Get Healthy Or Else?


Today Dee pointed me to a story about how an Indianapolis hospital chain will fine employees $10 per paycheck if their body mass index (BMI) is over 30 starting in 2009. Same goes for too high cholesterol, blood pressure, and glucose levels. (BMI is a ratio of height to weight that measures body fat.)

Holy crap, I guess they decided to go for the stick instead of the carrot! Yeah, I know swelling health care costs are cutting into company bottom lines, but I hope something more pro-active becomes the norm instead of something this reactive.

Say, something like an extra 1% matched to 401k for participating in a company sponsored or subsidized exercise regimen. As a completely hypothetical example, something like Muay Thai kickboxing classes (Wizards, I think you know where I'm going with this).

Besides, BMI isn't terribly accurate. The only input to the fomrula is your height and weight, without regard for bone or muscle mass. I currently weigh 178. I'd have to lose another 5 pounds to have a BMI of 24.9, which would put me on the very outer edge of 'normal' weight. According to the formula, I'm overweight at 178. Perhaps I'm fooling myself (not impossible!), but I think an unbiased person would find that unlikely.


Posted: Tue - August 7, 2007 at 04:22 PM          

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