The True Cost of Eating the Big Mac

For those with a penchant for economics, the concept of purchasing power parity and the big mac index is probably like motherhood and apple pie.  For the rest of us, we’ll leave it at that and get on with what I found to be a really interesting article I came across in the Economist (yes, I’m a closet economist).  UBS published an interesting study that looked at how long the average worker had to work in 73 countries to make enough money to buy a Big Mac.  I would say it’s not a surprise to most of us that Chicago (along with Tokyo and Toronto) was at the top of the list with 12 mins.  Compare that to Nairobi where the average worker had to slog it out for over 2 and half hours to savor that special sauce laden patty of bovine perfection.

What happens when you factor the time to burn that Big Mac off?

A typical Big Mac boasts about 480-500 calories.  Using the workout editor on FiVi.com, I wanted to highlight what you would have to add to those 12 minutes to burn off those calories.  Assuming you were a 175 lb male, it would require you:

walk briskly for 110 minutes

jog for 32 minutes

run up stairs for 22 minutes

swim for 60 minutes

irish folk dance for 80 minutes

Of course, everyone knows that you can’t have a Big Mac without super sizing your meal to include a large fries and gallon of coke.  So just take my numbers and multiply them by 3….and then enroll in a celtic dance school.

In the meantime, if you’d like to see the original article click here

The Spread of Health Behaviors in Social Networks

As the founder of a social networking site designed to help foster healthy lifestyles, I could not have asked for a more germane study in support of what we are trying to do.  The Framingham Heart Study is one of the most famous social network studies in the academic world.  Essentially, a stash of papers found in a storeroom were the personal records of 5,124 male and female subjects started in 1948.  The primary focus of this data set was for risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease.  What Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH; A. James O’Malley, PhD; Alan M. Zaslavsky, PhD did was take this study and expand upon it to look at the affect of your social network and risks associated with obesity.

The following image is from an article in Wired Magazine and show the virulent characteristics of obesity in human populations.  Essentially what the researchers did was map out BMI for the population in Framingham over time and looked at the relationship that defined that population.  The key finding is that it’s very hard to stay lean if you are surrounded by obese people, hence the clumping of obese groups of individuals.  What is the most shocking is that if you have a friend that is obese, your chances of being obese jumps to 171%.

Without getting too much into statistics and correlation, causality, and externalities…I think there is something that is very intuitive with the assumption that our friends do have an influence on how we live and what we do.  I would say with a lot of confidence that positive behaviors can be infectious and they do become more powerful the larger the group.  Unfortunately the same goes for negative behaviors.

It’s important to recognize the influence our friends have on us and to think about who we want to affect that in line with our personal goals.  Group mandated change is one of the most powerful motivators out there…and new online capabilities can be a wonderful enabler.  Get together with your friends and form a friendly competition around who can lose the most weight or log the fastest time.  Share success stories, tips, and press each other on.  I’m not revealing any great mystery but there is something to hearing it again.

Here is the link for the original study…click here

Here is a link for the book that came out of this study….click here

And here is the link to fivi.com where you can form a positive habit forming group …click here

Corporate Wellness – the Stick or the Carrot

Is corporate wellness the next bubble in the health and wellness space?  Rising cost of health care, more employee managed programs, aging workforce, etc – all make corporate wellness a pretty germane topic these days.  The recent WSJ article “Get Well, or Pay Not To” raises some interesting questions.

First, the current recession is not going to stymie the growth in corporate incentives for people to lead a healthier lives:

(excerpt)

More employers are offering cash, discounts and even lower health-insurance premiums to entice workers to participate in a variety of programs. And starting next year, employees could have further incentive to get healthy as more companies add penalties to insurance premiums for workers who don’t partake.

“It’s an opportunity to get cash for doing what’s right for you,” says Shelly Wolff, a senior consultant at consulting firm Watson Wyatt.

Despite cutbacks amid the recession, 58% of large U.S. companies now offer lifestyle-improvement programs, up from 43% in 2007, according to a Watson Wyatt study. And 56% provide health coaches, compared with 44% in 2007. Health-risk appraisals are offered at 80% of companies, up from 72% in 2007.

(end excerpt)

The articles continues to talk about the lengths that companies will go to just to encourage their employees to be healthier.  Whether it’s money, gift cards, or access to wellness professionals – the economics are there for employers to have healthier employees.  One extreme example is the “insurer Aetna which offers employees up to $1,200 back each year via their paychecks or health savings accounts for completing a health-risk assessment, identifying and completing family health goals, making healthy food choices and participating in a variety of fitness activities.”

Now what happens for those who choose not to participate?  There has been talk of a surcharge for employees who don’t take the assessments.  It’s more to get the attention of the employee.  It’s is my opinion that these tactics are counterproductive and completely unsustainable in a tight labor market.  I know that in the current economic climate, a tight labor market seems like an absurd thing to write about.  But we will get there eventually.  Baby boomers will retire eventually and they did not make as many Gen X’ers as them (on the order of 10-12 million less).  It is my personal belief that a good corporate wellness program will be much more in the future than just about saving on health care costs.  It will be a key component of attracting the best talent and most loyal employees.

