Posts from — July 2010

Individual Advantages of Fitness

Do you want to get fit, lose excess fat, or have more energy?  Most people  would answer “yes” to this question.  It is hard to imagine why whoever would not want to achieve fitness to become a healthier individuals.  

When you are overweight or obese, have a family history of heart disease or diabetes, have high cholesterol or blood pressure, or simply feel that you could be a healthier you, then you may benefit  from a fitness program.  

Regular exercise is an easy way to help prevent many diseases by eliminating the major risk factors like obesity and lack of movement.  A combination of aerobic exercise and weight training is the best way to achieve your fitness objectives while improving your health.  

When selecting  a fitness program, the most challenging aspect could  be locating an activity or exercise that is fun as opposed to one that doesn’t motivate you.  

Person are motivated in different ways which is why there are so many fitness programs out there.  When you attempt something that you don’t like, you can always move on and attempt something different until you discover a certain activity that appeals to you.  

A lot of times, person create their own plans for exercise but lose interest in the program and therefore find themselves steering away from their good intentions.  This is why a health coach could  be exactly what an individual needs in order to keep them on the right track to achieve fitness for life.

How a Health Coach can make it Possible

Health coaches are trained specialists that assist clients in achieving fitness for life in a selection of ways.  an individual can hire a fitness trainer to work with them at the health club and help them with their fitness goals; nevertheless, a health coach does a great deal more to help their clients reach success.  

A health coach uses a health risk (assessment|appraisal} to determine the individual needs of the client and uses this information to create a in action for their fitness plan.  Because everybody has unique fitness objectives, each fitness program is customized to fit the needs of the client.  

A health coach not only arouses you to achieve your fitness goals but also teaches you to motivate yourself.  

Health coaches understand that people  have busy lives and require convenient ways to exercise.  That is why a health coach develops personalized programs that will work with an individual’s busy schedule.  

They’re also available 24 hours a day through web-based communication and hold sessions as often or as little as the customer needs.  Health coaches may assist their customers by telephone, e-mail and instant messaging, or face-to-face meetings.  

Although health coaches focus on other aspects of a person’s wellness such as nutrition, stress management, and sleep management, it is important to understand that each of these aspects of a wellness program intertwine to assist a individuals in becoming the healthiest individuals they can be.

Establishing an active Health Promotion Committee provides opportunities for both senior level management and employee involvement in the health promotion program.  The Committee must be a team of workforce and managers who formally meet to plan activities to promote healthier employee lifestyles.

Typical Functions of a Wellness Committee -

• Investigating needs and interests

• Brainstorming wellness program ideas

• Developing activities

• Developing communication plans

• Marketing health promotion programs to colleagues

• Serving as champions of the Wellness Programs

• Helping with examination  

Your Wellness Committee must be representative of all levels of the company.  Consider all areas of the workforce - multiple sites, shift staff, diversity (race, gender, ethnicity), and departments.  

It is also crucial to consider who will chair or co-chair the Health Promotion Committee and whether or not there are the finances to support a wellness manager or occupational health specialist, even on a part-time or contractual basis.  Click here for more information on the advantages of a health specialist.  

Depending on your corporation size and resources, if you already have a corporation Safety Committee you could want to consider making it the Safety and Wellness Committee.  You can request volunteers or invite workers to participate.  

The number of Wellness Committee members depends on the size of your company; nevertheless, you need enough members to get the work done and yet not too many to keep it manageable, normally a minimum of 4 members and maximum of 12 to 15 members.  

It is imperative that you include skeptics of wellness as well and not just those personnel already practicing healthy life choices.  

Depending on your workplace, consider representatives from the following areas -

• Worker representatives from a cross section of different departments,

• Upper management ,

• Health and safety professional(s),

• Human resources (HR) expert(s),

• Benefits staff or someone from finance,

• Your employee assistance program (EAP) provider (if applicable), Click here for more information on EAPs

• Medical or occupational health staff (if applicable).

