RALEIGH
We're fat and lazy in North Carolina -- at least that's what two new studies claim.
The Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently ranked the state 10th in the nation in obesity, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just reported that one in four North Carolinians had not exercised in the past month. That translates into a ranking of fourth in the nation for inactivity.
Blame the heat, blame air conditioning, blame our move away from agriculture and factory work to cushy sit-on-our-butts office jobs. Blame the office bakers and Southern cooking.
You can spend all day blaming and complaining, or you could do something about it.
Ben Roberts, the owner of Foundation Fitness in Greensboro, decided to do something.
He teamed up with Strategic Employee Benefit Services, which provides employee benefits, to issue a workplace fitness challenge, and he offered to bring his fitness regime to 1,000 Tarheels in the Triad and the Triangle in one week.
"I hear ‘I don't have time in the morning' and ‘I don't have time in the evening,'" Roberts said. One week last month Roberts hit the road between Greensboro and Raleigh. By midweek he had already exercised with about 300 workers. His goal was to show people that in just 15 minutes it's possible to get your heart pumping and start on a path toward a lifestyle change.
That's what he's after: a permanent change toward exercise and healthy eating.
The benefits for workers: better health, better sleep, less stress.
The benefits for companies: lower absenteeism, higher productivity, less turnover.
Larger companies in the Triangle rather famously offer a variety of such health and wellness benefits. Cisco, for example, has a state-of-the art gym for employees. Others such as IBM offer cash incentives for employees to lose weight or stop smoking.
Some smaller and midsize companies may think they don't have the space or money to offer fitness programs for their workers, but Leah Taylor, a wellness coordinator for Strategic Employee Benefit Services, said there are many things they can do.
"My role is to educate and make clients aware of what a wellness program can be," she said.
She works with companies in the Triangle and the Triad and said many of them don't have a budget for fitness but still manage to make it a priority.
Roberts' challenge definitely raised awareness at Catering Works, said general manager James Flynn.
The Raleigh company has about 35 employees, and everyone from the top down participated in Roberts' workout.
The company plans to keep the momentum going either through a formal program or something as simple as encouraging workers to take a 10-minute exercise break.
Flynn said Roberts taught them exercises that anyone could do anywhere.
"That's what was nice about it," Flynn said. "You don't need a gym; you can stand at your desk."
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