Wonder

by Martin Collis, PhD

Illustration by Quint Buchholz

At Speakwell we like acronyms. M.E.L.L.O.W. is a formula for high level wellness that stands for Magic of the Mind, Exercise, Laughter, Love, Optimal Nutrition and Wonder. In previous issues we have looked at the first 5 dimensions of lifestyle artistry and now is the time for Wonder. (Isn’t it always?)

"This is an age of miracles and wonder." Paul Simon

Vision of Wellness Wonderboy. Martin's Grandson Toby.

"You can look at this world as though everything is a miracle, or as though nothing is a miracle." Albert Einstein

Einstein was right, wonder, like everything else, is in the eye of the beholder; we carry within us the wonders we sometimes seek outside ourselves. If I have had any success in this world it is because my sense of wonder would never leave me alone. I often think of myself as a ‘recovering Brit’, recovering from the ritual beatings at school, the frosty formality of home and having my dreams and thoughts labeled "sentimental rubbish." Wonder was reserved for the church where it was appropriate to be ‘lost in wonder, love and praise.’ There seemed to be an unwritten conspiracy to separate wonder from science, logic and reality. I was talking with my son Paul about this recently and he pointed me to Dickens’ ‘Hard Times.’

" 'I wonder, said Louisa. But Mr. Gradgrind interjected. 'Louisa, never wonder! Mathematics and science can answer all questions without stooping to the cultivation of sentiments and affections. Never wonder!' "

I know how Louisa felt, but magic and wonder refused to be suppressed. As Leonard Cohen wrote in ‘Beautiful Losers’ "Magic never faltered, magic always led, for magic is no instrument magic is the end." The lines between art and science and fact and fancy blur and become one. Again I go back to Einstein. "The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion, which stands at the cradle of art and science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle."

Wonder is everywhere, but never so apparent as in the human spirit. One of the simplest ways to awaken a sense of wonder is to look at the achievements of extraordinary people.

Beethoven was a pain wracked, sickly man whose life was plunged into silence by his deafness in his early 30's. His autopsy revealed multiple kidney stones, a nodule covered liver, a swollen almost nonfunctional pancreas and 43 times above an acceptable level of lead. It is not surprising that at age 32 he wrote a suicide letter to his brothers. But he chose life and lived for another twenty years after his planned suicide. During this period he learned to block a lot of pain by creating his own neurological busy signals. Inside his head he created masterpieces so great, that for a while, the pain cold not enter. It brings tears of wonder to my eyes to think of this lonely, almost broken genius huddled over the piano sensing the vibrations of the notes by holding a stick between the piano and his ear. Near the end of his life he became the first person to integrate the human voice in symphonic form when he built his 9th Symphony around Schiller’s Ode to Joy. There can be few finer expressions of the triumph of the human spirit than this masterpiece in sound by a deaf man.

Extraordinary people are everywhere. Jean Dominique Bauby was totally paralyzed by a stroke at age 43. There was no longer a link between mind and spine. But by some neuronal quirk he retained control of is left eyelid and worked out a code so that he could communicate with people in code one letter at a time. Gradually letters became words, words became sentences and somehow he kept his sense of humor. ("If I’m going to drool I might as well drool on cashmere.") Finally the sentences became a book titled 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' which is one of our summer reading suggestions in this issue.

Then there's Renoir whose hands were so arthritic that his son would have to stuff the claws with rags and then wedge the paintbrush in place so that his father could paint.

Yesterday Lance Armstrong won his 3rd consecutive Tour de France. By any conventional logic there is no way this man should be dreaming about competing in, let alone winning, one of the most physically challenging sporting events in the world. Five years ago he was riddled with cancer in a testicle, his lungs and his brain. His body was decimated by disease and by chemo and radiation therapy. This highly conditioned athlete lost nearly 30lbs but somehow the fire of competition still burned. His cancer went into remission and he got back onto his bike. In his book ‘It’s Not About the Bike’ he writes, "Without belief we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming sense of doom every single day and it will beat you. I didn’t fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disillusion, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it can become a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit."

