Cancer Prevention Tips for Employees

It’s a scary statistic: About one in two American men and one out of three American women will have some type of cancer at some point during their lifetime.

The emotional and physical pain of this life threatening disease affects family, friends, personal lives, and it also has a major impact on the workplace.

More than one third (36%) say that as a result of having cancer, they were unable to do their job as well as they could before, and one in five say having cancer had a negative impact on how they were viewed in terms of their ability to do their job.

The estimated total cost of cancer is more than $219 billion per year in healthcare expenses and lost productivity.

Look around your office: Millions of people are living with cancer or have been cured of the disease.

Although no prevention measure is guaranteed to stop cancer, there are steps to take to help decrease the risk.

Help your employees prevent cancer with the following tips from the American Cancer Society:

Maintain a healthy weight throughout life:

• Balance caloric intake with physical activity.
• Achieve and maintain a healthy BMI.

Adopt a physically active lifestyle.

• Adults: Engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity five or more days of the week; 45 to 60 minutes of intentional physical activity is recommended.

Eat a healthy diet.

• Choose foods and beverages in amounts that help achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
• Eat five or more servings of a variety of vegetables and fruits each day.
• Choose whole grains in preference to processed (refined) grains.
• Limit consumption of processed and red meats.

If you drink alcoholic beverages, limit consumption.

• Drink no more than one drink per day for women, or two per day for men.