For Your Business And Your Workers
For Your Business And Your WorkersDirector, Barnstable County Department Health & Environment
The average U.S. employer spends more than $8,000 annually for each employee's health benefits, including insurance, disability and workers' compensation. In Massachusetts, the local cost of providing health coverage for municipal employees increased 63 percent from 2001 to 2005, more than four times the rate of growth in local budgets. Employee health care as a share of total municipal budgets jumped from 7.4 percent in 2001 to 10.6 percent in 2005, a 42 percent increase. At this rate, health care will consume 15 percent of local budgets within four years.
With no end in sight for near double-digit annual increases in health insurance costs, municipalities and businesses are desperately looking for ways to contain healthcare costs. While the Massachusetts Municipal Association, along with its insurance arm, the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association, is exploring the administrative changes necessary to reduce healthcare costs, municipalities and businesses are discovering the advantages of conducting wellness programs.
Wellness programs are designed to provide employees with the tools they need to maintain good health and thus reduce their health care costs. The centerpiece of many of these programs is the wellness fair.
For many, wellness fairs make dollars and sense. They offer employees free screenings to identify risk factors for a number of conditions including diabetes, coronary disease, skin cancer, osteoporosis, lung disease and others. Most also provide information on nutrition, exercise, and other healthy choices.
To encourage participation, employees are allowed to attend during work hours.
The goals are simpleŃkeep employees healthy by promoting prevention and early diagnosis and treatment of health threatening conditions. They also encourage healthy life choices.
It's a win-win situation.
Employees stay healthy, and the industry reduces its health care costs.
A recent survey by The Principal Financial Group® found that wellness programs creates more productive workers and decreases employee turnover. Cost savings can be substantial.
A 2005 study by Moen, a leading producer of faucets, concluded that for every dollar spent on such programs it saved $3 to $4. Motorola similarly found that it saved $3.93 for every dollar spent. Another recent survey indicated that more than half of multinational corporations surveyed expect to introduce or expand corporate wellness programs over the next five years.
If municipalities and businesses are going to contain rising healthcare costs, wellness initiatives must become a part of the regular workplace landscape. These initiatives are gaining a solid track record for containing costs and resulting in happier and healthier employees.
If you have no idea how to begin the process, contact your local nursing services agencies to determine whether they offer screening services. Another valuable resource is Rita Mitchell, Public Health Nurse for the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment (508-375-6617). Sue Bourque of the Cape Cod Extension Service (508-375-6693) is an excellent resource for healthy nutrition programs. Internet resources include http://www.wellnessfair.ca/planning_a_health_and_wellness_fair.php and http://www.apha.org/publications/tnh/current/Sept07/Nation/Workplace
The best program will be one that meets your specific needs and encourages the maximum participation. And it's not a bad idea to involve your employees in setting the agenda. Remember, a good wellness program promotes employee health and in the long run helps the bottom line.
There's been considerable talk about portion control and the growing size of our portions. So why is this so important?
Well, next time you are eating a meal with a group of people, glance over at the amount of each food your companions have put on their plate. You'll notice that no two plates look alike.
Each of us has our own view of how much food constitutes a meal. Some of this dates from what we learned as children or may be influenced by the company we keep.
But a portion is not a standard set in stone; it is the amount of food you choose to eat.
We all need a different amount of food at varying times in our lives. We have higher calorie needs early in life and during periods of growth. But later in life our metabolism may decrease and we need to adjust downward to prevent unwanted weight gain.
Still, portion control is important even during childhood to help promote proper growth and to meet the nutritional requirements of essential nutrients. It can be helpful to use a smaller plate when serving your child just enough to avoid inadvertently dishing out adult size portions. As a general rule, for young children a tablespoon of food for each year is an appropriate portion size
Portion size is important when reading food labels. If you do not know how much you ate, how can you accurately determine the calories, fat, sodium and other ingredients that you consumed?
Your portions may be larger or smaller than those listed on a food label. And this is particularly important when a person must follow a specific diet for medical reasons. As an example, inaccurate carbohydrate calculations may result in too high or too low blood sugars for diabetics.
If you use convenience foods, you may have noticed that the portion sizes of prepackaged and convenience foods started increasing in the 1970s and they have continued to grow. This, along with the large portions served in restaurants, has made it difficult for people to judge what an appropriate portion should be for them. Some restaurants may serve a 16-ounce steak, which is four times the amount needed to meet the protein needs of most people at one meal. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has noted that in the past 20 years a bagel has grown from a 3-inch diameter to 6-inch diameter with calories jumping from 140 to 350. A cheeseburger that once was 333 calories now is more than 590, almost double. Check out the Portion Distortion quiz at http://hin.nhlbi.gov/portion/.
The only way to accurately determine a portion is to use dry measuring cups for solid foods, liquid measuring cups for fluids and a small kitchen scale for meats and cheese. Most people tend to underestimate their portions when they use their eye, resulting in consumption of significantly more calories, sodium and fat, or whatever nutrient you are concerned about controlling. Over time, this can result in unwanted weight gain and rising blood sugars, cholesterol levels and blood pressure.