Earlier Armstrong writes, "I believed in belief for its own shining sake." As George Orwell told us. "No bomb that ever burst, shatters the crystal spirit."

I often close my presentations with the story of Claudia Kolb. In the late 60’s while studying for my Ph.D. at Stanford University I was an assistant coach at the world famous Santa Clara Swim Club where I was privileged to watch the unfolding of the Claudia Kolb story.

Claudia’s achievements made such an impact on me that I commemorated them in a song. We had many great swimmers in the club including Mark Spitz but it is Claudia’s story that inspires me most when I think back to my days as a California coach.

Claudia

It was just 50 meters of pale blue water
It was cool in the California heat
And the golden swimmers laid their soaking towels on the pool deck
To keep themselves from blistering their feet
And yet another station wagon parked in the parking lot
And yet another kid had come to swim
To swim for the champion club Santa Clara
Where everybody seemed to win
She asked for a trial and the coach with a smile
Said he’d be glad to see what she could do
But as he watched that little 12 year old attack the water
It was obvious she hadn’t got a clue.
She wasn’t very strong she did everything wrong
Just another kid he’d have to turn away.
But she explained that she’d failed in a bunch of other sports
So the coach said if she worked hard she could stay.
So she came to practice and found out very quickly
There was not a single kid that she could beat
Her suit rubbed hot shoulders and the chlorine blurred her vision
She was last when they put her in a meet
But the coach he was wise and he felt he’d realize
That she’d found another sport she could not do
So he helped her when he could, but told her mother perhaps she should
Look around a bit, find something new.

Chorus

Because she never made the finals
And she never got a ribbon for her wall
She never won a medal or a trophy or a T-shirt
She never won anything at all.

So the season ended and we said goodbye to Claudia
And a chapter came to its appointed end
She hadn’t mastered swimming, she could never think of winning
But at least she felt the coaches were her friends
But on the first day of next season for some masochistic reason
Claudia was standing there again
She swam 2 hours every morning and 2 hours every evening
With discomfort coming awfully close to pain
So when we held a banquet at he closing of the season
Just to give the Olympians their due
We bought a Dolphin trophy for the kid who tried the hardest
And we bought it with one person in view
Mark Spitz and Donny Schollander were scooping up all the silverware
And then we asked for Claudia by name
Oh I’ve never seen such happiness, and tears and total radiance
And I don't care if I never do again

Repeat Chorus

If that was all the story it would still have been worth telling
Because no-one loses when they do their best
But there is a little post-script that may be of some interest
So quickly I shall let you know the rest
Her body changed perceptibly as she approached maturity
And quietly co-ordination came
And when you add co-ordination to total dedication
Then the record books would shortly know her name
After the first 2 years the rest of it came easy
We just sat back and watched the tale unfold
In the individual medleys up in Mexico City
Claudia won 2 Olympic golds
So to all you people sitting there with your expertise and your savior faire
Be careful to hold on to your dreams
For there’s many hurts and many scars when you reach for your appointed stars
But they’re not always as far as first they seem

Claudia wins gold!

She won 2 Olympic finals
And she won a stack of ribbons for her wall
She won a bunch of medals and some trophies and some T-shirts
But the Dolphin trophy meant the most of all.

Click to hear the Claudia song (claudia.mp3 - 9MB)

Click here to purchase this song and others which are on
the newly released CD 'Beaten Tracks.'

I’ll leave some of the final words to the mystical William Blake, whose sense of wonder was so acute people thought him to be mad.

To see the world in a grain of sand
And Heaven in a wild flower
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

It is interesting that it was grains of sand that were key ingredients in the evolution of modern computers, giving us Silicon Valley and a revolution in communication. It makes you wonder.

Update on Andrew Weil

by Nancy Wardle, M.D.

