Sofidel takes part in Workplace Health Promotion, the WHO programme for promoting healthy lifestyles in workplaces
Today an event took place dedicated to the theme of correct nutrition for the Group’s Italian employees, organised in collaboration with Milan’s Gruppo Ospedaliero San Donato Foundation.
The Sofidel Group, a paper manufacturing company known for the Regina brand in particular, confirms its commitment to promote health and spreading good practice in workplaces.
The Lucca-based group, which has always been attentive to the health of its staff, has recently joined Workplace Health Promotion, the programme from the World Health Organization to promote healthy lifestyles.
Workplace Health Promotion – promoted by the Tuscany Region in collaboration with the local health and other authorities and the INAIL (Italian workplace accident insurance institute) – concerns the adoption of good practice in terms of nutrition, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, road safety and sustainable mobility, well-being at work and work–life balance. According to this programme, the context of work is a potential environment for acquiring healthy practices, not solely in relation to risks connected with work. The programme therefore provides incentives to encourage companies to offer workers opportunities for raising awareness and acquiring information to improve their health, reducing risk factors.
Among the initiatives put forward (including a series of meeting to explores the themes of the programme), an event entitled “Correct nutrition improves our health and well-being” has been organised today at the Porcari headquarters for the Sofidel Group’s Italian employees. Carried out in collaboration with the Gruppo Ospedaliero San Donato Foundation of Milan, and held by Dr Lelio Morricone and Dr Alexis Malavazos, nutritionists at the Policlinico San Donato clinical research hospital, the meeting proposes in-depth focus on the subject of correct nutrition in and beyond the workplace. Particular emphasis has been placed on the potential harm resulting from the combination of sedentary habits and nutritionally inadequate diet – rich in added sugars, salt and low-quality fats – which contribute to the onset of obesity and chronic degenerative diseases.
The Gruppo Ospedaliero San Donato Foundation, a no-profit organisation with the aim of promoting scientific research and disease prevention within the hospitals of the Gruppo Ospedaliero San Donato, has developed a specific sustainable nutrition programme, EAT Educational, which Sofidel has joined. Part of this collaboration, also for extending the scope of the programme to families, are the distribution of the “Feed Your Health” and “The EAT Recipes” publications to employees, which, respectively, contain information to promote knowledge of food and nutritional principles and aim to offer dishes that are nutritionally correct and taste good.
The coming months will also see the placement of “Feed Your Health” food and drink vending machines in the Group’s plants, representing healthy alternatives to junk food. These machines are characterised by a ban on added sugars, which favour the accumulation of abdominal adipose tissue and the onset of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, and low-quality fats, normally used to make mass-produced snacks.
The Workplace Health Promotion project follows on from and complements the Alcohol Free Truck initiative launched by Sofidel to raise awareness of the risks connected to alcohol abuse and dedicated specifically to monitoring the blood alcohol level of hauliers entering its plants.