Holistic Health - Marathon Health

Holistic Health - Marathon Health: "Implement the Marathon Health Solution: we begin with onsite primary care, occupational health and pharmacy services as a foundation for engaging employees. These services extend to your remote employees with onsite health assessments and online and/or telephonic coaching.
Identify Risk: we aggregate the data from your claims history and health screenings. Based on this information, we create a report that identifies risk prevalence for cholesterol, blood pressure, glucoses, nicotine use, obesity, inactivity, nutrition, seatbelt use, alcohol use, and sleep patterns.
Manage Risk: we identify participants who are at risk for developing or have a high-cost chronic condition. Through our outreach program, we engage these individuals and begin the risk reduction coaching. Using our eHealth Portal to document the individualized plan and track changes, participants also have access to health content, interactive nutrition and fitness tools, and the evidence-based Problem Knowledge Coupler software.
Change Utilization: with the availability of onsite primary care, our clinicians will discover and treat undiagnosed conditions. The interventions and treatments of the onsite clinician will result in decreased trips to the doctor, the emergency room, and in hospitalizations.
Capture Savings: access to onsite primary care and health coaching will return savings in several areas, most notably in lower claims costs, fewer work loss days, and higher productivity. The hard and soft dollar savings will yield an average of 3:1 to 6:1 ROI over three years, respectively."

Fitbug :: About Us :: Business

Fitbug :: About Us :: Business: "An unhealthy workforce isn’t healthy for business. There is no doubt that a team which is lean and fit will benefit your business. Research shows that healthier employees have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line. Healthy employees have lower healthcare costs, improved productivity, fewer medical claims and reduced absenteeism. The result is a win/win situation for individual health and company gain.
Fitbug provides a solution which appeals to individuals who recognize that they need to do something, but want to fit a healthy, effective regime into their current lifestyle. Fitbug provides a corporate solution which is accessible to everybody. It isn’t a diet and it isn’t a rigorous fitness regime, it’s a healthy way of life which allows individuals to take control of their own activity and nutrition levels within the confines of their current life.
Fitbug is a great tool to encourage team dynamics. It has a competitive element which is great for team building and corporate development. Inter-company Fantasy FootfallTM. Leagues allow employees to compete against each other or other divisions and even other companies!
With a range of corporate packages for business of all sizes, offer your staff a Fitbug membership and show them that you care."

Did you know that on average we walk 26 miles a week less than we did just 20 years ago while portion sizes keep getting bigger…? It’s no wonder that you can’t open a newspaper these days without reading about how unhealthy we are.
Fitbug isn’t a diet and it’s not a rigorous workout regime, it’s an online health & wellbeing coach which will help you to do more and eat the right amounts of the right food. Fitbug’s all about making small lifestyle changes for great health benefits.
Fitbug’s philosophy is based around achieving a balance that’s right for you within the confines of your current life. We recognize that asking you to make large changes to the way you live just isn’t realistic. Fitbug’s approach is personal and individually designed to make sure you get the very best from your membership.
With Fitbug you’ll realize how easy and fun it is achieve your goals. By simply using your Bug, Fitbug helps you get to the right mix of activity and nutrition to get great health benefits.

Simply speaking, there’s a definite relationship between ‘what you eat and what you do’ – when you eat you consume calories (Energy In), when you move, you burn calories (Energy Out)…

  Energy In = Energy Out

  You maintain current body weight (Energy Balanced)

  Energy In > Energy Out

  You gain weight (Positive Energy Balanced)

  Energy In < Energy Out

  You will lose weight (Negative Energy Balanced)

Health Care Savings - Can you make a difference?

Health Care Savings Could Start in the Cafeteria

Times Topics: Health Care Reform

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Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Zoe Finch Totten, second from left, C.E.O. of the Full Yield, offered sample portions of its menu offerings to employees of Harvard Pilgrim, an insurance company.

