Archive - 2013
March 28th
Pay to Not Play
CVS Employee Wellness Screening: Fair or Foul?
Starting May 1st, reports the Boston Herald, CVS Caremark Corps will require all employees on its health insurance plan to submit to regular wellness screenings. Should they opt out of the screening, employees are subject to a fine of $50 per month, or $600 per year.
CVS' policy is just the latest in a series of increasinglly aggressive and controversial attempts by companies to reign in their health care costs. CVS aims to "incent our colleagues to improve their health care and manage health costs," but the move is seen by some as an invasive and punitive policy that could lead to discrimination against unhealthy or disabled workers.
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March 14th
Sacred Sweat
Does the Pope Sweat?
It's Day One of a new papal regime. This got us to thinking: What's the Pope's daily routine, and does he go to the gym? Dawn Patrolers will recall that we also covered the daily routine of the Dalai Lama. Call it the Sacred Sweat series.
It's early to know how Pope Francis will spend his days, but we do know that he will not be running any marathons. Turns out Francis is working with only one lung, having had the other removed due to dangerous teenage infection. Outgoing Benedict wasn't much of a cardio fiend, either. He limited his daily exercise to a 10 minute walk around the Apostolic Palace, but he also kept a strict and healthy schedule: Up at 5AM after six hours of sleep, a Mediterannean diet, sans alcohol, and plenty of prayer.
The public record suggests that fitness, in the conventional sense, has not been a major preoccupation of the Vatican. True, Pope Pius XII, a controversial pontiff who presided over Catholicism during World War II, used a rowing machine in his youth. By the time he was Pope, however, Pius' routine was strictly 15 minutes of "knee bends and arm flexes" timed with a gold Swiss watch.
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February 11th
Innovation
The Complete, Unabridged List of Social Fitness and Wellness Sites, Apps, and Devices
We've been compiling an exhaustive list of interesting products in the "social fitness/wellness" space. We're now well over one hundred, and it's clearly time to start sharing the love. If you'd like to make additions or changes, please tell us about it!
January 24th
Personal Stories
Von Hottie On Physique 57, Pre-Natal Yoga, and Her Trainer's Girlfriend
Yesterday was an epic fitness day, in three parts. Get cozy, it's a big story...
I took a morning Physique 57 class with a lady friend. I've always been curious about just what kind of workout Kelly Ripa is doing! It was a pretty intense toning workout, lots of jiggling, squatting, and thrusting of things while on your tippy toes. I was in an intermediate class, so I felt like an impostor floppy fish floundering in a sea of lithe Lululemon dolphins.
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January 3rd
Videos
Vintage Physical Education Propaganda
Thanks to Meret H. and Jared R. for digging up this video of days gone by in a sunny, very clean-cut California....
Online & Video
Research
Americans Walk Less than Anyone, Including the Amish and their Own Grandparents
This just in via Andrew Sullivan: The average American walks 5,117 steps per day, which ranks them way below (among others) the Swiss and the Aussies, who log about 9,600 steps daily on average, AND the Japanese, who are at 7,100 steps per day.
Slackers! Sullivan links to a nice summary of recent walking research by Wayne Curtis. Turns out we're historically slothful. Writes Curtis: "In 1906, just as cars were coming into vogue, the nation was afflicted by a small outbreak of long-distance walking — multi-day walking races and long-distance walkers seemed to be tromping everywhere."
How far would the average 19th Century American walk in a day? To sort that out, researchers apparently visited the Old Order of Amish in Canada, and equipped those folks with pedometers. This, it seemed, a reasonable simulation of normal 19th Century life. Turns out the average non-motorized Amish male logs 18,425 steps per day, or roughly nine miles.