Dr. Andrew Weil, "America’s most trusted doctor" was in Vancouver recently to address the Alternative and Integrated Medicine Conference at the University of British Columbia. He is a warm, affable, approachable man who clearly has absolute faith in his vision/version of wellness.

His talk, "Nutrition and Healthy Lifestyle," was prefaced by an anecdote about his attempts to improve the food at his hospital’s cafeteria (owned and operated by the Marriott Hotel chain). The hospital’s cafeteria had long been a bastion of poor food choices, except for a modest salad bar. It was time for a renovation and Weil saw this as an opportunity for the hospital to practice preventative medicine by having a healthy cafeteria kitchen. Several meetings and several proposals later, the renovation was complete. Replete with more fast food and depleted of most of the already modest salad bar! America’s leading proponent of healthy nutrition was not even able to get his own institution to, as he said, "budge one inch, we even lost ground!" Go figure?

Weil’s point to this story is one that "WELL" agrees with…we need to make and act on healthy choices about our lifestyle if we want to experience wellness, and we live in a culture that often discourages us. If you want to shift from low level to high level wellness, start "hanging around those with healthy habits."

Some of the healthy habits of which he spoke include:

Be wary of extreme diets

• e.g. Blood Type, Suzanne Somers, Dr. Atkins

The importance of Omega 3 fatty acids

• We need more Omega 3 in our diets and need to change the current unbalanced ratio of Omega 3/Omega 6 in our diets towards1/1. Fish oils, salmon, nuts and seeds are great Omega 3 sources.

Decrease saturated fats.

• Eat an anti-inflammatory diet; inflammation is at the root of many illnesses that currently seem unrelated.
• Arterial plaque causes inflammation which can increase weakness in arterial walls leading to coronary artery disease.
• Alzheimer’s may have its origins with nerve inflammation which causes damage to nerves over time. Omega 3 fatty acids are anti-inflammatory and are also nerve cell restorers.
• Pay attention to on-going carbohydrate research. High glycemic index foods can stress the pancreas.

According to some recent research, chocolate is good for you. Weil’s advice is to eat it now before the pendulum swings back! His new book, ‘Eating Well For Optimum Health’ gives detailed information on the above and emphasizes that how we eat influences how we feel, look and age. He also puts forth the idea that food is to be nourishment for the body and the soul.

He spoke at the end of the day on the issue of stress and illness. When people are in stress reactive mode over a long period of time and feel less and less control, the predictors and the incidence of illness increase. This is partly due to wear and tear of the fight or flight reflex on the body and because when under stress, many of us make poor lifestyle choices. Consumption of fat, sugar, tobacco and alcohol goes up and physical activity goes down. Sustained levels of catecholamines (the stress hormones: adrenaline, cortisol and glucocoticosteroids) depress the production and effectiveness of immune system components, the biochemistry associated with mood and sleep stability and with normal pain perception. Increased and sustained cortisol levels are now being linked with brain toxicity that may have implications for early onset dementia.

One of the easiest and most efficient stress handlers is "right under our noses" using our breath as a tool to increase parasympathetic tone and elicit the relaxation response. See "WELL" Spring 1999, vol. I, Issue I. Eating well, seeing activity as a natural and necessary part of life, and practicing stress resiliency, are all a part of his lifestyle medicine approach. He is on a mission to change medical education so that more physicians are, first of all, well themselves, and able to encourage the practice of wellness in their patients. The word ‘doctor’ comes from the Latin word for teacher and in his mind, it is the role of physicians to prevent illness by teaching wellness.

‘Integrative medicine,’ is Dr. Weil’s term for the use of a combination of conventional and complementary modalities in wellness and illness care and, in his view, offers the best hope for individual and collective healing.

