Employee Wellbeing: Lockdown and Why Eating Better Can Combat Illnesses
In HRchat episode #223, we consider employee nutrition in relation to health equity and weight management for chronic conditions.
My guests this time all partner, in different ways, with our show sponsor Virgin Pulse – the well-being solution helping workers create habits that matter so they can be their best at work and at home. They are Dr. David L. Katz, CEO at Diet ID and Founder of True Health Initiative, Dr. Dexter Shurney, Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Zipongo Inc. and Misa Nuccio, MPH. former Co-Founder & Chief Health Officer at Blue Mesa Health and current Product Marketing Manager at Virgin Pulse.
Listen to this episode and learn:
- How some chronic diseases can be prevented through healthy lifestyle behaviors
- Ways digital therapeutics can be used to successfully manage obesity
- Nutrition platforms that will help increase health equity access to nutritious food for all employees
- The social determinants that impact food choices and habits
Key quotes and interview highlights
DAVID L. KATZ, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM, Founding Director of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center; Immediate Past-President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine; Founder/Director of the True Health Initiative
Q: Obesity rates are at an all-time high. According to the WHO, 650 million adults worldwide are obese, a condition associated with various chronic and expensive diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers. We’re essentially battling two pandemics right now – COVID-19 and chronic disease. What are the main causes of obesity?
A: “… Obesity is a canary in the coal mine of chronic disease. There’s lots of debate in our society about the relative importance of obesity because it overlaps not just with our health, but self-esteem.”
“We’re no different (than) animals that are adapted to avoid vigorous exercise where they don’t have to do it. We’ve got all kinds of labor-saving technology, but what puts this all on steroids is … this adulteration of the food supplies … What took the native vulnerability of our genes and transformed it into a global obesity pandemic is changes in the food supply and changes in the environment.”
Q: Can you actually improve your immunity by eating healthy foods, or is that a myth?
A: “We know full well that dietary patterns influence inflammatory responses and that a balanced, wholesome diet optimizes those responses so that we can fight pathogens like SARS and protect our healthy native tissue. And then there’s the critical role of diet in the epidemiology of cardio-metabolic liabilities that are the leading risk factors for adverse COVID outcomes. There’s no question about the linkage between diet and obesity, diet and hypertension, diet and coronary disease, diet, and diabetes.”
Dr. Dexter Shurney, MD, MBA, MPH is the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical Affairs for Zipongo, the San Francisco-based based digital health and wellness company that focuses on enabling healthy eating -“Healthy Eating, Made Simple”.
Q: Lots of medicine is about treating disease after someone already has it, but how important is prevention? It’s certainly much easier to prevent illnesses vs. treating/managing them. Do you think clinical approaches should be altered and focus more on preventive measures?
A: “Prevention is something that I think is almost a no-brainer. It should be a no-brainer that we should focus more than we do on prevention. I think everyone realizes that it’s so much easier to prevent something terrible from happening than to try to fix it in the aftermath. And so the same thing is true when we’re talking about chronic conditions; when we’re talking about obesity … Our diet and other aspects of our lifestyle – how much we sleep, how much we move, how we manage our stress, our environment – those things are key. And that’s really where more prevention should be focused.”
Q: With many of us still working from home and under a lot of stress, we’re reaching for comfort foods and are snacking much more frequently throughout the day and turning to comfort foods. We also know that stress in general can cause weight gain. Can you share some simple recipes from Zipongo to help reduce unhealthy snacking throughout the workday?
A: “A better approach than just … giving you one or two recipes is to really think about your diet pattern. And part of that is planning. You really have to plan what you’re going to eat. So you’re not just snacking when the mood hits you and so you need to plan for yourself, you need to plan for your family. And that really will alleviate some of the habitual snacking. And one of the things that Zipongo does is allow people to plan for themselves and their family.”
Misa Nuccio, MPH is the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Virgin Pulse. She designed and directed VP Transform for Prediabetes, an evidence-based digital diabetes prevention program that combines health coaching with technology to facilitate behavior change.
Q: For those of us who are still new to digital therapeutics, digital therapeutics are evidence-based therapeutic interventions driven by high-quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat medical disorders or diseases. Virgin pulse. In fact, has a suite of digital therapeutic products, the newest product called VB transformed for weight management which recently launched. Can you tell us a bit more?
A: “We offer a digital therapeutic platform for overweight and obese adults. It is a member of a growing collection of digital therapeutics that are offered by Virgin Pulse to prevent, manage, treat, and reverse a variety of health conditions. The VB solution is a year-long, evidence-based behavior change program that helps overweight and obese adults achieve and maintain clinically meaningful weight loss through moderate and sustainable lifestyle modifications. For example, increasing levels of physical activity and engaging in moderate dietary changes.”
Q: Once considered a high-income country problem, overweight and obesity are now on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings. How do environmental factors impact the prevalence of obesity?
A: “Many factors influence body weight. Genes certainly play a small role, although it’s not destiny, right?! Other factors include a poor diet, too little physical activity, sleep, and especially our built environment. How accessible healthy food are and how accessible are safe places to enjoy physical activity in your neighborhood (is important). And it’s not just a problem in rich countries, right? There’s relentless marketing of unhealthy foods and sugary drinks in developing countries as well. And in most cases, the healthy option is the more expensive and harder to reach option. Our solution gives individuals the skills to make healthier choices.”