The very same people who scream about interventionist government are curiously silent when it comes to interventionist corporations:

In its effort to overhaul health care, Congress is planning to give employers sweeping new authority to reward employees for healthy behavior, including better diet, more exercise, weight loss and smoking cessation.

A web of federal rules limits what employers and insurers can do now.

Congress is seriously considering proposals to provide tax credits or other subsidies to employers who offer wellness programs that meet federal criteria. In addition, lawmakers said they would make it easier for employers to use financial rewards or penalties to promote healthy behavior among employees.

Two Democratic senators working on comprehensive health legislation, Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and Tom Harkin of Iowa, have taken the lead in devising such incentives.

“Prevention and wellness should be a centerpiece of health care reform,” said Mr. Harkin, who regularly climbs the stairs to his seventh-floor office on Capitol Hill.

The White House agrees. One of President Obama’s eight principles for health legislation is that it must “invest in prevention and wellness,” a goal espoused in almost identical words by Republican senators like John Cornyn of Texas and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah.

Frank B. McArdle, a health policy expert at Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm, said, “Wellness and prevention programs have become a mainstream part of the benefits offered by large employers, and it’s virtually certain that Congress will include incentives for such programs” in its bill. The goals of such programs are to help people control blood pressure, fight obesity and manage diabetes and other chronic conditions.

Under Mr. Harkin’s proposal, employers could obtain tax credits for programs that offer periodic screenings for health problems and counseling to help employees adopt healthier lifestyles. Programs could focus on tobacco use, obesity, physical fitness, nutrition and depression, he said.

The idea of corporations operating in this country caring about "wellness" is preposterous. Isn't it funny how these programs address tobacco use, substance abuse, "blood pressure", and "obesity" (sic) -- while doing NOTHING WHATSOEVER about the stress of trying to keep up in today's corporation.

Don't get my wrong: I enjoy my job. I have a great boss, awesome co-workers, and the work is interesting. I am well-paid and have good benefits. I work for a company that seems to invest in its employees. I'm lucky that way. But those of you who are regular readers of this blog have probably realized I haven't been around much the last couple of weeks, and that's because I simply cannot seem to outrun my workload. That I have this workload is both a function of a sizable learning curve as I get up to speed not just on new processes, but about the science I need to understand to put my work in context. I could just slide by, but that's not my style. I realize also that additional projects I've been given are a compliment given to my employer's confidence in my capabilities. But that doesn't change the fact that I have spent most of the evenings and weekends over the past few weeks in front of a computer connected to a VPN, doing work. And I am not alone, particularly as this recession causes those of us who ARE working almost as much anxiety as among the unemployed, as we run ever-faster on our treadmills in an attempt to forestall our own crash-and-burn into the ranks of the unemployed.

I work with people in other countries all over the world. I have teleconferences that are often at 7 AM, but are sometimes at 2:30, or 4, or 5 in the morning. Last week I was at a conference out of town and found myself working late in my hotel room. I saw that some of my colleagues on the other side of the world were online, and was able to have an impromptu chat to resolve some project issues. It's fun, and it's interesting, and it's exciting, but the fact remains that I was having an online meeting at midnight on a weeknight. I was at a hotel that was a five-minute walk from the conference, so I could sleep till 7. But something like this at home, and I am dragging around like a zombie the next day.

It isn't just the time zones that make it difficult to get everyone together, because one thing I've found out is that once you get out of the U.S., you are dealing with workers who have one heck of a lot of vacation time and a lot of national holidays. I don't begrudge my colleagues their leisure time, but it simply points out the difference in the role of work life in other countries versis the role it has here. If we want to buy the line that Americans are truly "the most productive workers in the world", then this is why: because we are sacrificing everything else in our lives for work.

While employers are cutting jobs to appease Wall Street, the same or more work has to be done, and there are fewer workers to do it. I wonder why in all these efforts to foster "wellness" in the work force, no one is addressing workload stress.

