Friday, September 24, 2010

Wellness = Quality of Life

For those of us personally and professionally committed to wellness, we understand that a comprehensive definition of wellness includes fitness, nutrition, and healthy behaviors such as tobacco avoidance and stress reduction. But for so many others, until recently, wellness simply meant not being sick. 
According to a recent survey by The Hartman Group, wellness has now gone mainstream and is viewed as a marker for quality of life. Their results showed that the majority of consumers who responded included a range of components: physical fitness, stress management, and feeling good about themselves.  
While the definition of wellness will always be tailored to the individual, the good news is that more people are actively seeking wellness, including looking for information and how-to tips. Worksite wellness programs are the perfect opportunity to provide individuals with different levels of interest and participation in wellness behaviors with opportunities to learn about health-promoting behaviors and put them into practice.
Another encouraging finding of the survey was that consumers are more likely to seek foods to prevent disease rather than to treat it. This shows that consumers are focused on maintaining and improving their health, which is a key component of worksite wellness. Emphasizing prevention – taking healthy action to promote and preserve health rather than simply focus on fixing problems once they occur – is not only catering to what employees are looking for, but is also a great way to promote company health, including moral, increased productivity and reduced sick days and healthcare costs.
But while lots of good news was uncovered, the survey points out that not everyone is on board the wellness train. Twenty-five percent of respondents were categorized as being on the ‘periphery’ of wellness, meaning they are least likely to be involved in wellness. The ‘periphery’ approach tends to be more along the lines of avoiding ‘bad’ foods and behaviors as opposed to seeking out healthy choices. While the temptation of wellness enthusiasts and health-promoting products is often to bombard this audience with benefits and reasons why they should act, people don’t want to be ‘preached’ to. The power of worksite wellness programming is that by providing a variety of information and incentives through a range of medium, it provides equal opportunity and benefit to all individuals, no matter where they fall on the wellness spectrum.