Establish an effective Wellness Committee!  the Wellness Committee should meet regularly with a planned agenda and action items.  Successful Wellness Committees have a shared mission, vision and objectives.  

Members need to believe that their participation is worthwhile and appreciated, that their work is important, benefits the organization and coworkers, and they are recognized for their contributions. Refer to the NC Worksite Programs section for examples of what other companies have implemented.

Before you call it quits and decide to give up on having a healthier lifestyle, you may want to consider what a health coach can do for you. Many individuals  get so frustrated working out on their own that they give up before they really have a chance to succeed.

Luckily, by hiring a health coach you can avoid this issue, and end up with the body that you’ve been dreaming of. But before you jump forward too far, you need to know what a health coach is as well as what one can do for you.

Normally speaking, a health coach is a fitness trainer, dietician, and much more all rolled into one. While this may sound like an impossible job on the surface, the fact of the matter is that health coaches are very good at what they do.

These specialists have many years of experience in the health industry, and have a knack for communicating what they know to others on a very personal level.

The primary goal of any health coach is to work with you so that you can reach the objectives that you’ve set forth for yourself. and guess what?

When you don’t know what you want to accomplish your health coach can help in that area as well. Simply put, they’re there to make certain that you’re on the right path to success.

Health coaches come from a selection of different backgrounds. Although most people  do not go through schooling thinking that they want to be a health coach, over time they begin to transform into this career.

For  instance, many health coaches have backgrounds in fitness training, bodybuilding, health and nutrition, exercise science, and much more.

Once you hire a health coach, he or she’ll be at your disposal day in and day out. Many individuals  rely on coaches to help them on an individual basis. and although this is a good idea for some, internet based health coaches are becoming more and more popular due to busy schedules.

So before you think that you don’t have time to work with a health coach, you should really reconsider. They’ll be willing to work with you in the capacity that best suits your lifestyle.

While working with a health coach you will be able to get specialist advice on reaching your goals. If you want to lose weight, you will be supplied with a workout program that’ll get you moving in the right direction. the same thing holds true for those individuals  who want to eat healthier, get in better shape, etc.

As you can see, a health coach is more than just your typical Joe. They are trained in multiple disciplines, and work with customers in order to help them reach their objectives.

As with any wellness program, the two critical elements for the success of your wellness program are senior level management support and worker involvement. Senior management sets the vision and provides the resources from which action plans flow.  

Genuine support from executive management also lends credibility to the wellness program. It is key that executive management be visible supporters and role models for your Health Promotion Program.

Employees need to be involved on several levels so that they feel ownership of the wellness program. Employees are the wellness program stakeholders!  

All workers should have an opportunity to provide input and feedback through needs and interest surveys and wellness program evaluation tools.  The information collected ought to be used to plan wellness programs that target those needs and interests to ensure participation, buy-in, and support.

There are a few methods to identify worker needs and interests such as -

• Conducting Worker Focus Groups

• Discussing Wellness Interests During Department Meetings

• Distributing and Summarizing a Needs and Interest Survey

• Including an Opportunity to Provide Suggestions on Each Analysis Tool  

Any one or combination of a few techniques will ensure that the health promotion program meets what employees want.  Click here for a sample Needs and Interest Survey.

Step 3 provides additional information on deciding wellness program needs.  But first, establishing a Wellness Committee can help you involve senior management and employees, determine need, and plan your wellness program.

Wellness incorporates many facets of our daily lives. From the amount of sleep to the water we drink, to the food that we eat and the activity that we maintain, our health is dependent upon many factors of our lifestyle.

Working to improve our wellness may be difficult to achieve on our own. That is why we can utilize the assistance of a health coach.

What is a health coach?

A health coach is a highly educated expert who is trained in behavioral change. They hold degrees in Exercise Science, Health Education, Exercise Physiology, Counseling and Education.

A health coach assists person in recognizing current health concerns in addition to preventing future health related issues. These experts work with patrons in a selection of ways including; face-to-face, telephone, instant messaging and / or via email.

