Pressure Congress for legislation on workplace initiatives, such as mandated vacation time, and tax breaks for healthy behavior.

Get back to vacation! Encouraging employers to give employees time off could do wonders for the nation's health.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Focus on the healthcare reform debate this week moved from raucous town hall meetings to co-ops, as the Obama administration announced that a government-funded public option wasn't a must-have in its overhaul plans, and that it was open to the idea of member-owned healthcare cooperatives.

The lack of a public option could make way for co-ops or some other as-yet-undisclosed alternative, or it could mean that employers will continue to provide a majority of the health insurance in this country, which in turn means that true reform has to start at the workplace.

In a perfect world, employers would provide all their employees with a free gym, organic food in the cafeteria, and massages during lunch, but here are three more realistic programs that employers could institute:

#1. Mandated vacation time. The U.S. is the only developed country that doesn't require employers to give people paid time off. And yet, vacations keep people healthy. A study published earlier this year in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine found that people who take vacations and participate in other leisure-time activities (sports, hobbies, and religious memberships, for example) had smaller waist circumferences and lower blood pressure levels, stress levels, and body mass indexes than people who spent less time indulging themselves in enjoyable nonwork activities. The author of that study also published research in 2000, finding that men at risk for coronary heart disease were less likely to die from that disease, or any other cause, during a nine-year follow-up period, if they took an annual vacation. In May, Representative Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) introduced the "Paid Vacation Act of 2009," which would require companies with more than 100 employees to provide them with paid time off, depending on their employment status and hours worked. Contact your senator or congressman and ask him or her to support the bill or at least include similar provisions in healthcare reform bills.

#2. Free pedometers. Workplace health initiatives have taken all manner of shapes and sizes, ranging from collective weight-loss programs to middle-of-the-day massages. Sadly, studies have found that while 95 percent of companies are offering some type of employee wellness program, only 30 percent of the employees take part, in part because the results might not be immediately visible or tangible. Pedometers are cheap and give people real-time information about how much they're exercising and help drive the point home. Mike Barry, PhD, executive director of the American College of Preventive Medicine, notes that a number of companies have handed out pedometers to all their employees, and have set up friendly workplace competitions to get workers exercising. "Providing tax incentives for these programs, providing support, and sharing success stories will help improve public health and drive down costs in the long run," he says.

#3. Employer-sponsored farmer's markets. Ironically, this is an arena where the healthcare industry is taking charge. Both Duke University Hospital and Kaiser Permanente Colorado have sponsored low-cost farmer's markets in the past year, realizing that neither their employees nor the patients they serve were getting the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Healthy diets lead to fewer illnesses and chronic diseases, which lead to fewer sick days. Both companies note that the cost is negligible; the markets operate only during the growing season and need minimal staffing.