Occupational health,

fitness and wellbeing

2007 OATS HEALTH CLIMATE SURVEY

-  December 2007 -

At the end of December 2007, we collated the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing Profile results of 180 people; 83 men and 97 women. The average age of participants was 43 years

The results are published in the 2007 Health Climate Survey below.

PREAMBLE

In their 2006 Biennial Report, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare  trumpeted that 'The Health of Australians is continually improving.' We beg to differ.

The 180 people we surveyed have spoken, loudly. As a group, they're in poor shape.

We know this because the total scores of the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing Profile are very high - the average score being 74. (People who are fit and healthy score less than 20.)

And that's just for starters. The full results are outlined further below.

(Keep in mind this is just what people said. If we'd actually measured their aerobic fitness, adiposity, blood pressure etc we suspect the results would have been a lot worse.)

High risk

We estimate the risk of absenteeism, presenteeism, workers compensation, staff turnover and diminished productivity in many of our corporate and government organisations as being high.

The good news is that the risk can be lowered by instituting a regular, systematic and comprehensive corporate health, fitness and wellbeing program, one that's probably distinct from the organisation's safety program.

HEALTH FITNESS AND WELLBEING PROFILE

The Health, Fitness and Wellbeing profile is used to obtain a snap shot of people’s health, fitness and stress levels. In the workplace it is a good measure of the risk of absenteeism, presenteeism workers’ compensation and staff turnover.

People in poor physical condition experience

•      headaches

•      poor sleep

•      lack of energy and vitality

•      musculo-skeletal dysfunction

•      frequent colds and flu

•      obesity

•      anxiety ...

When people complete the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing Profile they are making an assessment of the functioning of a wide range of body systems.

There are three principal categories of body system dysfunction,

▪ metabolic

▪ musculo-skeletal

▪ psychological.

These dysfunctions are recognised by their symptoms.

Completing the profile

Participants completed the profile, by circling the number appropriate to the degree to which they experience the symptoms on the left hand side of the page. The greater the symptom, the higher the score.

The score of a normal, fit and healthy human being is less than 20     

Higher scores are symptomatic of dysfunction of one or more body systems.

People who are in poor physical condition and with high levels of stress usually score well over 100.

For people with a score of more than 80, the ‘background noise’ of their life is becoming louder and louder. It is hard to concentrate on your work when body systems are dysfunctional.

We know a fit and healthy group when we see the majority of scores below 40.

By and large higher scores are usually a reflection of

•      low levels of fitness

•      inadequate but high energy diet

•      toxic environment

•      an inability to deal with the stresses of life and work.

We have produced a frequency histogram of the scores of the 180 people.

Classification of average scores: Excellent - less than 30. Good - 31 - 50. Reasonable 51-60. Poor - over 60.

The graph shows that by far the majority of people are in poor condition. The average score was 86. Anyone scoring more than 80 is putting up with a lot of 'background noise'.

In fit and healthy workplaces the average score is in the 40's and the graph peaks in the 30's.

HEALTH CLIMATE SURVEY

Based on scores received in the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing Profile we've compiled a Health Climate Survey.

We took as the level of concern a score of 5 or more and have ranked the scores according to the percentage of people who gave each item a score of 5 or more; the higher the score the worse the problem. (This is what people said. We suspect that if we actually measured levels of fitness and percent body fat in particular, the scores would be much worse.

In it's most recent report, (August 2006) the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said that the health of Australians is getting better. We beg to differ, loudly. Our results speak for themselves.

Key Issues

Based on people's perception (where they gave a particular symptom a score of 5 or more), underpinning the symptoms/issues/concerns are three key issues: Fitness, Diet and Stress.

HIGHLIGHTS

Musculo-skeletal dysfunction

65% of people said they had musculo-skeletal dysfunction. The main drivers of musculo-skeletal dysfunction is a lack of strength and flexibility and poor sitting posture. Work is persistently blamed for musculo-skeletal dysfunction which is not of it's causing.

Sooner or later these self-generated dysfunctions become labeled as 'injuries', at great cost to the organisation's workers compensation arrangements.

It is recommended that all organisations build a firewall between dysfunctions and injuries. What this means is requiring staff at risk (and staff experiencing musculo-skeletal pain) to attend musculo-skeletal prehab sessions, in work time, to improve strength and flexibility and to get bones back into alignment - tracksuit therapy not white coat therapy.

Fitness - aerobic fitness, strength and flexibility

All workplaces that we have surveyed have a fitness problem.

53% of people said they were unfit.

It's interesting that rarely do people have their aerobic fitness, strength and flexibility levels measured, when these are key drivers of poor health. In the workplace they contribute to the main risk to worker's compensation arrangements. In the community they contribute to the main risks of metabolic and musculo-skeletal dysfunction.

We strongly recommend that corporate health assessments include measures of aerobic fitness, strength and flexibility.

We also strongly recommend that doctors make assessments of these measures and use the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing Profile each time their clients drop into the surgery.

Obesity

42% of people said they were 10 or more kilograms overweight. 13% of all people surveyed said they were more than 20kg over weight. We suspect that if we actually measured people using percent fat scales, these results would be worse. The obesity scores are, of course associated with low levels of aerobic fitness and (as Jean Nidetch, the founder of Weight Watchers said) not eating enough of the right food at the right time.

Anxiety/Stress

43% of people said they were anxious.

One of the great tragedies of modern schooling systems is that people graduate from school having done little personal development. A lot of people don't even know what they want to do when they grow up, and their 40! They don't know how to accumulate wealth, they apparently don't know how to manage a family, or keep themselves fit and healthy. Rarely do they stop for a moment and write down their goals.