The latter of those is also referred to as electronic coaching and is the most efficient and cost effective method of working with a health coach.

Whatever method is used for communication a health coach provides a personalized program particularly designed to address the needs and concerns of each individual customer.

How can a health coach help me?

A lot of individuals maintain several healthy habits in their lives. One individuals may  be a fitness enthusiast; another may abstain from alcohol and tobacco; while another might maintain a healthy daily diet.

Nevertheless, overall wellness is much like a puzzle, and a high level of health is only achieved when each piece of this puzzle is in place. A health coach will assist an individual in correcting his or her missing piece of the puzzle.

An internet based health coach may address the needs of sleep deprivation, stress management, diet, or any number of health related issues. the health coach will motivate, guide, and provide valuable resources to provide customers with the necessary tools to make life changes.

How is a health coach unique?

A health coach serves a distinctly different purpose than a fitness trainer, a counselor, or a supportive family member or friend. First, a health coach is an expert in his or her specific field.

When a patron decides the need for a health coach he or she will complete a health risk (assessment|appraisal}. Based on this assessment the patron will be assigned a health coach specifically selected to address his or her individual needs.

Next, a health coach is available electronically 24 hours per day. Through web-based communication clients have the opportunity to contact a health coach as much or as little as he could like.

Communication with a health coach may range from daily to weekly, and can occur by e-mail, journal or a combination of both. Lastly, a health coach is trained to assist in changing the way that the customer thinks and the way that they view themselves.

A health coach maintains the purpose of helping the patron to work towards achieving a higher quality in life. This happens by addressing the cause of a certain problem rather than simply addressing the effects of a problem.

A health coach will help person recognize their needs, determine goals, and take the necessary steps towards achieving these goals.

While wellness are growing concerns in our daily lives, it may seem difficult to make the time to educate oneself and address the needs or our well being.

Working with the assistance of a health coach empowers us to focus on our specific needs and make progress towards changing.

Health Promotion Program Step 1 - Make certain to set the Foundation -  

Build Support Among All Levels of the Organization

A key to a successful Health Promotion Program requires management commitment and employee involvement.

Health Promotion Program Step 2 -  Form a Health Promotion Committee

An active Wellness Committee ensures worker involvement, provides buy-in, senior level management support, and maintains a crew that is ready to act to integrate wellness programs.

Wellness Program Step 3 -  Gather Data to Identify Key Needs and Expectations

The next critical component is to base the Health Promotion Program on the needs and interests of your corporation and its workforce.

Health Promotion Program Step 4 -  Establish Goals and Objectives

Objectives and objectives are the road maps to guide you where your program needs to go.   These are the foundation for planning and analyzing  activities to ensure that your health promotion program is going to meet your unique needs.

Wellness Program Step 5 - Develop a Detailed Action Plan

There is no such thing as over planning!  the best of intentions can get lost, overstepped, or forgotten without adequate planning, and then it’d be all for naught.

Wellness Program Step 6 - Pick and Implement a Plan

Armed with the needs assessment information, a Wellness Committee, and objectives and objectives, it’s now time to put your plan into action!

Wellness Program Step 7 -  Monitor and Evaluate Your Wellness Program

Analysis is a necessary step to keep a health promotion program on target, in addition to to ensure that the health promotion program is reaching its goals or achieving the desired results.

Summary

These Seven Steps outline considerations for a extensive approach to establish an effective health promotion program. Are you able to implement components of wellness activities without following these steps?  

Definitely, but you may not have the sustainability or ability to obtain desired outcomes.  Following the Seven Steps does not have to be complicated or burdensome.  A very simple approach can achieve a successful wellness program!

