By Business & Finance 
Former Irish rugby player David Wallace pictured with employees at global job site Indeed
Over 130 companies are supporting their employees to become more physically active during the working day by embarking on a nationwide workplace fitness initiative.
The Aviva Workplace Fitness Challenge has been developed by experts from Aviva, DCU, IT Carlow with the support of the Nutrition and Health Foundation to encourage companies and their employees to make small changes which could have a big impact on their overall health and fitness.
Companies participating in the challenge include Indeed, Storm Technology, Daft, Marks & Spencer and Salesforce.
Over 40,000 people have downloaded the innovative Move Your MET fitness app since it was first showcased as a way of measuring fitness on RTÉ’s Operation Transformation at the beginning of January.
The app allows participants to measure their current fitness levels, monitor how they are improving, and benchmark themselves against the general population.
The concept has been supported by two of the country’s leading experts in health and physical activity, professor Niall Moyna, of DCU’s School of Health and Human Performance and Dr Sarah Kelly, IT Carlow.
Professor Moyna said: “The Aviva Workplace Fitness Challenge is designed to get people talking and to encourage and entice both employers and employees to think about what they could do differently to be more active, fitter and healthier.”
James Parker, CEO of Aviva Health, added: “The programme isn’t just about celebrating who is the fittest and fastest. We want to reach employees who aren’t as, inspiring them to think about their current level of fitness by measuring their MET and to take simple, attainable steps to become more active and healthier in the long-term. Many find it hard to find time in their hectic lifestyles and to keep motivated. That’s where we believe the workplace has a role to play and by creating a programme for all employees, we can encourage small changes to take place.”
The Aviva Health Workplace Fitness Challenge starts today and runs until March 16th and the app is available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
