Wellness programs often initiate healthy behavior, but we often return to our old ways as soon as the program ends. How many times have we heard someone say that they need to go on a diet? How many times have we said that ourselves? But if you’re like myself you realize that often times these “diets” get tossed out by excuses such as, “well, my friends are over so I can have a couple-few beers” or “I’ll start eating better tomorrow… make that next week” or “this good cookin’ doesn’t come around too often” and so on and so on. The reason why we often fail with diets is because of this thing called behavior, and it’s so hard to change.

In order to get the most out of any wellness program it’s important to understand that healthy behaviors do not happen overnight. It takes work, a lot of dedication, and support to name a few. Two things I’d like for you to keep in mind while reading: 1) I’ve once read somewhere that it takes doing something about 26 times before it even begins to develop into a habit, and 2) “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” What does this have to do with health behavior you ask? Everything. For instance, dieting often fails because of the way most of us perceive its meaning: it’s temporary. However, the word diet comes from the Latin word “diaeta” which means “way of living,” but when we go into our diets none of us really look at it as a lifestyle change, which is often the reason why we fail. If you want to live a healthier lifestyle start doing the things that healthy people do. If you follow a routine at least 26 times and develop it into a habit, you can just about put your weighing scale away; it’ll only be a matter of time before you start feeling and looking the way healthy people do.

I had dropped more than 40 pounds within one year when I realized this concept, and know far too well how easy it is to pick up old bad habits. It really helps if you’re surrounded by people who are supportive of your efforts, which can sometimes inspire those who support you to live healthier lives as well. I happened to join a cycling club, but what really helped me was that I would ask people what they did to stay fit, and a snowball-effect occurred. Not only did I discover what other healthy and tasty foods I could eat, but what other fun and challenging activities I could do as well.

Diets fail because it often has a simple purpose: weight loss. Great success stories are often gotten from those who “live healthy” by doing as the healthy people do. We are all very capable of change, but the trick is to be patient with ourselves. In other words don’t give up if you find yourself five pounds heavier after a cruise, or have eaten an entire pie all by yourself. After all, there is no need to deprive yourself of the foods you love, as long as you have them in healthy portions or are active enough to “burn” that fuel. If you’ve realized you’ve faltered, simply accept the act and move forward towards the healthier you. We can get a lot out of our wellness programs if we realize that they are simply doorways to good health.

So, are you on a diet or a diaeta? What are some of the things that you do to stay healthy?

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Based on that rationale, it should not be all that surprising to see that companies across the country have created programs which mimic the hit TV program “The Biggest Loser” in the quest to creating a trimmer workforce.  And much like their television doppelganger, these in-house contests typically come with some sort of prize waiting for the most successful participants in the end.  Inherently, it is a brilliant strategy to promote office wellness, as it combines familiarity, incentive, and competitive zeal into a ready-made program that is virtually guaranteed to be met with a great deal of enthusiasm.  However, if it is not monitored properly to ensure good health is the main objective, the program could wade into somewhat treacherous waters.

As anyone who has organized a workforce competition of any kind, competing for all manner of prizes great and small has a spellbinding effect on people, to the point where people will be compelled to do whatever it takes to win.  While that mindset may not be an issue if your office holds a chili cook-off, when it comes to a program based on The Biggest Loser, such a relentless streak could be a potentially dangerous situation if the contest is not monitored with a high level of scrutiny.  For example, people may find it necessary to take radical dietary steps such as starvation or expulsion in their attempt to claim victory.  As a wellness program, the ultimate goal behind a Biggest Loser type competition is good health; if someone attains victory by punishing their body via starvation or expulsion, then the true goal was not really achieved.

So, if you are inspired to build a wellness program around The Biggest Loser framework, how do you go about making sure that people conduct their weight loss appropriately?  Admittedly, it can be difficult to prove that someone is resorting to unhealthy tactics to lose weight.  However, you can curb the temptation to go about weight loss in an ill-advised manner by being proactive, constantly reiterating to the participants just how important it is to lose weight in a fashion that promotes good health along the way.  Don’t be afraid to utilize methods such as handouts and statistic-laden e-mails to highlight the dangers of going about weight loss improperly.  Also, you can encourage the right ways of shedding excess weight by splintering the competition into different categories and offer awards for each subdivision.  For example, you could grant prizes for the biggest drop in BMI index or highest percentage of weight lost (a category that would the upper hand to people who don’t have as much weight to lose, so they do not feel the need to drop past an unhealthy weight threshold). The more categories you have will not only increase the chances of participants’ winning, but it can also go great lengths into discouraging unhealthy tricks.

