News :
State Backs Fitness During Workday
RED NOVA, July 6 2005 -- Different state agencies are forming
their own clubs to promote healthful lifestyles among employees.
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Instead of relegating physical fitness and good nutrition
to things employees must do in their spare time, the state is undertaking
to integrate healthy lifestyle habits into the workday.
"Adults spend most of their waking hours in the worksite,
which makes it a key channel for health promotion and disease prevention
activities," Health Department director David Gifford said in a
news release announcing the "Get Fit, Rhode Island!" initiative,
which Governor Carcieri and his wife, Suzanne, are co-chairing.
Each state department has already appointed a volunteer
"wellness champion" who has surveyed department employees'
program requests. The Department of Labor and Training has begun holding
twice-weekly yoga classes, drawing employees from that department and
from Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals and from Elderly Affairs.
Registration for a Department of Administration yoga class filled up
immediately, the release said.
Employees in the Department of Human Services are forming
walking clubs that meet during the lunch hour and after work.
The departments of Health, Environmental Management and
Administration will collaborate to host a farmers' market each Thursday
from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., beginning July 14, on the front lawn of the
Department of Administration building at One Capitol Hill.
"Research has shown that, in addition to lower health-care
costs for employers and employees, employees who participate in on-site
wellness programs are happier and more productive," the governor
said in the release. "As an employer, we have an obligation to
make it easier and more accessible for our employers to improve their
health."
The state's new wellness director, Anne Marie Connolly,
will coordinate the campaign, and the Department of Health will manage
it.
The University of Rhode Island will provide advisers from
its faculty and staff in the fields of exercise physiology, nutrition,
behavior modification, nursing and health psychology.
"We are putting the expertise and the many resources
of the University of Rhode Island into play to help us all live healthier
lives," URI President Robert L. Carothers said.
(source : www.rednova.com)