As a result, to ensure a successful wellness program consider the key components as you plan your wellness program or improve your current wellness program -

• Executive Management Support and Staff Member Involvement

• Active Wellness Committee

• Wellness Program is Based on Staff Member Needs and Interests

• Objectives and Goals are Established

• Detailed Action Plan Based on Resources and Budget

• Health Promotion Program Implementation and Internal Advertising

• Examination of Wellness Program Outcomes

Do you find it difficult to stay aroused when trying to make changes to your health? Are you aware that changes ought to be made in your daily life but you do not know where to begin? If so then wellness coaching might just be the solution you have been seeking.

Wellness coaching is a service provided by trained professionals who work with you individually to help you reach your wellness goals. Wellness coaching motivates, guides, and supports individual’s to reach sustainable behavioral changes by offering creative solutions to their problems.

Wellness coaching provides individually designed programs to meet your unique needs by focusing on physical, mental, and emotional health. They help you become proactive in your life by eliminating unhealthy behaviors and making wellness a priority.

Advantages of Wellness Coaching for Your Employees

Staff Members could benefit  from wellness coaching in a variety of ways. Wellness coaching can help individuals decrease major health risks in their lives by changing high risk behaviors.

Some of the many reasons why staff members work with wellness coaches are to get in shape, lose weight, reduce stress, quit tobacco use, and develop balance in their lives. Wellness coaches assist individuals with current medical problems in addition to preventing future health issues.

Because each program that a wellness coach creates is unique to suit the needs of the customer, they can make certain that it will be a program that is right for them. Many busy employees mistakenly believe that they don’t have the time for wellness coaching.

Fortunately wellness coaching professionals are able to provide their services in a variety of convenient ways. While electronic coaching through the use of e-mails and instant messaging has become a popular method due to its convenience, telephone and face-to-face interactions may also be used.

Staff Members have the ability to achieve their objectives and improve their lives through the assistance of wellness coaching.

Advantages of Wellness Coaching for the Company

The overall advantages of wellness coaching for a company are remarkable. Worker high risk behaviors like tobacco use and obesity cost businesses millions of dollars every year.

These high risk behaviors often cause avoidable illness and keep workers from coming to work. Wellness coaching guides, supports, hold clients accountable, and ensures that they receive continued motivation to help them achieve their wellness goals and eliminate unhealthful behaviors in their lives.

By starting wellness programs and using wellness coaching in their organizations, corporations reduce the risk of avoidable disease in their organizations.

This improves the overall health of workers, decreases health care and insurance costs, decreases absenteeism, and ultimately enhances performance and productivity.

When staff members experience the benefits of higher levels wellness in their lives it causes an betterment in job attitude, energy, and morale.

Companies that utilize wellness coaching for their employees experience the advantages of higher productivity.

The health promotion program design options depend on the goals and desired outcomes of your health promotion program. When your goal is to help employees change behavior, reduce risk factors, or save healthcare dollars then your health promotion program would be designed to accomplish those outcomes and a budget would be necessary to support that design.  

There are different wellness program design levels depending on desired outcomes and budgets.  Each level has advantages and drawbacks.  The intentions or results are quite different, aren’t interchangeable as for obtaining the same results, and therefore should not be confused.  

For example, scheduling activities such as an staff member health fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having handouts available don’t normally result in behavior change, but might increase awareness on a topic.  

If the goal is behavior modification then a different design is required, such as Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Organizational Support.  The outline below describes the wellness design levels with a brief explanation.

Awareness Programs -   at this level a corporation makes medical information available and accessible to workers.  This type of wellness program can include brochures on a variety of topics, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.  

Additionally, most health fairs are designed as awareness programs with providers providing information and providing health testings to personnel.  

Awareness programs are low cost and do not require robust employee or company time commitments. However, these wellness programs do not normally lead to healthier behavior change.  

Increasing awareness is not typically enough to generate lifestyle changes for most person, unless used to motivate employees to register for a wellness program being offered at the company or community on the topic.  

An example of this would be providing information on the harmful effects of tobacco use and inviting employees who smoke to register for a tobacco use cessation class.

Education Programs -   Educational health promotion programs often provide more information on a topic and can also provide time for questions and answers, but are similar to awareness health promotion programs.  An example is lunch-n-learn sessions on a health related topic.  