Like I stated before, the most important message that you want to convey during a Biggest Loser-style contest (or any other weight loss program, for that matter) is the promotion of good health.  If you strive to place as many parameters as you can to ensure people are not trying to achieve health through unhealthy means, you will succeed in spreading that very point.

There has been many a gauntlet flung down in recent years during the current war on junk food.  From exposing the calorie content of restaurant items to the banning of trans fats, positive progress has been made in the name of improved health, or at least health-related education.  However, New York City health commissioner Thomas Friden has decided that it is high time to take this ongoing skirmish into darker, more painful recesses. 

The force behind the Big Apple’s trans fat ban and the printing of calorie counts on menus, Friden has merged his agenda with the realm of financial punishment for the first time by proposing a penny-per-ounce sales tax on soda, which would raise the cost of your average 12 pack by almost $2.00.  And based on the report he co-authored for the New England Journal of Medicine with Kelly Brownell, the director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Friden has made it very clear that his endgame with the proposal is to not only use taxes as a conditioning agent toward the general populace to discourage buying so-called “sugared beverages,” but to also get them to essentially equate the long-term effects of soda with the dangers of other maligned goods such as smoking.

While Friden’s attempt to stigmatize soda is an obviously ambitious goal, taking the initial step toward vilification out on the public’s wallet is a misguided endeavor.  Because soda is so inextricably linked with food, attempting to coldly justify a tax because of an organization’s aggressive paradigm-shifting agenda has great potential to come across as a mean-spirited imposition that pushes past the borders of personal responsibility, especially given the tumult found in the current economy.  In the report itself, Friden admits that changing the public perception on soda is tantamount to the acceptance of the tax.  Since this is the case, why not work on convincing people on the former before hitting them with the latter?   Granted, trying to get the public to agree to the notion that soda should be even remotely near the same class as cigarettes is a Hurculean task.  However, without seriously working toward this conviction first, the only thing the tax would create amongst the perception’s harshest skeptics – who would more than likely be the ones that would receive the biggest benefit from such a change – would be anger and mistrust, which could potentially derail future healthy causes.

If Friden’s ultimate hope is to make people think twice before grabbing a soda, his best bet is to go on an affront toward the soda manufactures, and not consumers.  While it may seem almost impossible to fathom a radical change in perception amongst a majority of adults, it is much easier to see such a change being embraced by the next generations.  Friden seems to touch on this in his report, stating that children are so impressionable and that the marketing machine behind the soda companies are so crafty, their minds are molded into being compelled to yearn for soft drinks.  Based on that rationale, why not mount a campaign to stymie or at the very least harshly regulate the way soft drinks are marketed toward children?  A combination of decreasing youth-centric marketing and increasing education about soda’s long term effects would go a long way in helping to stem the desire to have these sugared beverages, which in turn would make it much easier to alter the way soda is viewed.  Adding a tax will do nothing to quench a child’s desire for soda any more than raising taxes on Disney toys will stop the child from wanting an action figure from that company’s latest animated feature. 

And therein lay the fundamental problem with the tax:  It does nothing to deglamourize soda.  Removing the luster long associated with soft drinks is the absolute key in winning the battle; if Friden is serious about his quest to get the public to view soda on equal footing as cigarettes this absolutely needs to be his chief cause instead of punishing the public through taxes.  If it is not, the message he is trying to convey through his proposal will be buried underneath a pile of dollar signs.

Do you think taxing soda does a good job or a poor job of addressing wellness concerns?"

