Impact of Poor Food Decisions
In a recent article written in the NY Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/health/policy/29diet.html>, a company called The Full Yield, works on taking the ‘guesswork’ out of dieting, future supporting my philosophy in making better food decisions.
What I found compelling is the socioeconomic impact poor food decisions have in terms of health; you should expect to see your employer engaging in practices to contribute to more healthy living. This practice will offset the long term cost of healthcare that has become the #1 expense for large corporates today.
“75 percent of the country’s $2.5 trillion in health care spending has to do with four increasingly prevalent chronic diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Most cases of these diseases, the report stated, are preventable because they are caused by behaviors like poor diets, inadequate exercise and smoking.”
While my discussion is derived from looking aesthetically pleasing and feeling healthy, the business case for The Full Yield comes from ballooning costs of healthcare from unhealthy living. The article starts out by talking to Stephen Burd, who runs Safeway, the 3rd largest grocery chain.
“We were saying ‘Wow, we’re paying almost twice in health care costs as what we’re making in earnings, and in five years it’s going to be another half a billion dollars”
The unconscionable $1bn in healthcare spend they fork over (no pun intended) already, is absolutely insane from a business perspective. That represents 4x the sales of the company I work for. I’m not even going to get started on the healthcare debate, but if you observe the economic impact of bad food decisions, it provides a very interesting and compelling statement about how food decisions affect our lifestyle and business.
So for The Full Yield, their approach is to reduce healthcare costs by having people make better food decisions. They offer packaged products that are made with healthy ingredients and are prepackaged for those who are too busy to cook.
One part of their philosophy that I don’t agree with is;
“Ms. Totten’s plan allows employees surprising amounts of free rein in deciding how much to eat. “You can eat when you’re hungry, as much as you want, as long as you pay attention to when you’re full,” she advises. “And then you can eat again whenever you feel hungry.”
The principal issue I have with this statement is that people have a hard time saying no to themselves. The challenge in better nutrition is modifying certain learned behaviors we’ve developed from a gluttonous overeating culture. I have friends from all over the world and they are dumbfounded by the size of the portions and amount of food we consume.
Saying no to yourself (as I did, running up to the kitchen at 1am searching for junk food but resisting), is one of the principal challenges overweight people face in losing weight and maintaining satisfactory nutrition. There’s differing research from both sides in this article that support theories and research in causes for obesity, which are compelling and offer a balanced perspective, whether you agree or disagree with the message.
Corporate American feels that this concept will become very successful, where Danone (the parent for Full Yield) has already sunk in a seven figure investment in the program.