In a conversation with him, I said that people buy all the books and get lots of information and yet struggle to make healthy changes. In fact, they do not change when they see the light and sometimes not even when they feel the heat (or get what I call ‘the cosmic two by four’). He laughed. I noticed in his books that almost all his case studies are of people who are in some form of medical crisis before they embark on his programs. Prevention, and inspiring prevention, are issues yet to be clearly addressed.

Just why has he become ‘America’s most trusted physician?’ He doesn’t say a lot that is new, some of it is what mom has always said, "eat your fruit and veggies and go out and play!" and some of it is just plain common sense. I think his appeal lies in his ability to make the concept of being healthy doable and pleasurable. He is low on jargon, high on wonder at what the human body is capable of and doesn’t use the fear factor. He is egalitarian and takes the pomposity out of medicine.In person, Weil exudes a calm and powerful belief in what he says and does. He clearly walks his talk, looking fit, relaxed and energetic. And that is the key to his message…advice on wellness does not replace action taken on wellness. As Gandhi says, "We must become the changes we wish to see in this world."

REFLECTIONS ON A PIONEER IN HEALTH PROMOTION

By Russ Kisby, President, ParticipACTION

Times change. New learnings and understandings emerge. As witnessed by today’s growing "Wellness Movement," our current knowledge of the inseparable body-mind-spirit relationship is in many ways an updated appreciation of a concept powerfully articulated over 100 years ago by the YMCA and YWCA organizations. The "Y’s" in turn were building upon a reality expressed centuries earlier by historical medical and philosophical pioneers.

Surely the key is to learn from the past - - unsuccessful as well as successful efforts - - and to adapt to current and future needs. That is the metamorphosis ParticipACTION is undergoing today.

It may be timely (perhaps nostalgic), to pause for a moment and reflect on some of ParticipACTION’s achievements and learnings from the past. Indeed, many of today’s wellness and health promotion leaders throughout Canada were major contributors to these learnings. And it is these learnings that will be the base upon which a renewed and repositioned organization will be built in the near future.

VISIONARY LEADERS

ParticipACTION was the "brain child" of then Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

In 1971 Trudeau established this small, national, non-profit, catalytic health promotion organization. He convinced former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson to become Chair of its first Board of Directors. He also convinced Mr. Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien (former Director General of the internationally successful EXPO’ 67) to provide leadership in developing and implementing a strategic plan of action. Over the years many business, media, government and health leaders have volunteered their time and expertise to serve on the organization’s Board of Directors.

A CATALYST
From the beginning, Trudeau / Pearson / Beaubien established three objectives for ParticipACTION:

ACHIEVEMENTS

While money is clearly "not everything," it can be one significant measure of progress. For the record therefore, during its first 30 years of operation (1971 ‚ 2001):

• ParticipACTION received $21 million (cash) in funding from Health Canada;
• generated $40 million (cash) in support from the private sector and provincial / territorial governments;
• obtained $65 million "in-kind" support from local communities; and
• received over $280 million in free media exposure from some 2500 mass media partners throughout Canada. All in all, an impressive return on the public funds invested.

More important, during these three decades, ParticipACTION and its numerous partners throughout Canada - - health, fitness and wellness leaders, non-profit and for-profit organizations, volunteers, etc. - - have witnessed the percent of "regularly active Canadians" move from approximately 10% to 35% (Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute).

Today, ParticipACTION is internationally recognized as a pioneer in health promotion, social marketing, and public ‚ private ‚ volunteer partnerships. Some 25 countries worldwide have adopted this "Canadian model." Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Pearson would be proud.

MOVING MOUNTAINS WITH A WHEELBARROW

Perhaps the most important learning from ParticipACTION's first three decades - - particularly for wellness leaders - - is the "power of one."

When confronted with a big problem people often think: "Something should be done . . . . but what difference can I make?" And another well-intentioned effort ends before it begins. The hidden, pessimistic assumption is that big problems will only succumb to big money, big organizations and by government.

In our ParticipACTION experience, it's not necessarily so.

