Miller Health Occupational Health and Fitness

Index

108. DCMS FEBRUARY 2011

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John Miller conducted a Health Management program for The Group in February 2011.

13 people completed the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing profile.

Click here to read what the assessments are all about

HEALTH, FITNESS AND WELLBEING PROFILE

The Health, Fitness and Wellbeing profile provides people with a very good idea of how well the various systems of the body are functioning, particularly the

• the mind

• autonomic nervous system

• immune system

• digestive system

• circulatory system

• elimination system

• musculo-skeletal system.

	Symptom	None		Not much			A fair bit			A lot
1.	Headaches including migraines	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
2.	Lack of energy and vitality	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
3.	Candida - jock itch, thrush, tinea ...	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
4.	Poor sleep. If on tablets score 10	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
5.	Snoring &/or sleep apnoea. Score 10 if using a mask	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
6.	Crook back, stiff neck, sore shoulders, dicky knee RSI ...	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
7.	Frequent colds, flu, sinus	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
8.	Unsettled stomach, reflux (Score 10 if on medication)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
9.	Overweight - 1 point for every 2Kg	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
10.	Irritable bowel, constipation	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11.	Asthma	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
12.	Low level of aerobic fitness	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
13.	Chest pain, palpitations	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
14.	Rashes, itchiness, skin outbreaks, psoriasis ...	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
15.	Mouth ulcers, cold sores	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
16.	Elevated blood pressure. Score 0 on pills	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
17.	Elevated blood cholesterol. Score o if on pills	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
18.	Elevated blood glucose. Score 0 if on medication	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
19.	Shakes, nervous ticks, mannerisms	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
20.	Grinding teeth	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
21.	Alcoholic drinks per day (2 pts/drink)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
22.	Smoking. (1 pt/cigarette/day)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
23.	Caffeine (1 pt/cup per day)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
24.	Anxious about life, insecure, apprehensive	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
25.	Sad or depressed (On medication, score 0)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
26.	In wrong job for now	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
27.	Under-appreciated at work	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
28.	Have poor work/life balance	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
29.	Unhappy with family life	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
30.	Unhappy with financial status	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10

Score

The score of a normal, fit and healthy human being is less than 20

Higher scores are symptomatic of dysfunction of one or more body systems.

People with high levels of stress usually score well over 100.

For people with a score of more than 80, the ‘background noise’ of their life is becoming louder and louder. It is hard to concentrate on your work when body systems are dysfunctional.

We know a fit and healthy group when we see the majority of scores below 40. This was not the case with this group. By and large higher scores are usually a reflection of

• low levels of fitness

• an inability to deal with what life and work are serving up to people.

Remember, it is not what happens, but how we deal with what happens that determines our level of stress.

Classification of average scores: Excellent - less than 40. Good - 41 - 50. Fair 51-60. Poor - over 60.

This profile is described as fair. The average score was 67. Anyone scoring more than 80 is putting up with a lot of 'background noise'.

HEALTH CLIMATE SURVEY

Based on scores received in the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing profile we've compiled a Health Climate Survey. Scores on each item have ranked - the higher the score the worse the problem. We added the scores for each item. The results appear in the table below.

Symptoms/ issues / concerns	% of people scoring over 5	No. of people scoring 10
Musculo-skeletal dysfunction	69
Overweight	54	2
Low level of fitness	46
Irritable bowel, constipation etc	38
Headaches	31
Snoring, sleep apnoea	31
Caffeine	31
Lack of Energy	23
Reflux, unsettled stomach	23
Shortness of breath from asthma	23
Grinding teeth	23
Depressed	23	2
Financial status	23
Candida	15
Poor sleep	15
Frequent colds, flu, sinus	15
Shakes, nervous mannerisms	15
Anxious	15
Wrong job	15
Under appreciated at work	15
Work-life balance	15
Unhappy family life	15
Mouth ulcers	8
Elevated blood pressure	8	1
Elevated cholesterol	8
Elevated glucose	8
Alcohol	8
Smoking	8
Chest pain, palpitations	0
Itchy, rashes, psoriasis	0

We registered those scores of 5 and over as being a symptom, issue or concern, the most pressing of which have been highlighted.

Perception

Based on people's perception (where they gave a particular symptom a score of 5 or more, and backed up by objective scores) the key issues are

•	Obesity 54% of people said they were more than 10Kg over weight. 2 people were more than 20Kg over weight. It's a symptom of metabolic dysfunction and relates to high energy diets and low energy lifestyles. These are people cooped up in cages all day with little room to move. They are people in jobs which encourage motion starvation. Obesity is suggestive of elevated levels of insulin floating around the body, which is a precursor of all manner of body system dysfunctions - elevated blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, elevated blood glucose. This is the result of the flour and sugar culture, people who following this series of assessments are now aware of the meals they can eat which will satisfy their hunger but not fatten them up. The recommendation, that people need to get more exercise, eat from the top of the Hourglass and lay off the grog.

	Fitness 46% said they were unfit. We recommend staff be given the greatest encouragement to engage in some physical activity before work and/or at lunch time. Fitness has a significant bearing on the scores for low levels of energy, poor sleep, snoring, depression and headaches.

	Musculo-skeletal dysfunction 69% of people said they had some sort of musculo-skeletal dysfunction. Musculo-skeletal dysfunction goes with low levels of strength and flexibility. Most of it is personally generated. All staff need to be involved in a daily, 10 minute strength and flexibility work out in work time.

	Snoring 31% of people said they snored loudly enough for it to be a problem. The recipe for a good snore is to be male, be unfit and at least 20Kg over weight, to have high blood pressure, have a few drinks every night, be stressed out of their brain and sleep on their back.

	Depression and anxiety 23% of people indicated they were anxious. 2 people were on anti-depressant medication. These are very low scores compared with what we normally see. Having said that, there is an epidemic of depression in our community and we encourage all organisations to target depression. There is a significant core of depression that relates to poor health generally. All body systems are connected. The epidemic of depression will continue to escalate at the same rate as the epidemic of all other body system dysfunctions. People need to be given encouragement to exercise regularly and vigorous, eat less flour and sugar and imbibe less of the culturally chemicals - particularly nicotine, caffeine and alcohol. Because of the relationship of depression to fitness and diet there is a chance that some people have been misdiagnosed. Some aspects of depression relate to psychologically generated issues. It is important that these people be encouraged to have regular counselling - through the EAP or other counsellors - The best book about depression I've read, and what you can do about it, and one that I recommend highly is by psychiatrist, David Servan-Schreiber, Healing Without Freud or Prozac.

	Under-appreciation at work 15% said they were under-appreciated at work. This is a good result. It's usually a lot higher than this. Managers take a bow!

	Being in the wrong job Only 15% of people said they were in the wrong job. There is usually a high and positive correlation between people being in the wrong job and people saying they are under-appreciated at work. In this case this rule applied. By far and away these people are in the right job. This is a real asset.

	Alcohol intake Alcohol intake was low. I don't agree with the medical charities that you should have a drink every night. The people who score lowest in the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing profile only have a couple of drinks a week, if that. The problem with alcohol is that will power dissolves in it. Once you've had one, you're more likely to have another, and another ... Then out come the chips and cashews, finishing off with a couple rounds of Tim Tams.

	Smoking Only 1 person smoked. This is a good result. Now let's help them to give it up for good.

	Reflux 23% of people suffered from reflux. If you eat too much of the wrong food you get reflux.

	Poor financial status 23% indicated they were under financial stress.

RECOMMENDATIONS

See the generic list of recommendations that cover all our profiles.