Helping Your Community Can Enhance the Health of Your Employees

Marc Manley, M.D.

Vice President & Chief Prevention Officer

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

marc_manley@bluecrossmn.com

bluecrossmn.com

Topic: Healthcare

In this fast-paced, competitive business landscape it's easy to hone in on the work within our four-walls or the direct delivery of a particular product or service. However, we all need to recognize how our community surroundings can also impact our employees and those we serve. 

There are often many opportunities to align community initiatives with our company goals, mission and success.

Take for example Blue Cross and Blue Shield's newest initiative, Nice Ride Minnesota, which launched in Minneapolis this June. As the nation's largest public bike-sharing program, Blue Cross jumped at the opportunity to become Nice Ride's lead sponsor because it's a creative way to encourage people to adopt more active lifestyles and create more bikeable and walkable communities. Simply put, it's one way to help make the healthy choice the easy and practical choice and eventually put the brakes on rising obesity levels.

The obesity epidemic in our country not only threatens individual health but business health as well. It increases risk for diseases such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart attack, colon cancer, depression and arthritis and treating these obesity-related diseases costs us all. According to a recent national report by the CDC, medical costs for obese individuals are 42 percent higher than medical costs for normal weight individuals - an annual difference of $1,429. We also know from recent Blue Cross studies that:

• Sixty percent of adult Minnesotans are overweight or obese

• Two-thirds of adults Minnesotans work, and two thirds of those who work are employed in sedentary jobs

• One-third of adult Minnesotans fail to meet federal recommendations for physical activity, yet fewer than half of all workers have places or opportunities to be active at work

• Eighty-five percent of adult Minnesotans don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, yet nearly 60 percent report eating pastries or other sweets daily

• Ninety percent of adults believe that how a community is built has a big effect on how much physical activity individuals get, yet only one in four live in neighborhoods or communities that encourage physical activity

• Today's obesity-related health care spending in Minnesota is estimated at more than $1.3 billion annually; if left unchecked, this could increase to more than $5 billion annually by 2020. 

The solution to this kind of epidemic calls for leadership from all our organizations - businesses, non-profits and government. At Blue Cross, we recognize the need for multiple solutions to improve the health of all Minnesotans. That's why we don't just offer clinical help to individuals who need to lose weight, but we support hundreds of community-based programs that work on surrounding people with supportive environments at work and in their community so it's easy to move more and eat better. Workplaces are also prime areas to encourage physical activity and healthy eating. Whether it's allowing physical activity breaks or holding walking meetings or adopting a policy to serve healthy foods at company meetings or in cafeterias and vending machines, the options are endless.

We believe Nice Ride is part of this solution. With seven hundred bikes available in 65 kiosks throughout Minneapolis and on the University of Minnesota campus - for daily, monthly or yearly rates - our community is becoming more bikeable.

As business leaders in our community we need to do our part to solve problems like obesity. By working together across sectors and industries we can often find some of the most innovative solutions, and improve health and bottom lines now and into the future.