Prof Donal O’Shea, Clinical Lead for Obesity, HSE, Karen Lennon and Pauline McKeown, Coolmine Therapeutic Centre, and Tim Collins, CEO, Irish Heart Foundation.
Prof Donal O’Shea, Clinical Lead for Obesity, HSE, Karen Lennon and Pauline McKeown, Coolmine Therapeutic Centre, and Tim Collins, CEO, Irish Heart Foundation.
View More ImagesDUBLIN 15 organisations are leading the way in heart health after winning Irish Heart Foundation Workplace Awards.
Blanchardstown CTC picked up a Silver award in the Healthy Eating category while the Daughters of Charity Disability Support Services in Clonsilla was presented with a Bronze.
In the Active@Work category Coolmine Therapeutic Centre and Corduff Primary Care Centre both won Bronze awards.
The Irish Heart Foundation has been boosting the heart health of almost half a million employees in more than 400 companies nationwide for over 20 years through the annual workplace Awards.
The foundation is promoting its message that better productivity starts with a healthy workplace through the charity’s flagship health programme, which recognises efforts to improve healthy eating practices and physical activity.
Tim Collins, CEO of the Irish Heart Foundation, presented this year’s awards.
“The Irish Heart Foundation leads the fight to save lives and make life better for those suffering from heart disease and stroke,” he said.
“The good news is that 80 per cent of premature heart disease and stroke is preventable through lifestyle change.
“This represents a huge opportunity to positively influence people’s cardiovascular risk though encouraging and supporting active living, healthy eating and other healthy behaviours.
“The workplace is an ideal setting for health promotion and the promotion of physical activity as a positive health behaviour.
“Our workplace programme has been the flagship of our health promotion initiatives for two decades and it’s very heartening to see companies receiving our Healthy Eating and Active@Work Awards and contributing greatly to the effort.”
Research shows that sitting for long periods is associated with increased risk for heart disease and stroke, even if individuals are regularly physically active.
A third of premature heart disease has been associated with poor diets alone.
A quarter of the food eaten by adults is prepared and cooked outside the home, so workplaces can play a key role in offering healthier food choices and providing an environment that supports its employees to move more throughout the day.
Professor Donal O’Shea, Clinical Lead for Obesity with the HSE, said initiatives like the Irish Heart Foundation’s awards are crucial to creating a healthier environment for adults.
“We are all too well aware that physical inactivity and unhealthy eating are now the biggest drivers of illness in the developed world and underpin the doubling of obesity rates in Ireland over the last 30 years,” he said.
“There is no magic solution and we must get the whole of Government, whole of industry and whole of society to come alive and take obesity on.”
To get support from the Irish Heart Foundation in setting up a workplace wellness programme for 2018, email Enda Campbell at ecampbell@irishheart.ie or call 01-668 5001.