Because the mind and the rest of the body are intimately connected, just being unfit and unhealthy leads people to feel miserable. Once that happens the downward spiral kicks in.

Many people lifted themselves out of the anxiety morass by becoming fitter.

Others went to a counselor.

Inevitably when become stressed they look around for someone to blame.

There is a compelling case for workplaces to spend time on career development and personal development as well as technical and management development.

Lack of Energy

57% of people said they lacked energy. The average Australian sits down all day at work, comes home, has a few drinks, has tea, sits down in front of the TV for another 4 hours, goes to bed, can't sleep and gets up tired in the morning ready to do it all again.

The main contributors - lack of physical activity and diet dedicated to filling up the stomach and not nourishing the cells of the body.

The cost to workplace productivity is huge.

Associated with the tiredness is headaches.

Poor Sleep

63% of people said they slept poorly.

A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep. For one thing lack of physical activity means they're not physically tired when they go to bed. Nathan Pritikin said, if you don't have time to exercise take an hour off your sleep. You'll need less sleep and you'll sleep better. It's a paradox most people don't understand.

High caffeine intake, people trying to get more sleep than they need, people having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the loo... all leads to poor, un-rested sleep.

The first causality of anxiety is poor sleep. Fix up the anxiety.

Snoring

33% of people said they snored. This is probably snoring loud enough for a sleeping partner to complain - unless they sleep alone!

The cause: being over weight and under fit. The usual treatment - a gas mask. The ideal treatment: - lose weight, and get fit.

Wrong job

Both the Buddha and Confucius said 'Find the job you'd really like to do and you don't have to do another day's work in your life.'

42% of people indicated that they were in the wrong job. What does that do for enthusiasm, vitality and productivity?

One of the most useful things any manager can do is assist people to work out what they really want to do and then assist them to get it - whether it's inside or outside the organisation they currently work for. The process is called 'developing people through work'.

If people know what they want and are on the way to getting it, they feel pretty good. It's good having them on the staff. When they leave someone with equal enthusiasm moves in to replace them. The workplace has vitality and renewal. Some of the best people come back.

It would be a backward move not to have a good career development program in your workplace. It pays, many times over.

41% said they were under-appreciated at work. There is no excuse for that, except poor management practice.

Blood pressure

This country has a blood pressure problem that relates directly to

- lack of aerobic fitness

- being over weight

- being stressed.

17% of people said their blood pressure was elevated. 8% were on medication.

A blood pressure reduction program that is pharmaceutically based misses the point. The medication masks the symptom - the underlying causes persist. Bad behaviour is encouraged.

Our surveys have show that staff will willingly participate in such a programs.

A similar approach needs to be taken with people who've already been tipped into the workers compensation bucket. These people should attend daily rehab sessions, conducted by registered fitness practitioners that involve strength and flexibility exercises.

We encourage large organisations to establish their own health and fitness centre where prehab and rehab sessions can take place, where there is a good hydrotherapy pool.

There is a good case for subsidizing fitness centre memberships, but only for people who go and only for people whose fitness is getting better, or have achieved an acceptable level. A lot of organisations pay by input, not output. They don't get good value for money.

Smoking

12% of people smoked. This is well below the community average of circa 18%.

We recommend organisations move heaven and earth to assist smokers to quit. It's good for their health and good for productivity.

Depression

27% of people scored 5 or more on the depression question.

5.5% of people were on anti-depressant medication.

There is a significant core of depression that relates to poor health generally. All body systems are connected. Should we only expect the vascular system and the pancreas to pack it in when we're in bad shape? I think not.

CONTEXT

At the same time as workplace incidents causing injury have declined, the incidents of personal body system dysfunctions has increased.

Because these dysfunctions are personally generated it is imperative that organisations put up a firewall between dysfunctions and injuries and move heaven and earth to prevent the dysfunctions from being treated as compensatable injuries. For staff and organisation alike, it's better to deal with small problems rather than allowing them to become large problems.

In this day and age, organisations with high levels of absenteeism, presenteeism and workers compensation premiums are not adequately managing the dysfunctions.

You can't solve a 21st Century problem with a 19th Century solution.

The aging population

We believe (barring disability) there is little stopping most people of working age from being in good health. It's not so much that we have an aging population but a lazy population.

Theoretically, as people get older they should be able to maintain a high level of fitness – they’ve had longer to train!

The Governments of Australia base their medical system data on the fact that as people get older they become more dysfunctional. It's a poorly researched premise. What's actually happening is that people are getting older younger! They're unfit and unhealthy.

As a general rule, poor health and body system dysfunction is not so much related to age as it is to

•      low levels of physical activity

•      junk food diets

•      over-consumption of alcohol

•      smoking

•      an inability to handle the normal stresses of life

•      a job that does not suit their personality, intelligence strengths or interests

•      an over-reliance on junk medicine - medicine that is pharmaceutically based and

       which masks symptoms without stimulating the body's own recuperative power.

BLAME WORK

Work gets blamed unfairly by a lot of people who are just in poor shape. They complain of being tired. They blame work. They lack energy, can't sleep are anxious. They blame work - after all they spend 8 hours a day there.

They take 20 days a year off to get away from what they perceive as the cause of their aggravation. Staying home doesn't solve the problem - it travels around with them where-ever they go.

It's time for an new OH&S model with managers taking an intimate role in the health development, personal development and career development of their staff, with the success of this developing being one of their key performance indicators.

Unless individual managers take responsibility, no-one will take responsibility. Poor behaviour gets rewarded. Good behaviour goes unacknowledged.

RECOMMENDATIONS

See the generic list of recommendations that cover all our profiles.  

John Miller

Managing Director

Miller Health