SPL30 LIFESTYLE MEDICINE AS A STRATEGY FOR HEALTH AND PRODUCTIVITY IN THE WORKPLACE
Authors: Borda Gallon Maria Claudia 
Published: July 2024

Annual health care costs in the United States due to obesity are approaching $240 billion. By 2045, the number of people with diabetes is expected to exceed 700 million, with significant increases in all regions of the world. 2.4% of the annual global GDP of the Americas is the annual economic cost of health expenditures and lost productivity due to smoking-attributable diseases. Globally, 4.1 million deaths per year have been attributed to excessive salt/sodium intake, and 3.9 million deaths have been attributed to inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption (WHO data).

Lifestyle medicine is an evidence-based approach that seeks to prevent, treat, and even reverse disease by replacing unhealthy behaviors with healthy ones - such as eating healthy, being physically active, relieving stress, avoiding substance abuse, getting adequate sleep and having a strong emotional support system. Basically, his practice seeks to implement habit changes in six fundamental pillars:

1. Increasing Physical Activity

2. Eating healthy by following a mainly plant-based diet.

3. Discontinue substance abuse

4. Improve sleep habits.

5. Develop strategies to manage stress

6. Forming and maintaining interpersonal relationships

The value proposition of lifestyle medicine is that it enables the body to protect and heal itself through healthy lifestyle choices, as well as educates, guides and supports positive behaviors, but also encourages worker participation by giving them control over their health and inviting self-management of their health; It treats the underlying causes of lifestyle-related diseases, using medications as a complement to therapeutic lifestyle changes, and always considers the patient's home and community environment, which makes lifestyle medicine the perfect complement in the design of occupational health programs.

To start the design of a corporate health program based on the principles of lifestyle medicine, the main recommendation is the deep knowledge of the organization: population, constraints, strengths. And start with a focus area to progressively link the other areas, but in these cases always less is more. The program must have a clear, specific, measurable, achievable, and relevant goal, with compliance indicators and a clear schedule.

In order to propose such a program to the company's leadership team, it is worth mentioning that a company that invests in health programs focused on improving lifestyles obtains a return on investment of 3.27 USD for every dollar invested in wellness programs, in addition to the reduction of absenteeism costs up to 251 USD per employee per year, not to mention that companies with sustained health and wellness programs have better business results. On the other hand, employees benefit in their health when they participate in such programs, experiencing positive changes in a short period of time, studies show that employees who participate in health programs:

• 59% drink more water.

• 53% increased their level of physical activity

• 51% improved their diet.

• 23% lost weight.

• 23% reported having more energy.

Thus, lifestyle changes enable workers, healthcare workers and leadership personnel to achieve wellness and business sustainability. But they also improve their capitalization rates and are more financially attractive.