 

It has become fairly obvious that we are living in a time where the concept of employee wellness is undergoing a paradigm shift which is ultimately putting more emphasis on personal responsibility.  Employers are implementing programs designed to maintain and improve the health of the workforce (not to mention lessening the cumbersome spiral of benefit costs) with what seems to be an exponentially increasing frequency.  Some of these programs have been rolled out with great fanfare, such as the increasing popular Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHPs).  Other plans have been trotted out amidst a swirl of controversy, like Clarian Health’s financial penalties-for-unhealthy-lifestyles system.  Then there are plans that border on the absurd, such as the one pioneered by the NEAT (Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis lab) at Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic, in which the traditional cubicles have been replaced by workstations attached to treadmills.

The pricey concept (each desk and treadmill component in this so-called “Office of the Future” costs $2,700) was inspired by a decade-long study whose findings concluded that employees burn more calories by increasing everyday movements as opposed to a hike in daily exercise.  The result is an office where each employee is in a state of constant motion, whether they are typing reports, taking phone calls, or even brainstorming.  Even meetings are not exempt from this practice, as they occur on a walking track surrounded by magnetic white boards.  In fact, there are no other pieces of office furniture located on their premises.

While this approach does factor in scientific research as a tangible argument for the program, it does not change its nature as an extreme mandate that frankly, is more of an exercise in silliness than wellness.  The concept of multitasking at work really should not include maintaining equilibrium on a piece of gym equipment.  Who among us would really want to attempt to design and complete a crucial report while simultaneously participating in a low-impact workout?  Plus, imagine the worker’s comp headache that would ensue the moment someone loses their balance and racks up an injury (not to mention the interesting verbiage that may be used on the claim).

In strict matters of wellness, there is an obvious advantage to NEAT’s plan.  After all, one probably does not need a decade’s worth of science to inform them of the health benefits of utilizing a treadmill on a daily basis.  However, when practically any other business component is mixed in with NEAT’s program, it is nearly impossible to view it in a remotely serious light.

 

Typically, when a company becomes serious about implementing a wellness strategy, one of the first tactics deployed is a promise of reward-based incentives.  It is not uncommon for an employer to dangle a gift card or some sort of merchandise in front of their employees in exchange for kicking a smoking habit or reaching a desirably healthy weight.  It is unusual, however, for companies to threaten financial punishment for people who do not achieve these health-based goals.  But that is what the Indianapolis-based company Clarian Health is planning on doing starting in 2009.

Clarian’s program to get employees invested in wellness, part of what they have dubbed their “Call to Change” mission strategy, is mandatory for anyone who enrolls in their company’s health plan.  All participating employees that use tobacco, are overweight, have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or high glucose will have to pay fines up to $25 each pay period they are not in compliance with Clarian’s guidelines.

As important as wellness programs are for the health of the workforce (and the long-term bottom line for the company), this radical approach to improving health goes overboard, simply because it is lacking in the one crucial element that a successful wellness program needs to have as its firm cornerstone:  care.  In fact, from an employee standpoint, the plan could be easily viewed as cold fear mongering put forth by an impersonal entity that is finding ways to micro-manage beyond their cubicles.  It also would not be too much of a stretch to imagine that the majority of the people that would have this oppressive mindset would be the very individuals the program would be targeting.  From there, a myriad of negative issues ranging from low employee morale to an increase in turnover could very well ensue.

Clarian should be able to skate by any potential legal accusations of this plan being an affront to individual employee civil liberties by protecting it under the guise of private enterprise.  Plus, they are only fining the employees; they are not threatening the employees with termination.  However, that does not mean an inequitable treatment of personal freedom does not exist under this strategy.  On the contrary, there is no denying that this plan essentially allows the employer to intrude on an employee’s life outside the confines of the office.  Even if it for a well-meaning cause, should they be allowed to have that right?  Is it okay for a company to deprive money from an individual because he or she does not live the way the company wants them to?  When looking at the plan from that angle, does it not look like a line or two is being crossed?

It will be interesting to monitor this plan after it launches a year and a half from now.  Clarian is wise for allowing a sizeable window of time for people to achieve the company goals.  However, even with the lengthy timeframe, the risk of alienating an employee base by potentially coming across as an intrusive, Orwellian figurehead coupled with the residual employee fallout that could result makes a wellness system like Clarian’s a poor and possibly disastrous option to choose.