Is Work Keeping Us from Acting Healthy? How Workplace Barriers and Facilitators Impact Nutrition and Exercise Behaviors

Details

• Personal Author:
  Alexander K ; Mazzola JJ ; Moore JT
• Description:
  The purpose of this study was to identify common barriers and facilitators to healthy nutrition and exercise behaviors in the workplace and examine their relationships to those actual daily health behaviors. We utilized a concurrent embedded mixed methods approach to collect data from 93 participants over the span of four days. Participants reported 2.80 nutrition and 3.28 exercise barriers on average over the 4 days, while reporting 2.93 nutrition and 1.98 exercise facilitators in the same timeframe. Results indicated that workload and temptations around the office prevented nutritious eating; exercise behaviors were frequently hindered by workload. The most commonly mentioned eating facilitator was proper planning, while having time to exercise facilitated physical activity. Furthermore, the number of barriers reported negatively related to their respective health behaviors (i.e., more nutrition barriers translated to poorer nutrition habits) and facilitators were positively related to them, both overall and more so on the specific day they were reported. The implications of these finding show the importance of barriers/facilitators in the workplace and aid in the creation of more targeted health promotion that could increase positive employee health behaviors by eliminating common barriers and enhancing facilitators. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Behavior Diet Health Promotion Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Barriers Exercise Facilitators Health Promotion Nutrition Physical Exercise Physical Health Worker Health
• ISSN:
  1532-3005
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Colorado ; Florida ; Illinois ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 8
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  479-489
• Volume:
  33
• Issue:
  5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20063566
• Citation:
  Stress Health 2017 Dec; 33(5):479-489
• Contact Point Address:
  Joseph J. Mazzola, Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave. AUD 827-C, Chicago, IL 60605
• Email:
  jmazzola@roosevelt.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  University of Illinois at Chicago
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Stress and Health
• End Date:
  20290630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ae6a2bc018ff2b952f9eaaedd4c46fdcddc7e9ada3522e7c1d37bfed930c09f9cd85cc86064d559536d65f9ae58d85f7e01dac2ef2ea20b32ef9658b64a77b16
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/222153/cdc_222153_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 255.15 KB ]