4 company resources you can use to get fit

A healthy employee is happier, more productive, more energetic and takes fewer sick days. As a result, businesses are offering more programs to help their workers track and improve their health. Take full advantage.

Some businesses host health screenings regularly and invite nurses and other health professionals to come to the office and check employees' blood pressure and cholesterol, administer flu shots, perform skin cancer screenings and more.

• Find out when these screenings will take place in your office, and be sure to sign up.
• Everyone with diabetes should get a flu shot every year, and keeping tabs on your blood pressure and cholesterol are especially important if you have diabetes, because of the increased risk of heart attack and stroke that comes with the disease.

Some companies offer reduced fees at the local gym or reimbursement for sports lessons.

• It doesn't hurt to ask, and if your company doesn't offer these incentives yet, maybe you'll inspire them to start.

Your boss knows that happy, healthy employees are more productive employees.

Why wouldn't he or she be interested in your suggestions for improving the workplace, particularly if they don't cost much?

• If the cafeteria offers too many fried foods and not enough vegetables, suggest specific improvements.
• Or come up with ways that the company could make healthy living in the workplace more prevalent — perhaps by organizing walking groups or hosting a guest speaker during lunch hour.

Your career may benefit, too, because you'll be seen as a team player with creative problem-solving skills.

What's the surest way to cut down on the amount of junk food that's brought into the office?

• Engage in a little competition with your co-workers over who can lose the most weight — and put a wager on it, if it's not against office policy.
• You might even organize colleagues into teams, or by department.
• Pit the crew in the mailroom against the staffers in accounting, for example.
• Hold weekly check-in meetings during which you and your teammates offer each other encouragement and weight-loss strategies.

You'll be less likely to indulge in doughnuts or coffee cake at your next morning meeting if you know that your team is counting on you to make healthy choices.

It's in your company's best interest to encourage you to exercise, lose weight and get regular medical checkups. Find out about — or create — opportunities in your workplace.