From the start our task was to help change the health attitudes and habits of a whole country. At first, it seemed a lot like trying to move a mountain with a wheelbarrow. Remarkably, the mountain has been moving.

From experience, we learned that half of the secret of getting things done is not to spend a lot of time, money and effort trying to do things you're not equipped to do. We learned very early that we couldn't hope to improve the health and fitness of Canadians by ourselves. We therefore decided our primary focus should be on communications ‚ being catalysts - - and resist the temptation to get directly into programming or building facilities. Far from limiting our effectiveness and range, this concentration increased them. It removed us from potential competition with other groups and left us in a position to cooperate with them.

As a result we demonstrated an ability to positively work with literally dozens of national organizations, hundreds of cities and towns, and thousands of workplaces, schools, seniors groups, health and recreation centers, health units and local clubs. Cooperation and strategic alliances became a key strategy in our success.

Equally important, we also learned early on that even though we were a national organization, we should not try to create change from the "top down." Indeed we became convinced - - and it has proven to be a wise decision - - that we would be more effective if we addressed individuals on a highly personal basis, either directly (the media) or via those they most respected (health and wellness leaders, peer group, local leaders of clubs, etc.). The best way to build a movement for change, we found, is from the bottom up.

This important learning regarding the influence of "front line" wellness leaders - - the "power of one" - - warrants emphasis.

The experience of ParticipACTION and other behavior change initiatives has demonstrated that mass media campaigns and mass distributed educational materials are valuable in helping to create general public awareness of health issues and the actions individuals can undertake. Nevertheless, most individual behavior change is primarily and ultimately impacted by inter-personal influencers.

This understanding - - which moves wellness leaders to the "front line" in the battle to change personal lifestyle practices - - greatly influenced ParticipACTION's strategies over the years. Increasingly, all initiatives - - from media campaigns to resource materials and high profile events - - were designed to primarily support the efforts of "front line" wellness / fitness leaders and other community-based health influencers.

ParticipACTION's experience with this strategy has been positive. We found that the resources necessary for action and change are usually already in place. Therefore we concluded that the best way to move mountains is to mobilize those resources, to work as a catalyst, to bring the movers and shakers together under the umbrella of a good idea.

THE FUTURE

ParticipACTION's Board of Directors, in cooperation with Health Canada and assisted by a small group of respected health promotion and population health leaders, is currently exploring a renewed mandate for this internationally acknowledged "wellness pioneer." Perhaps the next decade will see a renewed effort by ParticipACTION and its many partners.

Russ Kisby
President, ParticipACTION

A couple more health promotion links:

www.canadian-health-network.ca

www.cihi.ca

GRINS

Forwarded to us by Charles Sterling

How to Sing the Blues

Top 10 Ways to Get the Most out of Martin

"Martin points you in the right direction when making bookings for your conference."

1. Quality pre-conference communication. The more I know about the group I'm addressing the better I can customize my talk to their needs.
2. A good sound system is very important! Good sound enables me to be much more verbally expressive and enhances every joke, every song and the overall message. Don’t save money on sound.
3. If possible, have a knowledgeable AV technician to set-up and trouble shoot. I often use PowerPoint™, a CD player and sometimes video clips and it is distracting if there are technical problems. Having said all this, I should add that I’m not chained to technology. If the system breaks down I won’t.
4. I believe that in most instances, I’m best used as an opening keynote presenter. I want to send the audience out of the room feeling good about themselves, inspired and ready to get the most out of the conference or event.
5. If I’m doing a workshop I feel it’s better placed after a keynote speech than before.
6. I love doing banquets, they’re a license for levity and to miss the joy is to miss it all. For banquets all I need is a sound system.
7. My optimal speaking time for a single presentation is between 75-90 minutes.
8. Be careful of too many introductions, messages from the mayor or president, housekeeping announcements, door prizes and other formalities. They have a way of expanding into the time set aside for your visiting speakers.
9. As a general rule at a conference, don’t try to cram in too much. People want time to socialize, network and relax. Very often, less is more. For example: Start a conference first thing in the morning with a bang. In order to get in one extra presentation conference organizers sometimes have the opening keynote on the evening of the arrival day. It’s not a good idea. When people arrive at a hotel or conference center they are tired and they usually want to greet old friends, or make new ones. Have a wine and cheese, or some other social event, but don’t make tired delegates sit down to a keynote speech. Even a fine keynote speech will seem twice as good if delivered to a rested audience the next morning.
10. Once I arrive at a conference, I am yours and I am at your service. The only reasons for the previous suggestions are to maximize the impact of the presentation to the delegates. My job is to make the work of the organizers pay off with a memorable presentation.
    If you are employing an external conference management team, the organization that impressed me most this year was Buksa Conference Management and Program Development. This conference management team overlooked nothing and did everything possible to accommodate the needs of the presenters and the goals of the creators of the event. They were courteous, efficient and a pleasure to deal with. Visit their web site: www.buksa.com

