Monday, September 22, 2003		Feature

Geeks fight PC fatigue
Imran Quereshi

AFTER providing banking solutions and services, IT professionals at I-Flex, Bangalore, are now busy making different types of salads, a manifestation of the health consciousness that appears to be sweeping India’s IT sector.

Employees of the banking solutions company are exchanging health information on the intranet, attending lectures by medical specialists, trying to maintain the correct posture at their desks and doing exercises to avoid health problems.

Health consciousness grew manifold in the company after a health check-up showed that 32.68 per cent of I-Flex employees were overweight in the Mumbai office, 5.45 per cent were obese in the Chennai office, and 20.90 per cent of the staff in Bangalore had high body mass index and high blood pressure.

The study covered 820 of the 2,300 employees across the country. It clearly showed that the sedentary lifestyle of the typical software engineer was beginning to show up in an unhealthy fashion.

"The average age of our employees is 27 years. We thought it is important to create consciousness about health issues so that there are no early burnouts," says Peter Yorke, senior manager, corporation communications. "What is interesting is that attendance at the lectures by medical specialists is big," he points out.

Incidents of carpel-tunnel syndrome, the wrist problem that afflicts those handling the mouse, are being reported across the sector.

But industry officials say that the problem could increase if immediate steps to correct the situation are not taken.

"My daughter works 12 to 14 hours a day. Where is the time for her to exercise or relax? She hits the bed soon after her arrival, most of the times without eating anything because the pizza at her office was still making her stomach feel heavy," narrates Shanti R.

"Such stories abound in the industry. If you notice closely, quite a few of the small and medium enterprises are now beginning to organise a small gym for their employees at the work place.

"This is indicative of the growing consciousness about health in the sector," says an HR official of a major company who did not want to be identified. There are also companies like Infosys Technologies, the largest listed exporter of software, having an on-going programme called the health assessment and lifestyle enrichment (Hale).

Apart from check-ups for employees, myths and facts about homeopathy are also being presented to them. IANS