WORKPLACE WELLNESS PROGRAMS

Many companies support employee wellness programs that incorporate a healthy balance between physical activity and smart nutrition into the workplace routine. On-site fitness centers, in-house weight loss programs and incentives for employees who achieve and maintain healthy lifestyles are a few examples.

ALABAMA
ACIPCO, a pipe-making company in Birmingham, has an onsite fitness center and health clinic for its 2,300 employees, and pays workers a bonus of up to $200 to lower their cholesterol and lose weight.

Engineering firm BE&K Inc. in Birmingham has a fitness center on its premises and gives subsidies for workers to participate in fitness activities and Weight Watcher programs. It also offers healthful entrees in its company cafeteria.

Pearce Bevill Leesburg & Moore, an accounting firm in Birminghan, has launched a contest in which participants pool money and the winner shedding the highest percentage of body fat claims the pot.

Source: Birmingham News, 2/8/04

CALIFORNIA
American Apparel, a T-shirt manufacturer that employs 1,300 people in Los Angeles and Redwood City, provides subsidized healthy lunches, and is building an on-site health and wellness facility, which will offer drop-in health counseling as well as exercise classes to be held before and after business hours and during lunch breaks. During the recent Los Angeles transit strike, American Apparel bought 45 bicycles and loaned them to their employees.

Source: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040121/law071_1.html

COLORADO
Mercy Medical Center, located in Durango, Colorado, began its employee wellness program in 1992 by offering health screenings for employees. The program, which costs $2 per pay period for employees who want to participate, has evolved to include a variety of activities and classes. About 120 out of the 730 employees are signed up.

Source: Durango Herald 1/21/03

FLORIDA
The Miami office of Eastman Kodak contracts with South Florida yoga instructor Arthur Ackerman to run a weekly Lunchtime Yoga class for its 70 employees. The cost is minimal: $10 per class, per person.

In Deerfield Beach, Florida, Seawood Builders gave its 22 employees discounts to area gyms and started a fitness contest with a $1,500 cash prize to the employee whose health improved the most.

Source: Miami Herald, 10/13/03

ILLINOIS
Caterpillar, located in Peoria and Aurora, Illinois, has been recognized for its Healthy Balance program that provides employees resources to identify lifestyle choices that impact health and also suggests actions that can be taken to reduce health risks.

Source: http://healthproject.stanford.edu/koop/caterpillar/description.html

WEST VIRGINIA
The Huntington Police Department, the St. Mary’s Medical Center and Cabell Huntington Hospital offer employees access to onsite fitness facilities.

Source: Herald-Dispatch, 10/1/03