending | Review in Progress |
| Community-wide interventions | ||
| Broad population-based, multi-strategy interventions using mass media, public policy, and environmental change to promote healthy diet and physical activity in communities | Pending | Review in Progress |
| Small scale, targeted community interventions aimed at diet, physical activity, and cognitive change among population subgroups | Pending | Review in Progress |
- Establishing worksite exercise facilities or creating incentives for employees to join local fitness centers
- Developing incentives for workers to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight
- Encouraging employers to require weight management and physical activity counseling as covered benefits in health insurance contracts
- Creating work environments that promote and support breastfeeding
- Instituting federal worksite programs promoting healthy eating and physical activity that not only can serve as models but also may be easily adapted for use in the private sector
Recent research suggests that obesity may begin at the office. W. Kerry Mummery and his colleagues examined the role of the workplace in the problem of overweight and obesity by studying the association between occupational sitting time and overweight and obesity in a sample of adults employed full-time ("Occupational Sitting Time and Overweight and Obesity in Australian Workers," American Journal of Preventive Medicine, vol. 29, no. 2, August 2005). The investigators found that the more time workers sit at their desks, the more likely they are to be overweight. Higher total daily sitting time was associated with a 68% increased risk of being overweight or obese.
Overall, men sat an average of 209 minutes while at work, twenty minutes more than the average for women. The investigators suggested that the extra twenty minutes might make a difference since they found a significant association between sitting time and overweight and obesity in male workers, but not in female workers.
The investigators asserted that encouraging workers to exercise may favorably influence a company's bottom line. "Time and productivity lost due to chronic diseases associated with overweight and obesity may make it financially worthwhile for employers to be more proactive in the health of their employees by promoting physical activity at work," they concluded.
Offices of the Future May Improve, Rather Than Imperil, Health and Fitness
In 2005 Dr. James Levine, a Mayo clinic obesity researcher who studies non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)—the calories people burn during everyday activities such as standing, walking, or even fidgeting, redesigned his office to encourage physical activity in order to burn calories. Levine noted that since it is metabolically more effective and probably easier for most people to put more NEAT into their lives to achieve and maintain healthy body weights than to seek organized exercise, the physically-active office would be a natural outgrowth of NEAT research.
Levine's office of the future holds meetings while walking laps on a track rather than sitting around a conference table eating donuts. Workers at computers walk on a treadmill rather than sit, and presentations are made standing at magnetic marker boards rather than sitting at desks or conference tables.
Levine's retrofitted office even appeals to his colleagues who already exercise regularly because they assert that standing and moving keeps them alert and focused throughout the day. Levine admits that there is pressure in his office to work while standing and to keep moving throughout the day, but he contends that this positive peer pressure is preferable to the pressure to bring unhealthy snack foods to the worksite (Steve Karnowski, "No Dozing, Doughnut at Office of Future," Associated Press, June 7, 2005).
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