Workplaces and communities with physical and intellectual capabilities

Work units with physical and intellectual capabilities

While your child is at school, you're probably at work, a place that, like your child's school, is a place that makes you gain weight. John, a 44-year-old social worker, spends much of her work time in the field. She dreads being in the office because of the abundance of food and food-related activities. She feels obligated to pay for the office coffee break, which offers coffee and doughnuts daily. She finds it difficult not to participate in this daily activity because everyone else does. So, to alleviate her guilt, she asks them to order her a bran muffin separately instead of doughnuts.

During the day, she tried to avoid passing by certain tables where bowls of candy were prominently displayed. Whenever a colleague had a birthday, they would celebrate with cake in the break room. On Fridays, pizzas were often ordered, and John would receive a slice.

If your workplace is like John's, then you should take action, but you don't need extraordinary willpower to avoid those external factors that promote weight gain. While it might be a little difficult to bring this up first at work, you should know that many businesses are concerned about the increased costs associated with the long-term health of overweight employees and are developing programs to help them lose weight. Knowing this will motivate you to make a decision.

Some companies sponsor internal "weight monitoring and weight loss" meetings and reward employees who buy low-fat meals in the cafeteria. Other companies provide fitness centers and weight loss programs for their employees. Encouraging workplace fitness is a growing trend. These programs may also offer health coordinators to guide daily fitness classes and subsidize gym memberships.

Some companies have established incentive programs for employees who lose weight. One manufacturing company weighs its employees quarterly, awarding $25 to those who maintain their weight throughout the quarter, and an additional $25 and a paid day off for those who stay at the same weight for a year. Companies have good reasons for promoting fitness: obese employees have higher absenteeism rates, and their health insurance costs are 38% higher than those of non-obese employees. According to a Motorola report, every $1 spent on employee fitness can save the company $3.93 in total expenses. Besides being worthwhile for employees, preliminary evidence suggests that a group of employees participating in weight loss may be more effective than an individual trying to lose weight alone.

What can you do?

Even if your company isn't concerned about the obesity epidemic, don't assume you can't promote fitness. With more and more companies implementing on-the-job fitness activities, your request shouldn't be considered unreasonable. If organized activities aren't feasible, your employer might be able to make small changes to encourage fitness. For example, the company cafeteria could offer healthier meals, and adding fruit and dried fruit to vending machines shouldn't cost much.

In many office buildings, staircases are gloomy and unpleasant. If they were repainted, carpeted, and filled with cheerful music, employees might prefer to leave the elevator early and walk the last two flights of stairs. A sign near the stairs explaining the heart and waistline benefits of taking the stairs could remind those who want to exercise but "don't have time" to walk. One study found that placing a sign near stairs and escalators that read "Your heart needs a workout...this is your choice" doubled staircase usage. Sprint, the third-largest long-distance telecommunications company in the U.S., is using a different approach to encourage employee use of the stairs: they installed slow-moving elevators.

If your employer is unwilling to consider incentivizing weight loss, you can suggest an informal competition among colleagues. For example, you could divide your colleagues into two teams, with each person contributing a sum of money. At the start of the day, each member would turn on their pedometer, and at the end of the day, a fair judge would record the steps taken. A week later, the team with the higher total score would win the money.

John couldn't convince her supervisor to set up a fitness program, but she organized a daily walk for some of her colleagues during lunch. She gained support after starting the program by asking them to leave candy at home and not bring it to their desks. She wasn't the only one withdrawing from the coffee break contribution.

Community with physical intelligence

Dr. James Hill, director of the Division of Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, is an expert on the relationship between the environment and obesity. He says, "It's true that people should eat less and exercise more, but the environment we've created makes it difficult to implement... Generations ago, our biological systems functioned very well, but today they don't. Our biological functions haven't changed, but our environment has... When we have an environment where food is everywhere, and when science and technology don't require us to be as physically active, few people can resist the environmental forces that make us obese."

Dr. Hill will be speaking at a conference focusing on the impact of the natural environment (our cities, homes, and workplaces) on our weight. This is a new area of ​​research that could lead to significant changes in the world around us. Some of the changes in political, economic, and urban planning policies will be controversial, but they are certainly worth considering.

Natural environment

Do you live in the suburbs and drive to work? While millions of Americans do, many other industrialized countries do not. In Europe, people typically walk to work or use public transportation, but the journey to the starting point is still on foot. If our grandparents didn't live on farms but worked on them, they probably did too.

While it may seem insignificant, a recent survey of 10,500 Atlanta residents found that those who took public transportation for an extra 30 minutes were 3% more likely to become obese. People who lived less than half a mile from a shopping center were more likely to walk and had a 7% lower chance of obesity. Some suburban homes with lawns and three-car garages, multiple roads leading to shopping centers, schools, and workplaces, and extensive parking facilities may be detrimental to health.

If these findings are supported by further research, they will have profound implications for how we plan cities. If future urban planners consider health impacts when designing new residential areas, they may be able to design housing, shopping, and workplaces closer together, thus promoting walking and reducing the need for driving. For example, the new residential development in Stapleton, Denver, is a multi-purpose community designed for easy walking. The Fruitvale transitional village in Oakland represents a way to transform a dilapidated and declining area into a vibrant new one, building housing and shopping centers close to BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit District) subway stations so that residents can walk and use public transport without having to drive.

A recent New York Times editorial criticized a transportation proposal that acknowledges the link between obesity and driving. The editorial stated, "...at a time when the entire nation is deeply concerned about obesity, this bill seems to be doing everything in its power to ensure that as many Americans as possible continue to sit in their cars." It recommends diverting a large portion of the $30 billion allocated for road construction to building sidewalks and bike lanes.