Opinion: Healthy Youth = Healthy Workforce

This Opinion piece appears in the Nov. 11 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

By Paul Thompson

Chairman and Founder

Transportation Insight LLC

The Presidential Youth Fitness Program announced by the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition during a recent function in Washington, D.C., provides a model for fitness education that includes the use of a health-related fitness assessment and educational and motivational tools that support educators and encourage students to adopt an active lifestyle.

As a sponsor of these events, our company believes the goal of healthier youth today provides the foundation for a healthier and more safety-minded adult workforce tomorrow, with corresponding benefits to the corporate bottom line.

Indeed, the President’s Council is a model of how partnerships among public, private and nonprofit entities can produce exponentially better results in the form of a healthy adult workforce than solitary entities working alone. As we see it, the Presidential Youth Fitness Program offers each young person involved a chance to begin a personal, continuous-improvement journey.

We also see a direct connection to our own logistics and transportation industries, not only in the future, but right now. Employers realize the benefits of a healthy workforce and help to wean commercial-vehicle drivers away from the stereotypical overweight, underexercised trucker lifestyle and steer them toward healthier choices. That’s something stressed-out logistics professionals also can use as they deal with workplace pressures and problems by relying on too much caffeine, too little sleep and too much low-nutrition fast food.

This isn’t pie (or fat-free yogurt) in the sky. With long hours and high stress levels commonplace among logistics and transportation industry workers, many employers and trade associations already are providing opportunities for those employees to pursue personal continuous improvement programs to elevate their overall quality of life.

From encouraging employees to eat a healthy diet and include physical activity in their daily routines to providing outlets for associates to improve their spiritual and emotional health, many logistics and transportation companies have taken bold steps to encourage healthy lifestyles across the entire lifespan.

For example, many companies are hiring wellness coaches to help employees pursue continuous-improvement programs. These programs — including the one we have implemented — empower employees to develop their own fitness plans, improve their diet and regularly monitor their health.

To enhance our own wellness initiatives, we encourage our associates to participate in physical activities by partially subsidizing the cost of personal and family memberships at the local YMCA. And like an increasing number of logistics-related employers, we provide insurance premium discounts to employees who make steps toward improving their physical health.

Many industry trade associations encourage companies to participate in proactive wellness programs. For example, many major motor carriers participate in the Truckload Carriers Association-sponsored “Lean for Life On-the-Road” weight-loss challenge, in which drivers follow a 10-week program designed by the Lindora Clinic, a leading clinical weight-management provider.

The weight-loss program stresses a low-carbohydrate, low-fat, moderate-protein menu plan in conjunction with exercise, nutrition education and lifestyle changes.

Initiatives such as these create positive energy throughout the workforce by promoting a healthy and active lifestyle, but more important, they are indirectly improving safety on American highways. Healthy drivers appear to be more alert, with better reaction times to on-the-road emergencies.

What’s more, while physical health is the focus of many wellness programs, increasing numbers of companies are participating in a multitude of humanitarian events to foster the spiritual and emotional well-being of their associates.

Many in the logistics industry are members of the American Logistics Aid Network, an association of supply chain businesses that help to rapidly and efficiently locate and move goods from suppliers to communities affected by disaster.

At the community level, associates in our organization donate their time and talents to Samaritan’s Feet, giving those less fortunate in our community and around the world new shoes and a message of hope. Efforts such as these provide outlets for employees to build a culture of service and accountability to clients, community and self.

The most important benefit of personal continuous improvement programs is the alignment of common values to create a continuous improvement mindset across companies. This way of thinking will naturally migrate very quickly from within the company to clients’ organizations. Logistics and transportation professionals know that a healthy, streamlined supply chain can have monumental implications for a company’s overall health. More important, an optimized supply chain can create a tremendous competitive advantage.

The connection to the health of entire companies and their support of programs such as the PYFP that encourage lifelong fitness and physical activity for America’s youth is real. Anything companies can do to encourage the health of their greatest future asset will have an impact reaching far more than to their bottom line.

Anyone who has tried to help adult workers unlearn bad eating and exercising habits can attest to it being easier and more reliable to teach young people healthy routines now through programs such as the PYFP — supported by companies ultimately hoping to benefit from an energetic and fit workforce.

Research shows that children who practice good health early in life will be more successful because they maintain higher school attendance rates, are better able to learn, exhibit higher self-esteem and have a lower risk of developing chronic diseases.

Young people who learn early in their lives to look for ways to improve continuously by participating in wellness programs not only will be healthier, they also are likely to be more successful in their careers and entrepreneurial endeavors. By extension, a healthier workforce will lead to more successful companies — and a more successful America.

Transportation Insight LLC is a global logistics provider. The company’s corporate headquarters are in Hickory, N.C.