Wellness Advisory Committee

Thursday, September 25 [1997] 2:12 PM EDT

Fitness Programs Cut Sick Days

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- People who exercise as little as once a week in employee fitness programs average nearly five fewer sick days per year, reports a study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Dutch researchers found that high participation in the workplace program (at least once per week) resulted in a drop in annual sick days from an average of 10.1 in the previous year to 5.4 days.

"Low participation" (less than once weekly) and "no participation" groups showed no significant change in their number of sick days compared with the previous year.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Maastricht in The Netherlands, included 884 workers in three workplaces: the police force, a chemical company, and a bank.

"All three work sites received the same employee fitness program," state the researchers. "Within this program, employees could participate in a physical exercise program that allowed them to perform supervised fitness exercises twice a week."

Starting with warm-ups, stretches, and calisthenics, the program continued with "cardiovascular work-out, strength work-out, cooling down, and stretching." Total work-out time was one hour.

"Although the work sites differed substantially in the distribution of age, sex, and pre-intervention sick days, the relation between exercise level and change in sick days was comparable at all three work sites," the researchers state. "These results strengthen the belief that high activity can indeed have a positive effect on reduced absenteeism."

The report's authors acknowledge that participation in workplace exercise programs may involve "self-selection"; that is, those who participate regularly are the ones who need exercise least, and are healthier to begin with, as shown by their low absenteeism when there was no workplace fitness program.

Still, the researchers point to potential health benefits even for this group.

"The study showed that even when self-selection in the participation in an employee fitness program seems present, there is potential for a great deal to be gained from the participation of this self-selected group," they state.

"However, the benefit in changed sick days would probably be even bigger if employees with more pre-intervention sick days would also exercise regularly in the program."

SOURCE: Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (1997;39(9):827-831)