These cost the company a little more than awareness programs; nonetheless, they are still inexpensive and do not require a great deal of time for planning or attending a session.  

Again, increasing awareness and providing information may not lead to the desired behavior modification unless ongoing support or incentives are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs -   These wellness programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or seminars to provide wellness education, address barriers and provide opportunities to practice the desired skills.  

Behavior change programs therefore require more corporation resources, cost more, and require more worker commitment, time and effort.  The results are often the desired positive lifestyle change, which if sustained can lead to potential cost savings.  

Examples are smoking cessation classes, weight loss and weight management meetings, or an ongoing fitness program.

Environmental and Organizational Support -   Environmental support is often considered the highest and most essential level to include when designing your wellness program in order to support and maintain healthful behaviors.  

These types of design choices include policy changes like -

• Creating a smoke-free worksite

• Designating a walking path,

• Establishing onsite health and fitness centers,

• Ensuring healthy vending machine selections,

• Offering healthful food options in the cafeteria, and/or

• Establishing flex-time policies.  

Other examples include subsidizing healthful vending machines or cafeteria choices; reimbursing health and fitness center or losing weight and weight control program memberships; or providing insurance incentives for healthful behaviors.

Ideally, the wellness program design would include some of all these choices.  The more robust and integrated the approach, the more successful the results will be.  For  instance, a organization can -

• have smoking cessation information available;
• can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit;
• can begin an on-site smoking cessation program,
• supply self quit use of tobacco kits, or
• support employees to attend a community program; and/or
• on an environmental support level can establish a smoke-free workplace and grounds,
• offer lower insurance premiums for non-smokers, or
• provide pharmacological quit smoke aids for free.

Wellness Program -  Components for Success

There are a few key components or elements that ought to be considered to ensure the success of your Wellness Program or wellness program.  These include -  

• Executive Management Support and Staff Member Involvement

• Active Health Promotion Committee

• Program is Based on Employee Needs and Interests

• Goals and Objectives are Established

• Detailed Action Plan Based on Resources and Budget

• Program Implementation and Internal Advertising and Marketing

• Investigation of Outcomes and Program

In today’s fast paced world our busy lives leave little time, energy, or motivation for people  to focus on their own needs.

Those that do seek to improve their wellness traditionally turn to friends, family, specialists and published materials for support and information. All too often those support structures fail to make a lasting difference.

This happens for a number of reasons. Friends and family might not be capable of helping. Working with experts is time consuming and costly and very few of us are effective at taking published, generic information and applying it to our own lives.

Gold’s Fitness Center Winston-Salem has developed a new internet based program that expands the range of support available to those wishing to make healthy lifestyle changes.

The program, Gold’s Health Club Health Coach, focuses on the everyday challenges of making positive lifestyle changes and has the advantages of being more customized and efficient than generic, published information and less intense and expensive than professional face-to-face counseling.

Utilizing a collaborative problem-solving model the goal isn’t to give advice, but rather to help individuals think through the issues and come to their own conclusions.

The coach offers ideas for consideration, assists the individual generate ideas of their own, assists the individual consider the various ideas, select a direction, and then supports them in the implementation of their decision.

Difficult the conventional wisdom that relationship formation requires in-person interaction; Gold’s Fitness Center has found that members and coaches are able to build meaningful relationships via internet based communication.

Utilizing industry leading technology a Gold’s Health Club Health Coach can offer members a secure, user-friendly personal website where they can access their coach in a real-time or via email with responses delivered in less than 24 hours.

The site authorizes coaches to hand select relevant articles that are written on a consumer level and that are targeted to the issue at hand and add them to a member’s online personal library.

The site also contains various programs and tools which are designed to assist the coach and member to set, implement and track specific goals.

The collaborative relationship formed between member and coach enhances the quality ice and efficiency of service. the familiarity that a coach develops with a member’s circumstances and meaningful relationships allows them over time to more quickly offer useful ideas and assistance.

