Eats, Plants & Leaves

PeppersEat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That’s the advice of writer Michael Pollan in his NYT piece Unhappy Meals. You can use this registration-free link to read the entire piece, including his 9-step process for healthy eating. [via BoingBoing] It’s a long article, but every word is worthwhile. If you don’t have much time, read Pages 1, 11 and 12. Want your employees to really get healthier? This is the roadmap.

Photo credit: Adactio

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Friday KnowHR Links - The Healthy Design Edition

What Does 200 Calories Look Like?. Have a total welness campaign going on in your company? Here’s a compelling way to show your employees that a teaspoon of peanut butter has the same number of calories as a sack full of carrots.

A Table of Visualization Methods. Roll over the “elements” to see what they mean. People think in pictures in their heads. Challenge yourself to do your next HR communication without any words. (No, I don’t mean hire a mime.)

Social Networking Comes to Healthcare. The patients are talking to each other. Which reminds me of one of my favorite mantras: Lord, give me patience, but give it to me now.

How’s that New Year’s Resolution Working Out?

Indexed: New Years Resolutions

I’m 10 hours and 24 minutes into my New Year’s Resolution to eat better. I hope I can hold out until noontime. So, when I saw this graph on Jessica Hagy’s brilliant Indexed, I just had to laugh. In the words of Witchiepoo on H.R. Pufnstuf, “Oranges, poranges, who cares? There ain’t no rhyme for oranges.”

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Eschewing the Fat

Obesity is costing your company a fortune. Consider these statics from a Knowledge@Wharton article titled Efforts Are Growing to Trim the Fat from Employees — and Employers’ Health Care Costs (reg. req’d):

Obesity and overweight conditions contribute as much as $93 billion to the nation’s yearly medical bill, according to studies reviewed by the National Business Group on Health, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization that represents large companies. Of that amount, the total cost of obesity to U.S. companies is estimated at more than $13 billion per year — a price tag that includes $8 billion for added health insurance costs, $2.4 billion for paid sick leave, $1.8 billion for life insurance and $1 billion for disability insurance. According to recent studies on the economic cost of workplace obesity, that translates into 39 million lost work days, 239 million days where work activity is restricted, 90 million sick days or days in bed and 63 million visits to physicians.

The numbers are startling. But obesity is a very sensitive subject, and one that HR has to be super careful about broaching in the workplace. Just putting up posters or sponsoring a few Weight Watchers meetings won’t do. It’s going to require sensitivity, sensibility, and stick-to-it-tiveness. It’s going to require money and it’s going to require time. I wish I had the magic answer on this one, but I don’t even have it for myself. I know the deal - more exercise, healthier eating, more green vegetables and fruits, plenty of sleep, less stress. I’m not sure how all that fits in a late 2006 workaday world, but a price tag of $13 billion a year to companies, and the doggone real effect of shortening life, I guess I’d better get going on it.

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