How do you reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease at work?

Employees with a healthy lifestyle and the right motivation have the necessary vitality to take on challenges and pursue goals. A healthy lifestyle means eating healthy, getting enough exercising, not smoking, and avoiding alcohol. In addition, mental health also has a major influence on employee vitality.

An unhealthy lifestyle can promote certain diseases, which in turn increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. For example, unhealthy eating and too little exercise can lead to obesity. Smoking can cause high blood pressure. Excess weight and high blood pressure are two factors that significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Cholesterol is a risk factor that is still clouded in a lot of mystery. Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is one of the most common hereditary diseases. About 1 in 250 people suffer from FH. But because cholesterol is often only examined at a later age, this hereditary variant risks staying under the radar for a long time. FH is therefore often the cause of cardiovascular disease at a young age. A healthy lifestyle is important for everyone in order to control cholesterol, especially for people with FH.
 

Cardiovascular diseases may have a strong impact on the functioning of your organisation. Loss of work days due to cardiovascular disease is often prolonged and even permanent, in severe cases. But how can you, as an employer, help to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease among employees? By taking action in time as an enmployer.

1. Encourage a healthy lifestyle
Encourage exercising during breaks, provide plenty of fruit and other healthy foods, offer assistance to those employees who are trying to quit smoking, etc. As an employer, make it clear that a healthy lifestyle is important to you and anchor it in your health policy. Those incentives can only improve your employees’ motivation.

2. Organise preventive medical check-ups
The importance of preventive check-ups is still strongly underestimated. The sooner risk factors are identified, the greater the chance of preventing the development of cardiovascular diseases. As an employer, you can raise that awareness among employees and offer those check-ups yourself.