“I can take any standard diagnostic procedure and there’s typically a five- to tenfold difference in the cost of that identical procedure, whether it’s an M.R.I., CT scan, a diagnostic catheterization, a colonoscopy, you name it,” says Mr. Burd, the chief executive of Safeway.
Four years ago, Mr. Burd, whose grocery chain is the nation’s third largest, became something of health care expert when his company saw a looming financial crisis. In 2005, Safeway was forking over $1 billion a year to provide health insurance for its workers, and the cost was rising 10 percent a year. It was Mr. Burd’s moment of truth: he realized he could no longer stand by as health care costs ballooned.
“We were saying ‘Wow, we’re paying almost twice in health care costs as what we’re making in earnings, and in five years it’s going to be another half a billion dollars,’ ” he recalls.
Similar sticker shock is confronting all kinds of employers, which together provide 160 million Americans with health care coverage. But the cost of delivering that insurance has surged 31 percent over the last five years, representing the fastest-growing single corporate expense, according to Towers Perrin, the management consulting firm. Those costs take a huge bite out of the bottom line and hurt employees, many of whom see their paychecks shrink as employers pass along the extra costs.
Shelly Wolff, head of the health and productivity consulting group at Watson Wyatt, says she has seen C.E.O.’s who’ve dealt adeptly with tough issues like climate change become completely flummoxed by health care. “It’s a board-level deal for most companies,” she says. “A lot of companies are saying ‘What do you do with health care?’ ”
In home offices around Boston, a shoestring operation of three full-time employees is working on an unusual answer to that question. As the wrangling over trillion-dollar price tags continues on Capitol Hill, a start-up company called the Full Yield is undertaking its own version of health care reform by using a simple, low-tech premise: Eat healthier food and you’ll become healthier.
The idea is to help companies move their employees to better diets that, the logic goes, will ultimately reduce their visits to the doctor’s office and the operating room — thus cutting costs.
“We need to put food back in the heart of health care,” says Zoe Finch Totten, Full Yield’s chief executive. “It’s the cheapest way to deal with health and the simplest, and definitely the most pleasurable.”
OVER the last six years, Ms. Totten, an associate at the Jefferson School of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and a nurse midwife by training, has been working to create a 12-month nutritional program different from anything that’s been tried in the workplace before.
Part one of its two-pronged approach is a line of Full Yield-branded food intended to take the guesswork out of what constitutes a healthy diet, while also reducing the need for cooking, which so many workers say they have no time for. Consisting of fresh items made with natural, whole ingredients, the food will be sold in corporate cafeterias and in the prepared-foods section of local supermarkets.
Unlike most corporate nutrition and weight-loss programs, which offer predictable prescriptions about portion size and calorie control, Ms. Totten’s plan allows employees surprising amounts of free rein in deciding how much to eat. “You can eat when you’re hungry, as much as you want, as long as you pay attention to when you’re full,” she advises. “And then you can eat again whenever you feel hungry.”
This may be music to participants’ ears, but it’s a controversial message that runs counter to the advice of many nutrition and obesity experts.
F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, director of the New York Obesity Research Center and chief of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and nutrition at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, says it’s an inappropriate message in a nation full of overeaters. “It just isn’t true that people stop when they should,” says Dr. Pi-Sunyer. “Americans are overriding their satiety signals. So to say eat until you’re satiated is not a helpful health message.”
But Ms. Totten contends that overeating doesn’t result from a nationwide failure to count calories, but from the fact that so many people consume a diet of processed, refined foods. “People overeat Doritos because those foods are designed to trick the body’s beautiful ability to be able to self-regulate,” she said. “When you eat primarily health-supporting foods you will recover those protective mechanisms.”
Those who make that change and join the program are urged to eat Full Yield’s food or their own similarly whole-food-based choices exclusively for at least three months.
Part two of the program involves tracking those employees’ progress by collecting a variety of data about them and partnering with insurers to analyze it.
“A lot of employers are doing these modest and piecemeal efforts at wellness and they have not worked,” said Gary Hirshberg, the chief executive of Stonyfield Farm, a yogurt maker, and a member of Full Yield’s board. “This is a comprehensive health management program with food as the base. And it’s going to save companies a lot of money.”
Groupe Danone, Stonyfield’s parent company, has invested “seven figures” in the Full Yield, according to Mr. Hirshberg.
If Ms. Totten and Mr. Hirshberg are correct, the potential for health care savings is huge. A study in the January-February 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs concluded that 75 percent of the country’s $2.5 trillion in health care spending has to do with four increasingly prevalent chronic diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Most cases of these diseases, the report stated, are preventable because they are caused by behaviors like poor diets, inadequate exercise and smoking.
Obesity alone threatens to overwhelm the system. In a recent study, Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, found that if trends continued, annual health care costs related to obesity would total $344 billion by 2018, or more than 20 percent of total health care spending. (It now accounts for 9 percent.)

Need help with overeating?

Five steps to end overeating

You already know the signs of overeating. Your scale moves in the wrong direction. You tell yourself you’ll eat only a few potato chips. Then, you polish off the whole bag.

It’s easy to take in more calories than your body needs — food is all around and portions are big. What’s more difficult is knowing how to stop overeating if it’s a habit for you. The good news: There’s a recipe for eating sensibly. These tips may help:

1. Set the stage. “No one should eat without a table, plate and chair,” says Dawn Jackson Blatner, R.D., spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. You need all three to focus on your food and actually take a mental snapshot of what you’re consuming. This eliminates nibbling out of the fridge and dining on the fly — which can lead you to eat too much.
   
   
2. Downsize portions. Today’s bagel is typically twice as big and has more than double the calories as one sold 20 years ago. Likewise, in the past two decades the average soda serving has tripled in size and calories. This supersizing of food is a big reason many of us overeat. To fight portion inflation at home:
   
   
   • Avoid the temptation of extra helpings by never eating food straight from a package. Instead, put single servings in your own container.
   • Dish up food in the kitchen and put it on plates, rather than serving food on your table. You’re less likely to overeat when food is out of reach.
   • Try using a smaller plate.
   
   Restaurants often serve more food than one person needs. To scale back, split entrees with someone else. Or, eat half your food and pack the other half to take home. Also, be wary of any food served in a “super” or “deluxe” portion, such as soda or fries. The small or regular size is almost always enough. Consider skipping the appetizer and ordering a salad with a healthful dressing instead.
   
   
3. Skip the multitasking. Any activity you combine with eating — such as watching TV or reading — makes you less aware of how much food you’re munching.
   
   
4. Slow down. “It takes 20 minutes for your stomach to send a message to your brain that you’re full,” says Blatner. Try putting less on your fork, chewing slowly and putting your fork down between bites. This helps give your brain time to catch up with your stomach.
   
   
5. Don’t become famished. Overly hungry people tend to overdo it when they finally eat. “So, eat meals every five hours and plan sensible snacks in between, such as celery and peanut butter,” Blatner advises. “This may help you bridge the gap between meals.”

When it comes to food, your habits can work for or against you. By making the right — and fairly simple — choices, you can help control how much you eat. But, be sure to talk with your doctor if you think you’re having difficulty with overeating.