miller Health Occupational Health and Fitness

Index

150 GC JULY 2011

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John Miller conducted a Seven Habits of Fit and Healthy People seminar in July 2011.

9 people, completed the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing profile.

The results are presented in graphic format, with commentary.

Click here to read what the assessments are all about

HEALTH, FITNESS AND WELLBEING PROFILE

The Health, Fitness and Wellbeing profile provides people with a very good idea of how well the various systems of the body are functioning, particularly the

• the mind

• autonomic nervous system

• immune system

• digestive system

• circulatory system

• elimination system

• musculo-skeletal system.

	Symptom	None		Not much			A fair bit			A lot
1.	Headaches including migraines	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
2.	Lack of energy and vitality	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
3.	Candida - jock itch, thrush, tinea ...	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
4.	Poor sleep. If on tablets score 10	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
5.	Snoring &/or sleep apnoea. Score 10 if using a mask	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
6.	Crook back, stiff neck, sore shoulders, dicky knee RSI ...	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
7.	Frequent colds, flu, sinus	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
8.	Unsettled stomach, reflux (Score 10 if on medication)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
9.	Overweight - 1 point for every 2Kg	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
10.	Irritable bowel, constipation	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11.	Asthma	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
12.	Low level of aerobic fitness	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
13.	Chest pain, palpitations	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
14.	Rashes, itchiness, skin outbreaks, psoriasis ...	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
15.	Mouth ulcers, cold sores	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
16.	Elevated blood pressure. Score 0 on pills	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
17.	Elevated blood cholesterol. Score o if on pills	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
18.	Elevated blood glucose. Score 0 if on medication	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
19.	Shakes, nervous ticks, mannerisms	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
20.	Grinding teeth	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
21.	Alcoholic drinks per day (2 pts/drink)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
22.	Smoking. (1 pt/cigarette/day)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
23.	Caffeine (1 pt/cup per day)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
24.	Anxious about life, insecure, apprehensive	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
25.	Sad or depressed (On medication, score 0)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
26.	In wrong job for now	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
27.	Under-appreciated at work	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
28.	Have poor work/life balance	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
29.	Unhappy with family life	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
30.	Unhappy with financial status	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10

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 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. This was not the case with this group. By and large higher scores are usually a reflection of

• low levels of fitness

• an inability to deal with what life and work are serving up to people

• being in the wrong job and being under-appreciated at work.

Remember, it is not what happens, but how we deal with what happens that determines our level of stress.

Classification of average scores: Excellent - less than 40. Good - 41 - 50. Fair 51-60. Poor - over 60.

This profile is described as good. The average score was 75. Anyone scoring more than 80 is putting up with a lot of 'background noise'.

HEALTH CLIMATE SURVEY

Based on scores received in the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing profile we've compiled a Health Climate Survey. Scores on each item have ranked - the higher the score the worse the problem. We added the scores for each item. The results appear in the table below.

	Symptoms/ issues / concerns	% of people scoring over 5
	Lack of Energy	40
	Overweight	40
	Anxious	40
	Depressed	40
	Wrong job	40
	Under appreciated at work	40
	Financial status	40
	Poor sleep	30
	Snoring, sleep apnoea	30
	Work-life balance	30
	Headaches	20
	Candida	20
	Crook back, sore shoulders	20
	Low level of fitness	20
	Elevated cholesterol	20
	Alcohol	20
	Frequent colds, flu, sinus	10
	Reflux, unsettled stomach	10
	Shortness of breath from asthma	10
	Itchy, rashes, psoriasis	10
	Mouth ulcers	10
	Elevated blood pressure	10
	Shakes, nervous mannerisms	10
	Grinding teeth	10
	Caffeine	10
	Unhappy family life	10
	Irritable bowel, constipation etc	0
	Chest pain, palpitations	0
	Elevated glucose	0
	Smoking	0

We registered those scores of 5 and over as being a symptom, issue or concern, the most pressing of which have been highlighted.

Perception

Based on people's perception (where they gave a particular symptom a score of 5 or more, and backed up by objective scores) the key issues are

•	Lack of energy 40% of people said they lacked energy. Low levels of energy come from many sources, including: - - lack of a good aerobic fitness training program - a diet high in wheat flour and sugar - dullness - ...

•	Obesity 40% of people said they were more than 10Kg over weight. It's a symptom of metabolic dysfunction and relates to high energy diets and low energy lifestyles. It's suggestive of elevated levels of insulin floating around the body, which is a precursor of all manner of body system dysfunctions - elevated blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, elevated blood glucose. The recommendation, that people need to get more exercise (at lunch time) and eat from the top of the Hourglass.

•	Lack of energy 40% of people said they lacked energy. Low levels of energy come from many sources, including: - - lack of a good aerobic fitness training program - a diet high in wheat flour and sugar - dullness - ...

•	Under-appreciation at work Nobody said they were under-appreciated at work. This is a fantastic result. I've never seen this type of score. In other workplaces it can be 40% of people are under-appreciated. Manager and staff - take another bow.

•	Being in the wrong job Nobody of people said they were in the wrong job. There is usually a high and positive correlation between people being in the wrong job and people saying they are under-appreciated at work. In this case this rule applied. Nobody was in the wrong job and nobody was under-appreciated at work.

	Depression and anxiety There is an epidemic of depression in our community and we encourage all organisations to target depression. 1 person gave themselves a score of 5 or more on the depression question, indicating risk that needs to be dealt with. No people were on anti-depressant medication. There is a significant core of depression that relates to poor health generally. All body systems are connected. The epidemic of depression will continue to escalate at the same rate as the epidemic of all other body system dysfunctions. People need to be given encouragement to exercise regularly and vigorous, eat less flour and sugar and imbibe less of the culturally chemicals - particularly nicotine, caffeine and alcohol. Because of the relationship of depression to fitness and diet there is a chance that some people have been misdiagnosed. Some aspects of depression relate to psychologically generated issues. It is important that these people be encouraged to have regular counselling - through the EAP or other counsellors - The best book about depression I've read, and what you can do about it, and one that I recommend highly is by psychiatrist, David Servan-Schreiber, Healing Without Freud or Prozac.

RECOMMENDATIONS

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