Feasibility and Acceptability of Policies and Environmental Strategies for Improving Physical Activity and Healthy Eating in Japanese Small and Medium Corporations.

Abstract

We assessed the implementation status of policies and environmental strategies for increasing physical activity (PA) and healthy eating (HE) in small and medium corporations to identify feasible and acceptable interventions. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire was administered to 655 small and medium corporations to determine whether they implemented PA (18 items) and HE (17 items) policies and environmental strategies and, if not, their intention to do so in the future. We compared differences in the implementation and intention to implement rate by corporation size. The implementation and intention rates of costly items for PA and HE were low, regardless of corporation size, but were significantly lower in small corporations than in medium corporations. To overcome cost barriers, employee participation must be encouraged, and employee knowledge of PA and HE must be improved.