corporate wellness

Employers can no longer afford to ignore the importance of integrating the bandwidth of a food vendor into corporate wellness. According to the LA times, a study was published by the American Heart Association that predicted that “the annual cost to treat heart disease -- including high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and other conditions -- will triple by 2030, from $273 billion to $818 billion (in 2008 dollars).”

What role does your company food vendor play in protecting you from such conditions, not to mention from financial ruin? Many of the components of heart disease can be reversed or prevented with a combination of diet and exercise. Without the nutrition mechanism, even the most well-meaning corporate wellness program can fall flat. An employee who takes the time to get to their corporate gym can sabotage themselves by consuming a heavy, greasy, sodium saturated meal in the corporate commissary,  and further hinder their productivity and mood by not staying sufficiently hydrated.

The integration of nutrition and wellness is a natural pairing. In a successful model, these two arms speak to each other often to provide a comprehensive program for employees. The company chefs are intended to create menus for snacks, meals, and healthy shakes. The menus are presented to registered dieticians who then break down the recipes and ingredients to determine if they meet healthy food criteria. Individualized programs are rolled out to teach your employees about how food can be used as medicine and lower their risks of heart disease, as well as diabetes and several types of cancers.

Even if an employee chooses not to work out, they will greatly benefit by making healthier food choices. Better nutrition gives people energy, improves job performance, and can reduce the risk of the diseases that cost all of us bundles…and will cost three times as much in less than twenty years. It all boils down to this: Healthier employees strengthen your bottom line.  Plus, the most wonderful aspect of an employee who understands how the food they eat directly affects their health and wellness?  They will take this knowledge home to their partners and children, who may be your future employees. A win-win for everyone!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity and “muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups” for adult Americans.

But, a story published by NPR in April of 2011 counters that even that amount of due diligence may not be nearly enough to undo the hours of sitting Americans do each day.  Epidemiologist Steven Blair of the University of South Carolina points out that even if an individual is meeting their exercise recommendations; they are still sleeping, and conceivably spending ten or so hours immobile at their desks, commuting, or in front of their televisions.

Blair points out that we are just beginning to understand the risks of sitting and immobility, according to a 2008 study.  The study claims that “men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised.

Dr. Toni Yancey, author of Instant Recess; Building a Fit Nation 10 Minutes at a Time  was also cited in the NPR article as saying, “We just aren't really structured to be sitting for such long periods of time, and when we do that, our body just kind of goes into shutdown."

Wellness companies are now getting hip to the benefits of ergonomic science in the workplace for more than the original concerns of repetitive stress syndrome and injury prevention and starting to incorporate concepts such as “sit to stand” work stations in order to promote opportunities to move at least every hour or so, and hopefully more often than that.

Comprehensive corporate wellness programs are informed by the latest science.  Providing your employees with the best programs ever keeps your competitive edge strong and healthy. 

The Southeastern United States can’t catch a break.  In the 1980’s, they became known as the “Stroke Belt”.  In maps generated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the “Stroke Belt” is made quite visible by a markedly higher stroke mortality rate than the rest of the country.

Now that area has the dubious distinction of also being dubbed the “Diabetes Belt” according to the CDC.  This broad sweep of geography now boasts an 11% diabetes rate, as compared to 8.5% for the rest of the country.

The reasons for the high stroke and diabetes rates seem fairly obvious; fried food and sedentary lifestyles are the norm in these regions.  One possible cause may not be so apparent, however.  Humans tend to look at their peers and consider the mean average or appearance of everyone around them to be acceptable.  If everyone in your town is heavy and eats lots of fried food, why not go with the flow? 

That shines the light on the importance of numbers and education.  Lives depend on it.  We have a prevalence of disordered eating in this country in all segments of society fed by unrealistic media expectations to be ultra thin.  But we may also have a large part of our population that does not realize they are morbidly obese. 

Access to correct and current information that is scientifically rooted is vital in all walks of life, in all social stratospheres.  People often base decisions and make lifestyle choices based on misinformation and myth.  Making the right or wrong choices can and will result in deadly consequences or a healthy and productive lifestyle.   Keep your employees and their families at their best with corporate wellness concepts that include a range of lifestyle applications such as programs offered by registered dieticians, group programs that track results, and accurate and informed onsite training.

It’s official.  A hot head contributes to inflammatory disease.  According to a study cited in the U.S. Department of Health and Human services, people who react quickly to low levels of stress may experience an increase in inflammatory disease, such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Atherosclerosis, or Hay fever.

