3 Corporate Wellness Program Ideas

Corporate wellness programs at work can be a great opportunity to learn and connect with your coworkers.

While you can't change behavior all at once, leaning on choice architecture, you can make it easier for people to make healthy decisions on their own.

Here are three wellness activities for groups you might want to attend yourself.

1. How to Stroll Grocery Stores for Your Fitness Goals

All carts were not created equal. Foods that contain more nutrients per gram including fruits, vegetables and whole grains are associated with positive health outcomes. Often, people trying to change their habits focus on what they need to leave out of their carts, this is a mistake.

Changing habits is about providing yourself with other options to compete with your current choices.

With that in mind, here is a shopping experience that can help teach:

1. Take a trip to a local fast food restaurant and a grocery store and provide a visual demonstration of what $20 will purchase at each location.
2. A follow up can be planned for a trip to the grocery store. A team building competition of who can create the tastier meal given $20 can be planned.
3. You can create team themed recipes based off of the foods for people to try out at a later date.

For an extra step, you can create a resource spelling out how to complete the process. Complete a meal given food items and cost and checklists with healthy foods can be provided.

You can follow this trip to the grocery store up with the next idea for a fun workshop.

2. How to cook like Fit Women and Men

You might take some of those foods from your trip and make a meal with them. You might also just start at this step by providing a mini pantry for people to shop from.

Depending on your workforce, you might be surprised at the number of people who don't know the basics of cooking. Go ahead and show people!

Following a recipe is a something we can all do. Many of us skip reading the instructions, it'll be fun to see who makes that mistake.

Choose a recipe and teach people how to make it. An easy recipe might be a no bake 5 ingredient protein bar. Quality protein bars are hard to find.

If your workplace involves a lot of travel, you'll want to be sure that people can eat well on the fly. This next wellness program idea.

3.How to Eat on the Road

A visual can be provided for calories in a cheeseburger vs calories in healthy foods. After you've clearly demonstrated that difference, which everyone knew in the first place, show them what to do next.

Play a game where you bring in common food items from places you might be able to drive to like:

• A gas station
• A convenience store
• A grocery store

They can use their problem solving skills to decide what they need to eat given a "nutritional budget".

Ex. You weigh 150 lbs and need to eat 25 grams of protein in under 500 calories, do you pick:

• Almonds- 14g fat, 6g carbohydrate, 6g protein, 163 calories per 23 almonds
• Chocolate Milk- 8g fat, 26g carbohydrate, 8g protein, 209 calories per cup
• "Protein Bar"- 10 g fat, 40g carbohydrate, 20g protein, 331 calories per bar

You can change the question or add layers to it. One might be time to eat or prepare a meal. Strategies can be provided for employees with busy schedules. Teams can be challenged and formed to eat the “healthiest” meal.

Don't stop here come up with some ideas of your own!

Here are Three Wellness Activities for Groups

1. Group Shopping Trips - Give people healthier options to compete with current behaviors they want to change.
2. Cooking - You remember college, not all of us can cook.
   
3. Travel nutrition - show people how to find healthier options on the road. Airport pizza gets old, real quick.