A few years ago there was a rash of snake oil products promising to address what they said was the weight gain caused by excess secretions of cortisol -- an adrenal hormone that among other things, regulates blood pressure and insulin, as well as controlling the body's inflammatory response. Production of cortisol increases under stress, which can result in:

• Impaired cognitive performance
  
• Suppressed thyroid function
  
• Blood sugar imbalances such as hyperglycemia
  
• Decreased bone density
  
• Decrease in muscle tissue
  
• Higher blood pressure
  
• Lowered immunity and inflammatory responses in the body, slowed wound healing, and other health consequences
  
• Increased abdominal fat, which is associated with a greater amount of health problems than fat deposited in other areas of the body. Some of the health problems associated with increased stomach fat are heart attacks, strokes, the development of , higher levels of “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and lower levels of “good” cholesterol (HDL), which can lead to other health problems.

The products that talked about cortisol may have been snake oil, but isn't it interesting that no one is doing any research about the impact of cortisol on rising obesity and heart disease in this country. Even Dr. Howard Dean has gotten onto the "It's All Fast Food's Fault" bandwagon. Because if there were significant studies done that showed a definitive connection between stress and cortisol and weight gain, then perhaps something would have to be done about the work culture in this country, one which demands long hours that make it harder to find time to exercise, harder to find time to cook, that make a leisurely meal just about impossible. And we can't have that, now, can we, because then profits might fall short of Wall Street expectations.

So instead we have Congress offering corporate incentives that encourage corporations to implement carrot-and-stick approaches to "wellness" while not at all addressing the stress levels of American workers -- stress levels that have them chain-smoking when not at work, leaving the house at 6 AM and not getting home till 7 PM or later, ordering chicken parm subs from the local pizza place for lunch ans stopping at Boston Market on their way home because they didn't have time to stop at Whole Foods and buy the makings for quinoa, vegetable and seitan salad, let alone make the damn thing, and forgot to take out some chicken for dinner.

So what happens to employees who smoke, or who are overweight, or have high blood pressure during these employer-provided "screenings"? Are they first on the list when it comes time for layoffs, irrespective of their absentee records or the quality of their work? Are companies willing to provide not just on-site fitness programs but also time DURING THE WORKDAY for employees to use them? Discounts on gym memberships are useless if they mean I don't get home until 8:30 at night and have to go to bed at 9:30 if I'm going to be in on time the next day.

I've been battling my weight (and losing the battle) my entire life. Will employer-based programs actually work? My employer does Weight Watchers, a concept that sets my (and Kate Harding's) teeth on edge, with its weigh-ins and its lies about how "it's not a diet." Isn't it funny how Weight Watchers is a profitable multimillion dollar industry? How did it get that way if the program actually works? In the last few weeks the media have been all agog about how Kirstie Alley regained 83 pounds after her Jenny Craig contract expired. Kirstie Alley is 57 years old. She has been yo-yo dieting for years. Each time she gains more weight. Why isn't anyone looking at how this loss/gain cycle, repeated endlessly, causes us to be fatter? Why does a woman of 57 have to apologize for her weight? Remember Goldie Hawn as a young woman? She was stick-thin. She's stick-thin now. Of course she has to work harder at it now, but Goldie Hawn has never once for a day in her life had to worry that if she eats more than a lettuce leaf and tofu, she'll blow up like a balloon.

Now the Jenny Craig dream-seller is Valerie Bertinelli, whose airbrushed bikini-clad image is all over the place. She is 49. I suspect that her personal trainer and having the leisure time to go running five times a week (let's look at her knees in five years) had as much to do with her weight loss as Jenny Craig did. Let's see how long she keeps it off after she turns 50. Oh, right. She can afford a personal chef to make delicious, low-calorie meals every day.

A 2007 study found that at least 2/3 of dieters gain the weight back and more. In fact, dieting is a predictor of future weight gain. So why is the government encouraging employers to utilize such programs to foster "wellness"? Because it's easier to plop a Weight Watchers "counselor" into a meeting room once a week than to look at what American capitalism is doing to our health.

Labels: corporatism, health, rant, weight