Is Your Workplace Heart Healthy? (The Guardian : 05/09/2017)
World Heart Day takes place on 29 September every year with a focus on creating heart healthy environments and encouraging us all to reduce our cardiovascular risk and promote heart-health at home, work and play. This is an excellent time to take a look at the effects of cardiovascular disease and what can be done to maintain healthy hearts.
Specialists from the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute have warned that people aged 45 and above in Tanzania face a high risk of developing coronary artery disease, which can cause sudden death. The problem is on the rise as a result of unhealthy eating, physical inactivity, and diabetes.
Many cardiovascular diseases can be prevented with healthy lifestyle habits, healthy spaces and proper management of chronic conditions. The workplace is an ideal setting for improving heart health. To help your employees get started on heart healthy behaviors, you need to make prevention a part of your company culture. Your wellness program should include education and challenges centered on heart health and how to keep certain risk factors under control. Employees may need to help to learn where to begin. Living a heart healthy lifestyle does take some effort because it involves changing daily habits.
In most cases, heart disease and stroke can be prevented by controlling certain risk factors such as diet, physical activity, and overall lifestyle choices. Being heart healthy takes a daily, ongoing effort and company culture can play a huge factor. Here is what your company should be promoting to help your employees get heart healthy:
A Smoke-free Workplace
Smoking increases the risk of developing heart diseases, which is completely avoidable. Smoking cigarettes have been shown to damage the lining of arteries, causing a buildup of fatty material called atherosclerosis. This build up can cause a heart attack or stroke.
Creating a smoke-free workplace and providing smoking cessation options can tremendously help your employees’ heart health.
Heart Healthy Diets
Research has shown that a heart healthy diet can prevent cardiovascular disease and even reverse some damages. Most of us consume too much unhealthy fat and sugar. A variety of nutrient rich foods are needed to maintain a healthy heart.
How about offering heart healthy food options with more fruits and vegetables and less sodium, saturated fat and trans fat for meetings and events to help your employees’ heart health?
Regular Exercise
The heart is a muscle and it needs to be exercised. Being active is extremely important in preventing heart disease and stroke. Regular exercise lowers blood pressure and bad cholesterol. Adults require 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, which is about 30 minutes of exercise, five days a week.
Help your employees get more active during the workday. Encourage walking meetings and walking clubs. Reward employees for their participation. Create challenges to see who can walk the most steps in a day. Create an office space that encourages physical activity like standing desks, exercise balls or an onsite gym. Also be sure to promote regular exercises outside the office as well, such as giving subsidized gym memberships or fitness class coupons.
Your human capital is what makes your company great and their health is an important part of your success. Simple prevention strategies will make it easier for your employees to make healthy choices and lead healthy lives.
Reply back to bhakti@impactafya.com or call +255 754 694 643 with your feedback. We welcome your suggestions for corporate wellness tips you’d like to see covered in our future columns.
Bhakti Shah, MPH is the Founder and Managing Director of ImpactAfya Ltd, collaborating with Workplace Options and Mayo Clinic, USA to provide Corporate Wellness and EAP Solutions in East Africa. Bhakti is also the Advisor for the Africa Business Portal and the Past President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Tanzania.
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