Wellness Plans : Health Promotion Programs – Focus on Exercise Plans.

Advantages of Exercise Plans

Exercise lowers weight, lowers risks of heart attack and stroke, helps to control blood pressure and diabetes, and improves mood. Studies increasingly show that exercise might also help reduce the occurrence of certain types of cancer.

Researchers at the Centers for Illness Control and Prevention (CDC) recently documented another major advantage –  exercise improves the health of the nation’s medical care expenditures.3 As reported by the CDC, physically active person incur $865 less annually in healthcare costs than inactive people .

Dr. Michael Moore, vice president and chief medical director at Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, maintains that exercise is the most effective tool in health maintenance. “If you might prescribe exercise in a pill, it would be the number-one prescribed treatment in the world,” he said.

In step with Dr. Moore’s prescription, nearly one-third of United States businesses help personnel pay for fitness club memberships, according to an Associated Press report. Subsidizing fitness club memberships is just one way businesses encourage active lifestyles.

Popular fitness-forward programs –  

• Begin a business softball or volleyball league.

• Compile and distribute information about opportunities to join athletic groups in your community.

• Give partial or complete reimbursement for exercise facility memberships.

• Hold aerobics, karate, yoga or other kinds of fitness courses onsite.

• Provide extended lunch hours for personnel who commit to lunchtime fitness plans.

• Introduce an on-site fitness facility that is free, or available at a nominal cost, to workforce and their families.

• Conduct on-site health fairs that include fitness demonstrations and promote fitness activities and resources.