I'm all for a healthy life style, but there is a rising trend especially in the US to force employees into becoming fitter more productive individuals by making them get fit. Trouble is that extends to their families so once a year I get poked and prodded in the name of corporate health - and I don't like it.
There will be no mention of which companies I am referring to because this post comes from personal experience and I don't want to get hubby into trouble but their mo goes something like this. They take your blood, analyse it and they compare the numbers with the results you gave them last year. Last year I had a fairly structured argument with the person who gave me my test results. He told me my cholesterol numbers were up from last year and I responded that the numbers hadn't moved but the guidelines had been lowered to make more people take cholesterol reducing medication. I've seen for myself how being on statins dries up your skin and takes the lubrication away from your joints. He didn't know how to argue that one and it goes further than that. To get the carrot of money off your health insurance you have to complete three programmes on their website which last year actually made me put on weight.
Its a one size fits all approach, which doesn't target the couch potato or the guy eating all the wrong things who most of the time opt out of the programme because they can afford not to make the effort. Lets face facts here - we could opt out - but its a very expensive carrot and we need that extra money. I just think that the whole thing is intrusive and way too ra ra for me.
Update - Goalposts have been moved again but wider this time. So our friend who weighed himself before he went in for the screening actually lost 14lbs between home and work - must ask where I can get a set of those scales.. My numbers are a lot lower than last year so we both qualified.
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