The effect of a physical and a combined health promotion intervention programme on some selected health indicators of South African colliery executives

Abstract

In many countries the focus of the employer’s health policy has shifted from the emphasis of treating the disease to the preventative paradigm, which focuses more on the promotion of employees’ health. Various ramifications of wellness strategies, claiming positive results can be found in the literature. The purpose of this study was to compare a conventional physical fitness programme to a physical fitness programme enriched with health promotion activities. In this study 143 male executives from 5 collieries, aged 26-58 years ( = 41.7, ± 7.98 years) participatedas an availability, non-randomized sample. The subjects were then randomly stratified into a control (C) group (n=66) who was subjected to a conventional physical fitness intervention and an experimental (Exp) group (n=77) who followed a physical fitness as well as a health promotion regimen for 32 weeks. Assessments were done at baseline (before starting), 16 weeks and 32 weeks. The following statistically significant improvements were found: aerobic fitness (Exp at 16 and 32weeks), shoulder/arm strength/endurance (Exp at 32 weeks, and C at 16 and 32 weeks), abdominal strength /endurance (C at 16 and 32 weeks), flexibility (Exp at 16 and 32 weeks), BMI (C at 16 and 32 weeks) Systolic (C at 16 and 32 weeks) and diastolic (C at 16 weeks and Exp at 32 weeks) blood pressure at rest. No change was found in total cholesterol concentration. No additional improvements thus occurredfrom week 16 to week 32.