Wellness Wisdom of Bob Dylan

On May 24th Bob Dylan turned 60. Picasso said, "One starts getting young at 60, but then it's a bit late." Bob echoed these sentiments with, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." I'm aware of Dylan quotations in many contexts, including my own presentations, but Bob on wellness is probably a first.

• "When you want somebody to trust, trust yourself."

• "If the arrow is straight and the point is slick
  It can pierce through dust no matter how thick."

• "Advertising signs they con
  You into thinking you're the one
  That can do what's never been done
  That can win what's never been won
  Meantime life outside goes on
  All around you"

• "I gave her my heart
  But she wanted my soul."

• "You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you."

• "Silvio, silver and gold
  Can't buy back the beat of a heart run cold."

• "There's no one to beat you, no one to defeat you
  Except the thoughts of yourself feeling bad."

Poetry

Growing up I developed a liking for some of the heroic Victoria poetry. I used to repeat the words of W.E. Henley's poem 'Invictus' like a mantra. It’s a poem about courage and taking responsibility for how we respond to life’s slings and arrows. Henley knew something of strife as a one legged man in an era where disabilities tended to separate you from society (N.B. Henley was the character R.L. Stevenson had in mind when he created Long John Silver in ‘Treasure Island’). Currently this form of stoicism is not fashionable, but there was merit in the thinking of some of those old Brits.

A Few Suggestions for Summer Reading Pleasure

Illustration by Quint Buchholz

Quotes

Every day four quotations show up on my computer from qotd@starlingtech.com. I enjoy them and thought I’d share 10 of my favorites with 'Well' readers.

1. A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. — Sir Barnett Cocks
2. Constant attention to health is a great hindrance to life, and taken to excess becomes a form of sickness. — Plato
3. Never knock on death’s door: ring the bell and run away. Death hates that. — Matt Frewer
4. I took a speed reading course and read ‘War and Peace’ in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia. — Woody Allen
5. Life is a good play with a badly written third act. — Truman Capote
6. Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. — Brendan Gill
7. As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of life — so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls. — M. Cartmill
8. Time is a great healer, but a lousy beautician. — Unknown
9. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a form of insanity. — Unknown
10. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Speaking Engagements

Martin at the Greater Edmonton
Teacher's Convention

March 1 — Greater Edmonton Teachers Convention Association — Edmonton, Alberta

March 6 — International Parks and Recreation Administrator's "Gateway by the Sea" Retreat — Gabriola Island, BC

March 8 — Mary Pack Arthritis Center — Vancouver, BC

March 14 — North Peace Health Council — Fort St. John, BC

March 27 and 28 — Ministry for Children and Family Services — Parksville, BC

March 29 — BC Call Centre — Vancouver, BC

April 1 — Ontario Association of Non-profit Housing and Services for Seniors — Toronto, ON

April 2 — International Accident Prevention Association — Toronto, ON

April 3 — St. Michaels University School All-Staff Day — Victoria, BC

April 17 — American College of Sports Medicine Health and Fitness Summit — Las Vegas

