FitSense Australia Wellness Forum

FatCat,

This part of the report also jumped out at me. I felt it was alarming that people still rated their health highly despite a number of obvious lifestyle issues.

Health risks such as lack of exercise, smoking and high risk alcohol consumption will not immediately result in reduced health, but over time these modifiable health risk factors do result in an increased risk of disease and poor health.

Your question of how do we make these individuals aware of this risk is a difficult one and there are probably many and varied answers.

From our end, as a provider of wellness services to organisations, we use individual health and fitness assessments to highlight risk areas to participants. Many people like to know 'their score' or 'their result' so having a variety of health tests done and then educating them on the meaning of these results can often be eye opening. For this situation it is crucial to allow enough time in the assessment to address these areas.

We also use group education sessions to try and educate individuals on making appropriate lifestyle choices. Knowledge is definitely a key factor to improved long term health.

Additionally, there are a variety of other factors which may assist in bringing individuals perception to reality, however I think this will always be an issue we face.

Do you have any thoughts?

Thanks

Ben

I?ve been reading Australia?s Health 2008 produced by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare with great interest. One of the findings in particular has struck me ? i.e., the extraordinarily high percentage of people with major health issues who still self rate their health status as ?excellent? or ?very good?. For example, 44.9% of sedentary people, 47.8% of people with high risk alcohol consumption, 40.6% of obese people and 43.4% of daily smokers ALL self assess their health as ?excellent? or ?very good?. This finding clearly demonstrates one of the biggest obstacles health promoters and providers of corporate wellness programs face in encouraging people to adopt healthy lifestyles ? i.e., that having major health problems or risk factors doesn?t necessarily mean that people feel unwell and so the fact that they have health problems or carry health risk factors may not on its own be an incentive for them to make and maintain healthy lifestyles. How do you think health promoters and corporate wellness program providers can bridge the gap between people knowing the facts about the health risk factors they may have and actually succeeding in getting them to make healthy behaviour change long term?