Sitting is the new smoking.

Surprised? Let me present a statistic that I came across –

‘In the past year, 5 million deaths can be attributed to smoking. On the other hand, 5.3 million people died of inactivity.’

Health is no longer something we can afford to ignore. We spend over 8 hours at work and another 6-7 hours sleeping. Just how much time of activity does that leave us with considering the fact that the rest of it might very well be spent in front of our laptops or the idiot box? Did you know that every new gadget that you bring into your house adds close to 8kgs to the collective family weight?

It is now that organizations have to recognize the dangers of neglecting health and do something about it. Stepathalon is one organization that has recognized this space and ventured into it is. They are a global wellness company which has come up with a yearly competition which urges people to take a minimum of 10,000 steps a day over 100 days. Organizations register with this company to participate in the yearly ‘Stepathalon’ (this year from 12^th Sept 2013 to 20^th December 2013) in teams of 5. They then log their steps with the help of a pedometer provided by the company and participate in the virtual race.

So how else can the race be leveraged upon apart from the most obvious benefit? What if you have people from 5 different locations form a team for the race?  Cross geography employee bonding has always been an issue and this seems to be a brilliant way to tackle it. 100 days of partnership over a race in bound to forge stronger bonds.

Keeping your employees fit can have numerous side benefits. How seriously does your organization take an employee’s health?