Physical Activity, Healthy Eating and Healthier Weight: A Toolkit For Employers
Employers have a legal duty to provide safe workplaces that do not damage an employee’s health. However, many of the places we work and spend a significant amount of time, discourage physical activity and encourage us to make less healthy choices. Working in partnership with employees, employers can take a positive, proactive, preventative approach to support weight management and encourage greater physical activity. Physical Activity, Healthy Eating and Healthier Weight: A Toolkit For Employers lists free resources that will help organisations, whatever their size, achieve a healthier working environment.
- About a third of adults in England are damaging their health through a lack of physical activity.1
- One in four women and one in five men in England are defined as inactive, doing less than 30 minutes of moderate physical activity each week.2
- The cost of an unhealthy workforce to the UK taxpayer has been estimated at over £60 billion per year.3
- Employees who are in good health are less likely to need time off work and are likely to be more productive.4
Typically, adults in full time work spend about one-third of their waking hours at work, so the workplace is the ideal environment in which to raise awareness of these issues. Physical Activity, Healthy Eating and Healthier Weight, includes a checklist of actions for employers to take, under the broad themes of being prepared, encouraging physical exercise and healthy eating, and providing knowledge and training. Good physical health is closely linked to good mental health. Initiatives designed to encourage physical activity and healthy eating should also focus on mental as well as physical health.
Physical Activity, Healthy Eating and Healthier Weight: A Toolkit For Employers is part of the Business in the Community (BITC) and Public Health England (PHE) toolkit series which consolidate the best evidence, practical actions and employer case studies.
View and download the other seven toolkits in this series,
developed in partnership with Public Health England
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Mental Health For Employers Toolkit
The Mental Health For Employers Toolkit is Business in the Community’s flagship publication and helps employers pick out the most valuable resources relating to mental health and develop an approach to a healthy workplace that really works.
Physical Activity, Healthy Eating and Healthier Weight: A Toolkit For Employers
Physical Activity, Healthy Eating and Healthier Weight: A Toolkit For Employers. This toolkit shows how working in partnership with employees, employers can take a positive, proactive, preventative approach to support weight management and encourage greater physical activity.
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References
1. NHS Digital; (2017); Health Survey for England 2016; available at https://digital.nhs.uk
2. Public Health England; (2016); Health Matters: Getting Every Adult Active Every Day; available at https://www.gov.uk
3. Public Health England; (2016); Health and work: infographics; available at https://www.gov.uk
4. Business in the Community; (2018); Musculoskeletal Health Toolkit for Employers; available at https://www.bitc.org.uk