If you are considering getting fit as a resolution, try attacking it from a different angle, with a corporate wellness program. If your company does not participate in a wellness program, maybe part of your New Year’s resolution can be to lobby your human resources department to consider one.

Top health care experts sing praises for workplace wellness programs as a way to boost productivity and reduce health care costs. The first reason is as easy to see as looking at the title: “wellness” program. Our culture is in the business of treating illnesses, as opposed to the more effective approach of preventative measures. Health care costs are skyrocketing because people are obese and coming down with obesity-related illnesses. Instead of having a system that waits until people are sick, and then prescribes medicines to treat people’s illnesses, we need to spend the money upfront to get people healthy to avoid ever having to take those medications.

Wellness programs are implemented by a third party company that takes care of the health and well-being of your company’s employees. There are many types of employee wellness programs a company can choose from. The programs vary from health screening and nutritional advice, to fitness programs and education. They can even include smoking cessation programs and diabetes screening.

According to a survey by the American Heart Association, almost 60 percent of people questioned said that the economy has affected their ability to take care of their health. If improving your health isn’t incentive enough, some companies are offering monetary incentives for joining their wellness programs.

In 2010, consider the benefits of a corporate wellness program to both your health and your wallet. If your company doesn’t offer a program, drop by your HR department and let them know where you stand.

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Consider a Corporate Wellness Program in 2010

No rational company would resent a worker that right. But, now there’s a case of worker’s compensation in Schererville, Indiana that is sure to create a spark in the health care debate, and bring on some emotional arguments from people who are at a healthy weight.

In 2007, at 340 pounds, Adam Childers was working at The Gourmet Pizza in Schererville when he was smacked in the back by a freezer door. He needed surgery, and was going to be compensated for the procedure. Perfectly rational, right? Well, there’s more to the story.

Childers could not get the back surgery performed to alleviate his pain until he underwent weight loss surgery first to drop significant weight from his frame. But, surely Childers couldn’t expect that his employer would pay for this procedure, would he?

Apparently he did. But more importantly, so did a court that ruled the pizza business had to come up with the $20,000 or more to pay for Childers’ weight loss surgery.

Set aside the moral argument over whether or not The Gourmet Pizza should have paid for weight loss surgery. There’s a bigger problem, and an enormous can of worms that can be opened here:

• Isn’t this screaming out for future job discrimination? Sure, it’s not right to deny someone who is obese a job. But, if you see this level of financial risk, can you really blame them?
• What if there are complications with the Lap-Band surgery? Is it fair for The Gourmet Pizza to continue paying for a surgery that was needed because of his obesity?
• Even if you take “fair” out of the equation, just look at the reality of the situation. What kind of financial risk does this cause small businesses moving forward?

I hate to beat a dead horse, but set aside your anger if this seems wrong to you (I, for one, am on that side of the argument). What we need to do is not get bogged down with right or wrong with regards to this man’s obesity, and look at the bigger picture. We are a nation of obese people. There are many reasons for it, and much of it is about taking responsibility for one’s health. Regardless, something has to be done to reverse this course of obesity.

Humor me a metaphor to make my point. If you are on a canoe quickly heading for a waterfall that would plunge you and your fellow passengers to your death, would you argue with a fellow passenger, or would you work together to make sure you don’t fall over that waterfall?

We need to stress preventative measures rather than reactive treatments. Create incentives for people to get healthy. Have them built into our health benefits. Maybe even add financial incentive to reach weight loss goals. That could be a little harry to work out logistically, but you get my point. A healthy employee is a more productive employee.

Sure, you can’t force someone to be healthier. They need to care about themselves more. But the other choice for us might just be the bottom of the waterfall.

(via: Thatsfit.com)

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Employer Forced to Pay for Obese Employee’s Weight Loss Surgery

There’s no doubt that the bulk of the nation’s health care costs are based on personal choices. Smoking, high blood pressure and being overweight are the top risks for early death, hitting more than one million early deaths each year, with physical inactivity, high blood sugar and alcohol use not far behind, according to an April study by the Harvard School of Public Health. The price tag for obesity has propelled to $147 billion a year, new government studies show, and smoking costs about $193 billion in medical expenses and lost productivity.

These are the facts. But what do you do about it? Do you continue with the “blame game” and make smokers and obese people pay more for health care? What if they can’t afford it? Is taxing caloric beverages really going to move the needle when we’re getting lost in a big haystack of health problems?

If there’s one thing I truly believe deep down it is that there is a significant gap in behavioral health education for all Americans. Yes, partly in the classroom and family living rooms, but other places too like the community, workplace, and doctors offices (when people get there). But the greatest gap continues to be how health insurance of today neglects people who want to work on their nutrition and eating behaviors by making it difficult for them to get access to preventative nutrition visits with a registered dietitian.

I probably turn away 10 people a week who call me wanting a nutrition assessment but want insurance to pay for it. Well, insurance is really limited in what they cover and it is not preventative in nature. So a person needs to save and save just to see me or they go without it. What is frustrating is that people do try to take responsibility, but they need help and support. They need expert advice, answers and counseling.