April 18 — University of Calgary Kinesiology Department Staff Retreat — Calgary, Alberta

April 28 — Employee Assistance Society of North America — Chicago

May 5 — U.S. National Association for Health and Fitness — Phoenix

May 7 — Justice Institute — New Westminster, BC

May 15 to 17 — Ministry of Children and Family Services — Victoria, BC

May 19 — Wisconsin Lions State Convention — Appleton, Wisconsin

May 25 — International Year of the Volunteer — Kenora, Ontario

May 27 and 28 — Ontario Association of College and University Housing Services

June 7 — Credit Union Marketing Managers Meeting — Vancouver, BC

June 12 — Ontario Municipal Social Services Association — Toronto, ON

June 14 — Regis University Staff and Faculty Presentation — Denver, Colorado

June 24 — Canadian Public Relations Society — Whistler, BC

A SMORGASBORD OF ITEMS THAT CAN
CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS A WELL WORKPLACE

by Dr. Martin Collis

At Speakwell we often receive inquiries about the effectiveness of workplace wellness and what forms it can take. In response to this I’m expanding a brief article which first appeared in Vol. II, Issue I of "Well."

Workplace wellness works and this fact is strongly supported by the ongoing work of the University of Michigan Health Management Research Center (HMRC). Since 1976 the HMRC has collected health care utilization data on over 2 million individuals and consulted with over 1000 work sites. We will discuss highlights of their large 2001 cost benefit analysis report in a future issue of "Well." But briefly it is worth noting that they found consistent value in on-going programs of workplace wellness. An approximation would be that for every one dollar invested a company could expect 3 dollars of cost savings or benefits. Obviously there was a range but there were consistent bottom line benefits. (www.umich.edu/~hmrc)

Milligan (2000) found the major reasons for offering health promotion programs were as follows:

Check out the following list to see what your organization is doing, or could be doing to improve their wellness profile.

The Journey

At Speakwell things are settling down for the summer after three months crisscrossing the continent. Guy, my executive director, has moved on to Arizona State to work on his Ph.D. so when you next call the office you'll be talking with Trina, who is just back from three months in Nepal.

There have been many highlights in the past few months but one of the most interesting was "The Supersize Generation" (Halting the Obesity Epidemic). This was a conference on childhood obesity presented by Edmonton Capital Health Region which drew a great deal of interest from the public, politicians and media. Personally it has led to a spate of media interviews over the past two weeks. I have included the transcript of a three minute radio commentary in this issue of 'WELL.' I hope it leads to some creative approaches to get our children moving and eating well.

There were many highlights including the ACSM Fitness Summit in Vegas, the National meeting of Governor’s Wellness Councils in Phoenix and a great visit to Regis University in Denver, where I was able to see my Seattle Mariners beat the Colorado Rockies. The "Little Book of Lifestyle Artistry" which reflects the content of my M.E.L.L.O.W. presentation has been a success and is now going into its third printing.

After a quiet summer I’m looking forward to 2 major conferences in Canada. "Whister 2001 - Communicating Physical Activity & Health Messages" September 26-30 and "Health, Work & Wellness Conference 2001" in Calgary, AB October 21-23.

My most important engagement for the summer is on August 11^th when I will marry Nancy Wardle, a warm and caring mind/body/spirit physician. You may recognize her name as a regular contributor to "WELL." People used to be brought up to marry well, and that’s what I’m doing in the best sense of the word.

Evian When Reversed Spells Naïve

By Dr. Martin Collis

There’s big money in bottled water. We complain about the price of gas, but it still sells for considerably less than plain old H₂O. The Coca-Cola Company markets Desani™, while Pepsico sells Aquafina™. Neither soft drink giant sells you special glacial water or something from a pure mountain spring, they sell you processed, filtered water from the normal regional water supply. It’s a significant expense to pay for filtration, reverse osmosis and in some cases, mineral enhancement.

