Subject: Chicago Sun-Times Online Placement
From: "Merilee Kern" <[email-masked]>
To: "David Roddenberry" <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 10:15:28 -0700

http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/7110444-423/on-the-job-fitness.html

Local companies help employees improve health 
By Tammy Chase August 22, 2011 7:52PM 

MacNeal Hospital employees Shandra Primar (left) and Gregory Porter are among the group that have lost weight and improved their health in the hospital gym. | Dom Najolia~Sun-Times 

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Updated: August 23, 2011 12:07PM

Way back at the first of the year, many Chicagoans made New Year’s resolutions. Some of those likely included getting back into shape. While many of us were on our own trying to follow through, employees at MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn and at BlueStar Energy Solutions got a little help — from the boss.

Shandra Primar, 47, a housekeeper at MacNeal, was glad to agree to a health assessment earlier this year offered by her employer. She knew that she had put a few pounds on over the years. But she was shocked to learn that she was, by medical definition, considered obese. “It was upsetting, to find out that I was ‘obese,’” she recalls. Months later, she’s down two uniform sizes and works out regularly with a handful of her overnight shift colleagues, hitting the hospital gym at hours most people are asleep.

Primar is one of several employees taking advantage of wellness programs offered by their employers. Though fewer than half of companies across the United States offer wellness programs, the percentage of those companies that do is rising. Last year, 45 percent of employers offered some kind of wellness program to their employees in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the Metlife Study of Employee Benefit Trends released in March, compared with 37 percent in 2009. Such benefits include managing weight loss and increasing fitness activities and quitting smoking, for example. Of the companies offering wellness perks, 72 percent of them did so to reduce medical costs.

Some companies simply have their own programs, such as Children’s Memorial Hospital, which held a “know your numbers” session last fall that allowed employees to get their cholesterol and blood pressure tested, among other things. The hospital offers on-site Weight Watchers meetings, as well as yoga classes and healthy meal choices in the cafeteria. At Pepsico’s Quaker offices in Chicago, employees have access to annual health screenings, educational classes on weight management and handling stress, and an on-site fitness center and exercises classes for just $18 a month.

Other companies, such as MacNeal and BlueStar, were just two of several companies that participated in the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce’s Live Healthy Chicago program, which provides grants to select companies to offer a 100-day initiative that began in January to create competitions for employees to get into shape. There also are companies like HealthyWage, a weight loss company that enrolls employees in contests to lose weight and get to healthy Body Mass Indexes (BMI) and gives cash prizes to teams of employees with the greatest percentage of weight lost. HealthyWage launched its “Chicago Matchup” in May, with the Archdiocese of Chicago, Mesirow Financial, and Schneider Electric in Downers Grove all participating.

At MacNeal, the housekeepers pulled together, four of them at first and eventually seven in all, to rally each other to work out at midnight in the hospital’s gym. They took turns on the elliptical trainer, treadmill, stationary bike and the stability ball. At one point, someone even brought in a radio and a few of them would practice doing the “Electric Slide” for exercise. Now Primar is in Zumba classes. Other employees at MacNeal formed walking groups (one group was named “Mission Slim-possible” and has walked more than 8,000 miles this year).  In all, 21 groups of employees participated at the hospital.

The results were inspirational. Of employees who participated, half lost weight; 32 percent lowered their total cholesterol, and 39 percent reduced their fasting blood sugar, a test used to diagnose diabetes, said April Krakar, health and wellness coordinator at MacNeal. “They feel better. They have more energy. They’re happier,” she said.

For BlueStar, fitness programs weren’t in the budget, says Carmen Bass, BlueStar’s human resources manager, so the grant from the Chamber was particularly helpful. Roughly half of the energy company’s employees signed up for the fitness evaluation. Since then employees have participated in the 100-day challenge by participating in races including the stairclimbing “Hustle up the Hancock” and the Gateway Green “Tree-K” 5K run and 3K walk last April. One employee who finished the 5K even got inspired to sign up and train for the Chicago Marathon this October. Total pounds lost, 161.

Such programs motivate employees to take steps they might not take on their own. Ken Callham, a project manager for BlueStar, lost 30 pounds over the 100-day challenge period and has kept the weight off. Through the program, he also lowered his cholesterol as well as his sodium intake. He’s bringing his lunch or hitting the salad bar instead of the pizza joint at mealtime and skipping fast-food egg sandwiches for breakfast in favor of cottage cheese and fruit. He also bikes and walks more, and is anticipating BlueStar’s new “Fit Bug” pedometer program for employees.

“It was good that it was a prolonged program that allowed me to make lifestyle changes,” the 26-year-old says of the 100-day program that began in January. “Knowing all the time that we put in in the office, the fact that the company had a genuine interest in our well-being — it’s good to see that in an employer.”

It’s easy to skip spending corporate dollars on such programs in the midst of tough economic times. But employers who don’t spend the money, take note: A Harvard Business Review article shows that there is a return on investment. Johnson & Johnson has put into place programs to help employees quit smoking, become more active and improve health measures, such as lowering blood pressure. Since 1995, for every dollar spent, J&J reports a return of $2.71 from lowered health care costs for the company, the study said. 

“Wellness programs have often been viewed as a nice extra, not a strategic imperative,” wrote Leonard L. Berry, Ann M. Mirabito, and William B. Baun, the story’s authors. “Newer evidence tells a different story. With tax incentives and grants available under recent federal health care legislation, U.S. companies can use wellness programs to chip away at their enormous health care costs, which are only rising with an aging workforce.”