Here’s another step toward lowering your company’s health claim costs:
E-mail employees short weekly notes encouraging them to make healthy choices.
It really works, found a recent Kaiser Permanente Division of Research study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Messages sent in the study to a small intervention group suggested workers:
- eat fruit for a snack three times per week
- walk 10 minutes each day at lunch time, and
- walk to the store instead of driving.
The results: After a 16-week trial period, the intervention group was more physically active, ate more fruits and veggies and reduced their fat intake — compared to a control group, which wasn’t sent the e-mail messages.
And these changes had a lasting effect four months after the intervention ended, according to the study.