Use portioning to your advantage and measure foods out for future meals. This will make things easier for you. Many weight-loss companies use this concept to help people control their calories by measuring the food for them and offering them as prepared meals for a substantial charge.
Measuring your food for yourself is cheaper and will provide a way to more accurately estimate how much you are eating and thus make more sensible decisions both at home and when eating out.
(Ms. Gibbons, a Registered Dietician and Certified Diabetes Educator, provides outpatient nutrition medical therapy at Cape Cod Hospital.)
'Let me entertain you; let me support your joints, tra la la.'
Oh, hey there big boy. What's a cute thing like me doing in a joint like this? C'mon darlin', you must have a better line than that. My name is Connie, that's short for Chondracyte. I'm a cell found in the cartilage of joints and I produce and maintain its structure.
You want me to be as smooth and svelte as possible and that's just the way I like it. That's right baby, I am high maintenance, and you need to take good care of me. Don't be foolish and ignore me. I will not tolerate that. Trust me, you don't want me to be anything at all like my cousin, Arthrita.
Just look at her, old and ragged, like she's been rode hard all her life. She has cracks in her surface, and she's very thin. Some places she doesn't even cover the bone of the joint.
This is where the severe pain comes from. (There aren't any pain nerve endings in the cartilage of the joint that I maintain; however, there are pain nerve endings in the surface of the bone underneath. This is the pain factor.)
She also has all those bone spurs around her edges, making her look even more ragged. This is the wear and tear kind of arthritis that's so prevalent in the elderly population. There are many other forms of arthritis, some auto-immune (such as Rheumatoid Arthritis), with some beginning very early in life, and what we discuss today will benefit all the different forms.
So, how do you give me the attention I crave? Exercise, baby, exercise! You can take all those pain killers, dietary supplements, and stuff, but the best way to treat this lady is exercise. I promise, you don't want to let me get weak and stiff, even if the effort does produce some pain. However, if that pain lasts for more that two hours after the exercise, then you've done too much, and need to back of a bit.
So, what kind of exercise would satisfy my needs? Well darlin', for one thing, stretching to maintain or increase the range of motion helps decrease the stiffness and soreness of those joints. Other exercises are designed to increase the strength of those joints' muscles and tendons, and improve their movement. Very important. And, as always, a good aerobic program, three to five times a week is great for the heart, the whole body, and also those arthritic joints. The gentle movements and compressions of my surfaces from the exercise helps feed me, baby. It increases the circulation of nutrients and waste products to us and the cartilage.
Exercise has many other benefits for those with arthritis. It can increase energy levels, improve sleep patterns, help with weight control ( 'cause you know I don't like to carry all that extra weight), decrease depression and fatigue, and improve your self-esteem and confidence.
So, in other words, honey, treat me right, and I can be very good to you; ignore me and I can may ruin your, um, lifestyle.
Well, it looks like we've run out of time for this session. Hate that speed dating. But can we get together again? You bet we can.
And the next time we will go over the specifics for a good exercise program for those who know my ugly cousin, Arthrita, all too well.
So until then, ta ta; live well and 'let me entertain you; let me support your joints' tra la la.'
(Mr. Carter is a physical therapist for Bayada Nurses, 781-831-0347.)
I have a friend who develops hives whenever he eats something with pesticides on it. The red bumps last three to four days. This man also has to be very careful at airports because if he smells jet fuel he will feel very sick for a few weeks while his body gets rid of the toxin. It's hard to believe that someone can be so sensitive to air and foods when most of us have no palpable reaction at all to environmental toxins.
Some say sensitivities can be linked to genetics and environment. If you carry the gene that predisposes you to prostate cancer, you may be likely to get it. But what if that gene is never “turned on?” Might that person be less likely to incur that disease even though they supposedly were “predisposed”?
There is speculation that autism may be linked in some cases not only to genetic predisposition, but also to vaccines, metal toxicity and intestinal inflammation interfering with a child's brain development or neurotransmitter messaging system. I am not here to advocate any of these theories, but I don't believe they should be completely dismissed.
The broader the investigation, the greater the understanding for circumstances under which the condition arose.
Why do we need one answer?
What happens emotionally and spiritually affects our immune system and therefore our health tremendously. When we are feeling nurtured, safe and calm we are able to heal and rejuvenate our bodies.
When a person has had a trauma, the body will respond in an exaggerated way to anything that triggers an unsafe memory of that trauma. Healing the event can only happen when the person can view the experience from a safe vantage point. But that is only a small piece of the puzzle.
Our health and ability to contribute to the communities we live in cannot be measured and calculated from national statistics. Why a young person develops differently from another cannot be predicted beforehand. What we can do though, is keep an open heart and look at all the possibilities available to do the best we can under the circumstances we are in today. There is no recipe for health.
(Dr. Nash is a Certified Network Chiropractor in South Dennis, 508-394-9355.)