At some point, when we discuss weight management and personal responsibility, we’ve got to be honest about lowering the barriers that get in people’s way of living a healthy life. Sometimes that’s things like cost of equipment, race registrations, and gym/yoga memberships and other times that’s the cost of getting some basic counseling for what they can do to improve their eating habits, how they can cook more at home even with limited time and skills, and how they can build healthy eating habits with their kids. Other times, it’s even more simple… do kids in low income neighborhoods have safe sidewalks and parks? What about low-cost grocery stores?

If people are going to change their lives and perform new, healthy behaviors they have to believe they CAN do it and get the support they need to make the right changes in a way that’s not going to totally disrupt their life. I’ve always been in awe of the Biggest Loser, for those few fortunate people to get the right environment and motivation to finally shatter their unhealthy shell and chisel out a new, healthier version of themselves. But how do you make The Biggest Loser scalable to everyone?

So, what do you think?  Should we be talking more about disease prevention or do you think talking about “healthy lifestyles” is just too much lip service to ever amount to any real change in the cost of health care in the U.S? What is your experience with your health care for weight management and smoking cessation? Do you have real opinions on the future of health care and the future weight of Americans?

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Is There Room for Personal Responsibility in Health Care?

The Obama administration is going to provide states and local governments with money to control obesity, which will include investing in public transportation to encourage more walking, says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Sebelius says that the majority of the $1 billion stimulus plan appropriated by Congress for disease prevention would go to a CDC-planned initiative to fight obesity, heart disease and other chronic conditions.

The money can also go to boost or create programs to get more fruits and vegetables into school lunches and encourage grocery stores to sell more fresh produce in poorer communities.

“We’re spending just under 150 billion dollars a year on health conditions related to obesity,” Sebelius told the first-ever national conference on obesity to be organized by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“We have a situation where health conditions related to obesity have nearly twice the cost-impact on the health system as all the cancers combined in this country.”

As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. While citizens are responsible for their own health, the environment that we live is a factor, too. Much of the food supply is unhealthy, and we drive too much. If work is done on both sides – citizens and government – maybe we can make some progress.

(via: Yahoo)

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Kathleen Sebelius Aims Stimulus Money to Fight Obesity

That’s astounding. The price tag amounts to $147 billion a year in direct medical costs – that’s just over nine percent of all medical spending here in the U.S.

“Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they are getting worse rapidly,” says Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One in three adults are obese in the United States. Let’s put that in a language everyone speaks: money.

A new report, published in the online edition of Health Affairs lays out the financial burden. Here it is in individual terms:

“A normal-weight individual will spend about $3,400 per year in medical expenditures and that number rises to about $4,870 if that individual is obese,” says study author Eric Finkelstein, director, RTI Public Health Economics Program in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

The biggest expenditure for the obese is prescription drugs. A normal weight person will on average spend about $700 a year in prescription medications. However, someone who is obese will spend about $1,300 on average.

So what does it take to reverse the trend? It comes down to the argument of individuals taking responsibility for their diet vs. the idea that the problem is more in the food supply in our society.

“Reversing obesity is not going to be done successfully with individual effort,” says Dr. Frieden. “We did not get to this situation over the past three decades because of any change in our genetics or any change in our food preferences. We got to this stage of the epidemic because of a change in our environment and only a change in our environment again will allow us to get back to a healthier place,” he said.

Via Yahoo

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It’s Expensive Being Obese

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, and there’s no end in sight to this dangerous trend. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2007 25.6 percent of Americans were obese. But in 2008, it crept up to 26.1 percent.

There are six states that can dubiously boast the fact that over 30 percent of their citizens are obese: Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Colorado is the only state in which less than 20 percent of its citizens are not obese.

“If this trend continues we will likely see increases in health care costs for obesity-related diseases,” said the CDC’s Liping Pan, who headed the study.

Well, yeah, that’s pretty much stating the obvious.

The most fascinating part of this phenomenon to me is, where is the breaking point? It’s certainly not sustainable. So where does it get to that point? Is it half of our population obese? More? Let’s hope we don’t have to test those boundaries.

(via: Yahoo)

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Americans Still Getting Heavier

Health Data Rights, an all-volunteer group, is pushing the health care industry to finally have all of our medical records digitized and fully accessible to the patient. The group’s website, HealthDataRights.org, is designed to help give people a voice in obtaining their rights to take responsibility for their own health information and care. It features a Declaration of Health Data Rights that includes the following:

We the people…

• Have the right to our own health data
• Have the right to know the source of each health data element
• Have the right to take possession of a complete copy of our individual health data, without delay, at minimal or no cost; If data exists in computable form, they must be made available in that form
• Have the right to share our health data with others as we see fit

I don’t claim to be an expert on the medical industry, nor do I fully understand the implications of all the little intricacies of insurance and health care. But, is there any good explanation as to why our medical records are not online and fully accessible to us? Or, even to our own doctors for that matter?