We already know that stress kills.  But a direct link to inflammatory disease was made in the February issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.  Researchers had participants view a speech in a laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh.  When the participants were later asked about their emotional reactions to the speech, those that reported feeling angry and uncomfortable had higher levels of the inflammation marker; interleukin-6.  People who reported little or no response to the speech had little or no trace of the interleukin-6.

This helps explain why reactive people with “short fuses” may suffer more health issues than their less emotional peers, and underlines the need for stress management to be included in our corporate wellness programs.  Stress management may include anger management education, parenting counseling and classes, yoga and meditation techniques, and walking clinics.

An interesting study helmed by Richard Easterlin, a professor at the University of Southern California determined that people had no positive long term relationship between happiness and their income.  

"Where does this leave us? If economic growth is not the main route to greater happiness, what is? We may need to focus policy more directly on urgent personal concerns relating to things such as health and family life, rather than on the mere escalation of material goods," Easterlin said. 

The researchers involved with the study examined a broad spectrum of countries, rich and poor, for a period of anywhere from 10 to 22 years.  Easterlin suspected that the economic rise in many of these countries would show a relationship between people’s satisfaction with their life and their increased income, but that was not the case.

The importance of placing greater value on your employees’ health and well being is priceless.  This includes stress management, mental health education, preventative health, and integration of food services with our wellness and physical activity services.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenged our country with a national health objective called “Healthy People 2010”.  The goal was to reduce obesity to 15% of the entire population for each of the 50 states.

Results were bleak: not one state in the country was able to meet the challenge.  Mississippi weighed in heaviest at 34.4%.  Only two states, Colorado and Washington D.C., had rates below 20%.  Even bleaker, the results were self-reported which has shown that participants typically overstate their height and understate their weight.

The report says that the price tag on our collective obesity issue has reached a hefty $147 billion dollars a year.  The director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. Thomas Frieden, noted that not only did every state fail to reach their target, but that nationwide “obesity rates have doubled in adults and tripled in children” over the past few decades.

Fearsome numbers to say the least, and they draw a bright red line from your company to corporate health promotion.  Why?  Increased national obesity means increased death and illness from related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Any company that offers health insurance as a health benefit is directly affected by that $147 billion price tag.

There are numerous benefits of corporate wellness, including providing on-site foot soldiers in the war against obesity that know how to produce sophisticated, effective programs, results, and education.  Workplace wellness boosts employee morale, reduces stress and directly influences your company’s retention and talent pool.

It’s a war you need to win.  Arm your company accordingly.

We all know exercise is a crucial component of any company’s corporate wellness and fitness culture.  But how exactly does physical activity affect your company’s health risk management investment?

According to a statement published by the American Heart Association: “Regular physical activity using large muscle groups, such as walking, running, or swimming, produces cardiovascular adaptations that increase exercise capacity, endurance, and skeletal muscle strength.  Habitual physical activity also prevents the development of coronary artery disease and reduces symptoms in patients with established cardiovascular disease.” The article goes on to say that this most likely applies to the reduction of the risk for diabetes, depression, obesity, and breast and colon cancer. 

However, long term meaningful health and fitness may require more than a daily visit to the gym.  Human bodies are designed for and require movement.  Our muscles are made to plant and harvest, hunt, play with children, and run from predators.  Today, we sit on our way to work, ride elevators to our offices, and often, our primary social and professional networkings take place via texts and emails where the only parts of our bodies that move may be our thumbs.

A July 2010 New York Times article cites a study that surveyed a group of well educated, upper class men.  Most of these men had a steady workout routine.  They also typically spent about 23 hours a week watching television, driving, or in otherwise sedentary activities. The study found that these men had a 64 percent greater chance of succumbing to heart disease than men who spent less than eleven sedentary hours a week.  

So how do your hardworking employees counter long hours at their desks that may actually be bad for their health?  Move. Pace during the conference calls.  Stand up and stretch while the computer reboots.  Deliver messages to coworkers in person rather than by email.  Encourage actual conversation rather than instant messaging.  Walk to the break room and pour a cup of green tea.

Regular activity throughout the day is another piece in the wellness puzzle that protects your best investment: your employee’s health.  

Nothing like an unsure economy and job market to keep your company off its game. You need employees at their best, especially in hard times. With that in mind, here are some wellness tips from the American Psychological Association:

Money is a top source of anxiety for 80% of Americans, according to a 2008 Stress in America survey by the American Psychological Association. We’re worried about keeping our homes, our insurance, and our jobs.  This intense stress can knock even your most level-headed employees off track, leading to bad judgment and poor decisions. 

Previously, I suggested that being a smart employer and making significant strides towards becoming a “healthy company” would protect your bottom line and reduce turnover and absenteeism.