How Wellness Professionals Feel About You. Really!

Co-written and published simultaneously with Al Lewis

Have you ever wondered what the wellness professionals trying to “get” you to change your behaviors so you can be healthy really think about you? How do they really feel about your struggles, whatever they might be? What do they say (or mumble under their breath) after their interaction with you? In a recent treatise on employee wellness, a well-known commentator in the workplace wellness space, Troy Adams of WellSteps, gave his clear and definitive answer to these questions:

“Our role as wellness professionals is to try to get people to do something they do not want to do. After all, it is fun to get fat. It is fun to be lazy. Not everyone likes the taste of fresh fruits and vegetables, they would prefer chocolate, soda, and Cheetos. Successful wellness program engagement requires us to get people to do something they do not want to do- start living healthy lifestyles.”

You might say, well this is just an isolated incident – everyone puts their foot in their mouth sometimes. Problem is this person’s business partner, another long-time wellness professional, wrote a well-received book some years ago, with an eerily similar premise. Speaking of the health issues facing our country, his conclusion was that:

“The Most Common Health Problem in The United States is I-don’t-care-it-is – A common condition in which an individual has no interest in adopting a healthy lifestyle.”

This sentiment was reinforced in more detail just a week or two ago on a LinkedIn discussion when another workplace wellness professional said the following about employees:

“Controllable/Self-Inflicted diseases that aren't showing any improvement (usually because of lack of effort or any attempt at all) will pay higher premiums whereas healthier individuals are rewarded as are those who show signs of improvement…You know the saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but can't make them drink." Aren't you tired of putting wellness programs together for the SAME, already healthy people? And the unhealthy listen but do nothing.... well, this just might make them "drink!"

One of us (Jon) did learn a few things from this one. First, I had no idea that diseases of any kind actually pay health insurance premiums. And second, as someone who suffers every minute of every day with multiple sclerosis, I was enlightened to learn that it was likely controllable and probably self-inflicted.

(Ironically, my collaborator on this piece, Al Lewis, does have a “self-inflicted” disease. He has recurring bladder tumors traceable to his eating the very “fresh fruits and vegetables” recommended by wellness professionals…but it turned out they were grown in soil that was contaminated.  Shame on him for not investigating his locally sourced produce ahead of time. He deserves the self-inflicted disease that he got, and should be willing to pay the fine.)

And we certainly cannot forget the preventive medicine doctor who coined the phrase oblivobesity because apparently he feels we have not yet made larger people feel bad enough about themselves to actually force them to do something about their weight – the difficulty of which has been greatly overstated because, again according to him:

 “…by and large, we can lose weight and find health by eating well and being active. Really.” 

I guess adding really to a statement makes it even more likely to be true! Really.

So, if this is how these wellness professionals feel about the people they are trying to help, what kinds of solutions are they suggesting?

Scary Solutions

One wellness professional suggested that being “stern” with employees would help. Another suggested being “aggressive.”  Many have said we need to “drive” employees, while one said we need to “mold” them. And almost everywhere employees are referred to as human resources apparently to be used up and replaced like coal or oil.

Unfortunately, according to another wellness professional reporting on recent recommendations from a well-known wellness vendor, being stern and aggressive may just not be enough. So, what more is needed?

“Wellness will become mandatory– Employees have always had a choice when participating in wellness programs. But with the costs of healthcare, chronic diseases, and an aging population, we may not have a choice for much longer. Governments are making wellness mandatory (across the globe). Mexico taxes soda, in Japan, authorities measure BMI and waistlines, and in the U.S., we still rely largely on rewards and incentives to facilitate change.”

Finally, who can forget the words of the Wellness Services Manager for a large insurance company who said about employees in the companies they insure who don't want to participate in their wellness offerings:

"If your employer implements one, and you are one of the employees who does hate them, you are always free to seek employment elsewhere."

How backwards are we as a society that we still use rewards and punishments to drive behavior when we could just make the behaviors mandatory and tell people who don't want to participate to just find another job?  Unfortunately elected officials may not want to risk the wrath of constituents to force them to reduce BMIs and eat less saturated fat.  Not that forcing people to do those two things would do any good, since both have been discredited. Forcing people to adopt certain behaviors is especially counterproductive when research keeps changing the behaviors we are all supposed to adopt.

And I am curious to know if the health professional at that insurance company might have a problem keeping her job if her superior knew how she feels about the employees they serve.

The Good News: Enlightened Professionals Know Better

If by now you are thoroughly depressed, angry, sad….so are we! But there is good news. First, not all wellness professionals believe in these things as was evidenced by the many negative reactions to the LinkedIn post about “how fun it is to be fat.”  Secondly, when it comes to the workplace, enlightened leaders don’t buy into any of this nonsense. Here is what one such leader of a wildly successful, self-managed, blue collar brass foundry in France had to say about how his company views and treats their employees:

"People are systematically considered to be good. Reliable, self-motivated, trustworthy and intelligent."

"There is no performance without happiness. To be happy we need to be motivated. To be motivated, we need to be responsible. To be responsible we must understand why and for whom we work, and be free to decide how."

Maybe it is time for some wellness professionals to go back to school and get an MBA, or at the very least a course in compassion.

Finally, both of us writing this piece have spoken out and continue to speak out against these kinds of attitudes which have led to the proliferation of employee wellness programs that do things to employees rather than with and for them and the abomination that is wellness or else, initiatives that punish employees for not participating in programs or not reaching often arbitrarily mandated wellness goals.

We, and the other whistle blowers in this space do this not to be bullies, but because we understand that these programs hurt many more people than they help and that continuing to promote them is therefore ethically unacceptable. As such, we call on all health and business professionals alike to adopt a new mantra for understanding and treating human beings in and out of the workplace:

“The only way to achieve the goal of having  people act like creative, thinking, responsible, autonomous adults is to treat them like that is exactly what they are.”

Really!