One company in Colorado is literally putting it's money where your mouth is. They are offering to pay cash to anyone in the state who is willing to lose weight, and be accountable for it.
Check out the story below:
The last few years at my workplace they have implemented a program with a similar goal called the Health Improvement Program. Basically they incentivise a healthy lifestyle by offering cheaper health insurance with lower out of pocket expenses if you will submit to a yearly health screening, and work with trained nurse / coaches on any health issues you may have.
The program was fairly unpopular when first implemented. But management recently announced a major costs savings in our health insurance program, so apparently it's working. Or it's propoganda! (Hehehe, only kidding!)
As for myself, I wasn't thrilled when they first put the program in place, but wasn't about to pass up cheaper health insurance so I kept my grumbling to a minimum and tried to jump in with a positive attitude. And I can honestly say I've come to like the benefits it provides. I have found myself slowly changing many of my habits over the last few years, lost weight, took up running, improved my diet, etc.
The program is designed to get good information into our hands and brains, via force if necessary. Not only are we required to submit to the health screening, but we are required to take quizzes periodically that are designed to teach us good health habits. One of the quizzes is required before each yearly health screening.
Honestly, it seemed like a pain in the butt when I first started doing it, but I found over time the information was sticking in my brain.
Each year I have made small changes to try to improve my score. I have recently started taking a multivitamin, mostly because they recommend that we do, to boost immune systems, and they provide research that shows that people who regularly take a multivitamin get sick less often that those that don't.
I also deal with high cholesterol. It runs in my family. So one of my goals is to try to get that number down. Last year I was excited to see how all of the running and exercise would pay off. And there was a significant improvement. But nowhere near what I thought it would be. This year I am at least 25 pounds lighter, and have made a lot of positive diet changes, so I'm really hoping it to see a big improvement. My cholesterol was 270 the first time I got it checked. Normal is supposed to be less than 200. There was a drop in my bad cholesterol levels last year, and an increase in the good kind so I'm going in the right direction.
It's good to have goals, as many contributors to this blog have pointed out.
Even if your goal is to avoid a phone call from a nurse practitioner from a health screening plan!
Weight issues are a plague to the United States. It is getting so bad that predictions are within the next 10 years over 2/3's of Americans will be overweight. We will literally bankrupt ourselves by eating our way to early graves if we don't change our ways.
I think the insurance company in the article above is on the right track, and I hope to see more offerings like this going forward, and better yet, I hope we can stop the free fall as a society, educate our kids, and help them learn a healthy relationship with food, and the bounty most of us have by proxy of living in the best country on earth.
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