Some food for thought.  Many of corporate wellness programs today are very passive in nature.  Log so many hours on our site over 6 months and we’ll give you a $300 check.  Most people forget.  Free gym memberships aren’t much better.  Even when people pay for the gym membership, they don’t go.  Health assessments, quick and easy to take but once we know that you are at risk – then what?  Is a $25 dollar surcharge going to get you to quit smoking?  I hope so, but not likely.  It may only aggrevate the situation.  What about all the smaller companies that don’t have the economis of scale that Aetna enjoys who can’t afford to give their employees $1,200 in incentives?

These are interesting questions that many in the industry are trying to solve right now as we speak.  I see this being more about active participation and being more creative about how we would encourage people to lead better healthier lives.  This means specialized firms and wellness professionals that can tailor programs for the individual companies.  Different corporate cultures will require different programs.  For those companies that can’t afford managed wellness programs, I see technology as playing a large role in helping bring down the costs.  Peer motivation and social networks are a great source of opportunity that unfortunately today are usually tapped to sell only advertising.  I’m a big proponent of evidence based wellness services.  There are a lot of great tools out there and the smart wellness professional who wants to enter this space will use what is available but use it creatively.  You can only do so much via email and articles still keep people in front of the computer and in their seats.  Organize groups, get groups together and out.  Encourage information sharing and success sharing.  Even go as far as encourage bragging.  We compete on sales and on the field, why not with the waistline.  This is a very exciting field to be in right now and one that surely will see some phenomenal players in the coming months!

Sleep, the New Frontier

Amazing that something so basic and so innate to our existence turns out to be such a hassle to so many of us.  In the recent article in the WSJ.com, “When Sleep Leaves You Tired“, it presents a technical solution to help those in need with sleeping, see below.  But in summary, our nation does a dismal job of sleeping and many of us who think we get enough sleep – fail to do so:

(excerpt)

“Twenty percent of Americans sleep less than six hours a night, and nearly one-third have lost sleep worrying about financial concerns, according to the National Sleep Foundation, which recommends that adults get seven to nine hours. “Our society thinks sleep is for slackers,” says Darrel Drobnich, the organization’s chief program officer.  But all that lost sleep is taking an insidious toll. Chronic, inadequate sleep raises the risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes and obesity. It impairs cognitive function, memory and the immune system and causes more than 100,000 motor-vehicle accidents a year. Sleep deprivation also changes the body’s metabolism, making people eat more and feel less satisfied.”

(end of excerpt)

And just logging the necessary 7-8 hours of sleep isn’t necessarily enough.  It’s about quality of sleep too:

(excerpt)

“What many people don’t realize is that even if they log respectable time in bed (known as TIB among sleep researchers), they may be getting poor-quality sleep, with not enough of the restorative phases. REM, the Rapid Eye Movement phase in which dreaming occurs, is crucial for consolidating memories, learning, creativity, problem-solving and emotional balance. Deep, or slow-wave sleep, when the body secretes human growth hormone, is critical for development and physical repair. Both REM and deep sleep decline with age and are highly vulnerable to disruptions, from caffeine and alcohol to anxiety and a variety of sleep disorders.  What many people don’t realize is that even if they log respectable time in bed (known as TIB among sleep researchers), they may be getting poor-quality sleep, with not enough of the restorative phases. REM, the Rapid Eye Movement phase in which dreaming occurs, is crucial for consolidating memories, learning, creativity, problem-solving and emotional balance. Deep, or slow-wave sleep, when the body secretes human growth hormone, is critical for development and physical repair. Both REM and deep sleep decline with age and are highly vulnerable to disruptions, from caffeine and alcohol to anxiety and a variety of sleep disorders.”

(end of excerpt)

I think most people would agree that they don’t get enough sleep and I would definately include myself in that category.  If you are on the fence on whether or not you fall into that group, check out this quick quiz to see if you have the traits of a bad sleeper.   One technical solution to this is a product called the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach.  Essentially it’s a device that logs important biometric data on your sleep, while you sleep of course, and you can upload the data on www.myzeo.com.  Again this is further proof that we are about to enter a new era of remarkable home/personal technology that will be marked by an explosion of personal biometric data.  See my recent blog post on evidenced based personal wellness statistics.

I’m not going to say that you need to go out and immediately buy fancy gadgetry to get a better nights rest.  I am the ideal example of someone who drinks too much caffeine, juggles maybe a bit too much, and spends too much time staring a nice bright LCD (writing blogs like this).  But I know what works for me…and a reasonable diet and consistent exercise goes a long way.  For many of us working out close to bed time will affect our sleep (see When is the Best Time of the Day to Run) so maybe you can try getting your workout in earlier in the day.  I am a big fan of the short intense lunch time workout.  30-45 minutes doing intervals, a fast 2 miler, or doing some circuit training will not only get you through the rest of the day faster but it will also help you sleep better at night.  It will reduce your craving for carbs and caffeine as you’ll be riding the endorphins high from your short intense workout.  Please make sure you are healthy enough for any kind of intense aerobic/anaerobic activity.