Many people see multiple doctors, wouldn’t it be nice if they could each see what the other is diagnosing, and what medicines are being suggested? And besides, doesn’t it seem like a basic right that citizens should be able to see their own health care information? In this technological age, why are we not taking full advantage of the possibilities?

HealthDataRights.org was launched just days ago, but there’s already a groundswell of support to bring the health care industry into the internet and mass communication age. Adam Bosworth, the former head of Google Health, does a great job of articulating why the change is well overdue.

Head on over to HealthDataRights.org to join the conversation and let your voice be heard.

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Health Data Rights Moves Health Care into the 21st Century

According to a new survey, more than half of people couldn’t locate the exact location of the human heart on a diagram. And as if that isn’t bad enough, nearly 70 percent can’t correctly identify the shape of the lungs. But wait, there’s more: even patients who were being treated for a specific condition involving an organ often didn’t identify that organ correctly.

Here are the results of the survey:

- 46.5 percent knew which drawing represented the heart
- 31.4 percent identified their lungs
- 38.4 percent identified the stomach
- 41.8 percent the identified the thyroid
- 42.5 percent identified the kidneys
- 85.9 percent identified the intestines
- And 80.7 percent found the bladder

There’s no rhyme or rhythm to how people identified their organs. More people could identify the thyroid than their own stomach. The intestines were easiest, and that make some sense. But almost twice as many people could find the bladder but not the heart?

This survey was actually conducted in the U.K. But the lead author ,John Weinman, Ph.D. of King’s College London, believes the numbers may be even worse in the U.S.

“I asked one of my colleagues, who is from the U.S., and she felt that Americans might be worse because, to quote her, ‘Very many Americans don’t even know where New Jersey is, so how would they know where their pancreas is?’”

Sad ignorance aside, the main thing to come away with is that there is a concern that this ignorance may have larger implications. Being ignorant of your own anatomy may also infer an ignorance to medication and symptoms for specific ailments.

(via: CNN)

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Survey: More Than Half Can’t Locate Own Heart

Therefore, chronic disease prevention should be on the forefront of yours and health professionals’ minds alike. Chronic diseases, sadly characterized with a heavy economic burden due to associated long-term illness and diminished quality of life, all of which add up to an increase in health care costs. Although the risk of disease and disability increases with advancing age, there are ways to help yourself now.

The secret to healthy aging is simply living a healthy lifestyle! Moreover, the earlier you start, the better off you’ll be. I’m not saying you can 100% prevent all diseases, I’m saying that research shows there are some healthy practices you can implement that will help reduce the likelihood of getting some diseases, like cancer.

Components to a healthy lifestyle include:

• Regular physical activity (exercising 30-90 minutes most days of the week)

• Healthy eating, like these eight anti-aging foods
  

• Avoid tobacco use

• Limit the amount of alcohol consumed to zero or one drink per day

• Practice stress-reduction or stress coping exercises

• Use of early detection practices (e.g., screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers, diabetes and its complications, and depression).

Remember, being healthy and good nutrition can last a lifetime! It’s a lifestyle, not a fad!

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The Secret to Healthy Aging

Japan isn’t just “the Land of the Rising Sun”… but health care costs as well. The country is taking extreme measures to curtail expenses. The thing that is confusing is they are near the bottom of any list I see ranking overweight countries (by BMI). They are 163rd on the World Health Organization’s list of overweight (22 percent of the population).

Nevertheless, Japan’s health care costs have ballooned by 68 percent between 1989 and 2006, to $370 billion a year. Without doing a thorough analysis of everything that may be causing this increase in cost, maybe 1 in 5 people being overweight is enough for government officials to take action.

To my libertarian friends, if you think some of the health legislation in the U.S. steps on your freedoms, take a look what’s going on over in Japan. There are some hardcore regulations being put into place. Take this for example, from Business Week:

“As part of a government drive to stem the prevalence of metabolic syndrome, a previously rarely mentioned disease that seems to cover everything that can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease or diabetes, waistlines are now being stringently monitored and, for anyone even slightly plump, acted upon.”

Men who are 40 and over can’t have a waist size higher than 33.5 inches. Women can get to 35.4 inches before there are any repercussions. Not that you are going to be sent to jail. But, those who are exceeding the limits for three months are given dietary guidance. This includes agreeing to a weight loss target, exercise program and e-mails to check on your progress, among other things.

What are the real repercussions, you might ask?

Japanese bureaucrats will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that don’t hit targets. For large companies with lots of employees, the fines are potentially enormous, running to millions of dollars if they miss targets.

In Japan, most people are covered by state-run health care, which is partially funded by companies and employee contributions. The worry is, just like here, that if costs continue to rise, it will become unsustainable. The iron fist approach in Japan may be flawed, and its doubtful that there would be any political will to do something similar here in the States, it may get to the point where something drastic has to be done.

(via: Business Week)

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Japan Cracks Down on Health Problems