With traditional call-in assistance lines, the time intensive exercise of getting background and contextual information is repeated each time. IN that scenario efficiency is lost.

Moreover, Gold’s Fitness Center Health Coach has developed a protocol based on key principals from the field of psychotherapy and behavior modification.

The protocol is embedded within a proprietary problem-solving that is based on the concept that individuals  often act without a good understanding of a problem. Their responses then complicate matters and often make matters worse.

Gold’s Fitness Center Health Coach offers the opportunity to step back, take a second look at what’s going on, and rapidly asses the factors influencing the situation. But, having an idea of “what” to do is very different than actually “doing” something about it.

Individuals  need help with the follow-through. So, after figuring out “what” to do, Gold’s Fitness Club Health Coach focuses on implementation.

Here Gold’s Health Club Health Coach builds on sound research and experience from the field of behavior modification that has to do with goal-establishing and with implementation support.

The end result is a highly personalized, effective, user-friendly way of bettering the wellness of an individual. the efficient nature of the internet based relationship allows Gold’s Gym Health Coach to keep the price point within reach of virtually whoever.

Major advantages of healthful staff members include -

• Lower Health Care Costs

• Reduced Injuries

• Decreased Absenteeism

• Improved Morale and Loyalty

• Higher Productivity

• Reduced Use of Health Care Benefits

• Lowered Workers’ Compensation / Disability

• Positive Perception in Community

• Lowered Turnover

• Better recruitment for skilled employees

What is NOT having a Wellness Program costing your corporation?  

Consider the health risk factors that are increasing chronic diseases for adults -

• 59% of adults are overweight or obese

• More than 60% of American adults do not exercise regularly

• More than 75% of adults do not consume the minimum recommendations for fruits and vegetables

• Heart illness is the most common cause of death and the leading cause of death in smokers

• 26% of staff stated they were often or very often burned out or stressed by their work  

Health Care Costs are Increasing -  Health Care costs are at a record high of $1.7 trillion with no signs of holding steady let alone decreasing.  The typical cost of annual health care spending is over $5,000 per person and with dependents almost $10,000.  

Current data shows that health care related expenses now cost North Carolina companies thousands of dollars per staff member, a year.

Most Illnesses can be Avoided -  Although it sounds unbelievable, experts indicate that avoidable illness makes up 60 percent - 70 percent of the entire burden of illness in the USA    

In North Carolina, it is estimated that more than 53 percent of all deaths are preventable, and that 2/3 of all preventable deaths are as a result of tobacco use, lack of exercise, and poor nutrition.

Stress Levels are Increasing -   as business resources become less and companies adopt leaner work practices, the effects of absenteeism and productivity lost have a greater impact.  

In a recent national poll, 78 percent of American Citizens described their jobs as stressful, and the majority felt that stress levels have become worse over the last 10 years. Moreover, high levels of organizational stress can adversely affect a organization by increasing injuries, absenteeism, and healthcare costs while decling productivity.  

Simple solutions such as stress management education, flexible work schedules, quality social interaction, and increased participation in company decision-making can improve stress levels in the worksite.

What’s the Upfront Cost and Time Investment for a Health Promotion Program?

The fee depends on the kind of Health Promotion Program implemented.  There are several options to promote employee health with advantages and disadvantages of each.  The wellness program design depends on the goals of the wellness program, the corporation resources, and the community resources available.  

Improving dietary practices, increasing physical activity levels, managing stress or addressing work life balance issues, and reducing/eliminating tobacco use, are main strategies for preventing many of the most common avoidable chronic conditions.

The possibilities of how your business addresses these issues are endless and can range from increasing staff member awareness, which can include purchasing several pamphlets on a selection of topics, and measuring walking distances around your facility.

Other possibilities include establishing organizational support like funding a fulltime occupational health specialist or building an onsite fitness center.  

When well planned and based on your objectives, any of these wellness programs can help you succeed.  Refer below to Wellness Program Design Choices for additional ideas.