If working out at lunch is not an option, try and get your workout right after work and what I recommend is some structured experimenting.  Try the Quick Entry log on www.fivi.com (there is a link right on the homepage and you don’t have to be registered to try it).  There you can log 100′s of different exercises, sports, and activities.  If you don’t find it, you can write in your own and just pick the most similar exercise.  On your Fit Blog you can keep track of how you feel every morning and how long you think it took for you to fall asleep.  Eventually, you’ll figure out what kinds of workouts and just how intense of a workout you can do to get the optimal night’s rest.  For some people it may be a target number of minutes they have to workout, for me it’s a target number of calories I need to burn.  Maybe for you, running makes you sleep like a baby but weight training turns you into the incredible hulk.  Eventually you will figure it out and it will become obvious after the first week.  At that point, it’ll be up to you to stick to your regimen.

Culling out “Fad” from Reality in Personal Wellness Statistics

The recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Carl Bialik “ Look at This Article. It’s One of Our Most Popular” did a great job, albeit probably unintentionally of exemplifying the common tendency to follow the herd or fall prey to fads in the area of personal wellness.

(excerpt from article)

 

Popularity is, unfortunately, still all the rage.

The Internet has facilitated an outbreak of popularity contests as online news providers rank the top 10 most-read, -emailed or -commented articles on their home page.

These rankings have become a standard feature on news sites for the last two years, including this newspaper’s, and sites continue to expand the features: The New York Times is adding a most-viewed list, Fox News (owned by News Corp., as is the Journal) introduced most-shared this week and a most-commented list is coming to CBSNews.com this month.

These lists are among the byproducts of the Internet’s knack for being instantly quantifiable. Purchases on Amazon.com update the online retailer’s sales rankings and their people-who-bought-this-also-bought-that recommendations. Yahoo continually updates its top 10 user searches on its home page, and the iTunes Store does the same with its list of top songs.

Using popularity rankings to make decisions, however, has downsides. These online rankings are public, creating a positive-feedback loop. The more popular something becomes, even if just from a random burst of interest, the more likely it is to grow ever more popular. And that has troubling implications about the effects of all sorts of popularity rankings, from bestseller charts to election polls.

 

(end excerpt)

In summary, people love popularity rankings and being social creatures – the wisdom of the crowd or the herd has served us well in the past and it is my personal belief that it still does and will continue to do so.  But in the area of personal wellness, we must be cautious because the implications of buying into a new workout routine or diet can be unhealthy and detrimental to your health as opposed to buying a CD that you would have otherwise not bought on your own accord.

My fear in the space of personal wellness and health, is that good marketers and flamboyant personalities can manipulate the mob (worked for Julius Caesar) to promote their products or services.  It’s not that hard and the cult of fad diets and workout is an easy one to buy into.  Sadly enough, it masks all of the fascinating research and efforts being done everyday to learn more about how we can live healthier, more fulfilling lives.  A government study done in 2006 called “Expanding the Reach and Impact of Consumer e-Health Tools” really delved into this issue.  If you don’t feel like reading the 100 page plus report, I’ll give you the skinny:

 

1.Government funded (usually from academia) tends to be written in a fashion that most poeple cannot understand or apply to their goals

2.Evidenced based studies rarely have the funding or support to be sustainable and continue to be improved over any long timeframe

3.This space is highly unregulated and anyone can publish almost anything

4.Now tracking and logging activities have a significant level of impact when it comes to improving lifestyle and habit

 

So what’s the answer?   I think the web will provide the solution to this problem.  With the recent proliferation of biometric devices (heart monitors and GPS devices), we are going to amass a wealth of information in unprecedented levels.  The challenge is to do something with that data in a statistically significant way and to package it in away that it can be shared and leveraged by the entire community.  This is something other sectors like banking, marketing, publishing, etc have been doing for years but for some reason – the fitness world has been a laggard.  Too many sites are only motivated to just get eyeballs and sell advertising.  Usability is often neglected.  We at FiVi see this as a great opportunity to really have an impact on people’s lives and the platform we are building will be targeted to those who want to know what works and would like some kind of a measure or check that goes beyond a top ten list or a testimonial on an infomercial at 4 am.  It’s not a trivial task putting all of this good information to work for people but it’s something we’ve been designing and developing for over a year and are incredibly passionate about.  We have devised some interesting theories on how to do this and will be putting them to practice over the next 6 months.  We give an open invitation to hear from anyone with ideas on what they would like to see or how to structure scientifically viable studies to make available to our members.  It’s an exciting space to be in right now.