I feel sometimes we're frightened into spending money and doing things for our health that are not always necessary. The Bottled Water Association has referred to coffee and pop as "dehydrating beverages" and we are told they are no substitute for water. But in a recent small scale study at the College for Human Nutrition in Omaha, young men were divided into 3 groups who drank:

1. water only
2. equal amounts of water and caffeinated pop
3. water, caffeinated pop and coffee.

They collected urine and did multiple measures of hydration status and guess what? The subjects remained in the same state of hydration no matter what they drank.

Conclusive? No. The numbers were small and they were all young men. I wish they’d had other subjects quaffing beer, or even tea, which is a favorite of mine. I’m not advocating consuming large amounts of caffeine, but I think this is worth looking into further. For instance, as a lifelong tea drinker my perception is that the diuretic effect of tea on me is not measurably different from that of water. Water is great, but don’t feel guilty about dehydrating yourself with your morning tea or coffee, the guilt is probably more dangerous than the caffeine.

Fat and Getting Fatter — A Taxing Problem?

This article was written for a three-minute commentary and aired nationally on CBC radio. www.cbc.com
(Download the commentary — 5 files in MP3 Format 1- 2- 3- 4- 5 )

Over the last twenty years obesity in Canadian children increased dramatically. For boys it’s more than doubled and nearly tripled for girls. Today’s children are less and less inclined to follow the old parental suggestion to: "Eat your fruit and veggies and go out and play." In simple terms our children don’t move enough and eat too much calorie dense fast food.

Physical activity has been engineered out of our lives. Children are spending an increasing amount of their waking hours looking at screens, TV screens, computer screens, movie screens, and video-game screens. Many children watch more than 20 hours of TV for every hour of physical education they get in school. (See article in 'Well' - Summer 2000)

Eating habits are powerfully influenced by fast foods. In the past 40 years many fast food servings have quadrupled in size. This increase can be referred to as 'portion distortion.' The 1 1/2 oz. burger is now 6 oz., pop at the movies has gone from 8 oz. to 32 oz. Movie popcorn has metastasized from 3 cups to 16 cups. Size sells, whether it’s Biggie fries, Whoppers or super sized meals, but huge portions can result in biggie, whopping, super sized kids.

Advertising works and the suggestions of parents and educators are no match for the multiple billions the fast food industry. (Coca-Cola™ is spending one hundred million dollars just to sponsor the upcoming Harry Potter movie.) In order to level the advertising playing field it is necessary to have funding to sponsor healthy eating choices and to promote physical activity. I agree with the suggestion of two American researchers, Nestle and Jacobson, who've called for a modest tax on some of the products associated with caloric imbalance in kids. By designating a portion of the GST on each can of soft drink, package of potato chips and liter of gas, we would raise tens of millions of dollars that could be earmarked for positive lifestyle advertising. In California soft drinks are the only foods subject to the seven-and-a-quarter percent sales tax. It yields a multi-million dollar tax windfall. Arkansas levies a 2 cents per can tax on soft drinks, which raises $40 million per year and goes directly to health care.

Taxation of any sort is not palatable, but it is preferable to increasing numbers of overweight children and having problems such as "maturity onset diabetes" showing up in teenagers.

In some countries governments have shown the political will to shield children a little from the relentless barrage of fast food advertising. In 1992 Switzerland banned all TV advertising directed at children under the age of twelve. Ads have also been banned from children's television programming in Norway, Belgium, Ireland and Holland. The eating habits of North American children are widely considered an example of what other countries wish to avoid.

In Canada we have the perfect organization to administer 'wellness focussed' advertising, namely ParticipACTION, whose work is admired worldwide, but overlooked by our Federal Government. Give ParticipACTION a healthy budget and we'd see more Canadian kids eating well and going out to play.

A Vision of Wellness

Wonderboy grandson Toby (age 3)