Making Healthy Choices Easy

In a week in which I was entrenched in the medical system, shuttling my daughter from doctor to doctor, test to test, discussing the possible scenarios that could be causing her illness, I was thrilled to receive an e-mail in my inbox detailing some really exciting ideas for the health of our country. With permission from Laura Burstein, General Manager of Anytime Fitness in Kensington, I am sharing her report from last week’s Summit for a Healthier America, a two-day lobbying campaign to support bills that promote health care over sick care.

"The main goal of these various bills is to make the healthy choice the easy choice for more Americans," according to Burstein. "Primary prevention should be the simplest, most cost-effective way to decrease the high expense of lifestyle-related diseases. Prevention is typically thought of as vaccines, flu shots, annual physicals, etc., but it should also include regular exercise, healthy eating, smoking cessation, and stress management.”

The following are some of the bills that Burstein and her colleagues supported:

The FIT (Fitness Integrated with Teaching) Kids Act amends the No Child Left Behind Act and would require schools to incorporate more (and higher quality) physical education classes, longer recess, and creative involvement of movement in other classes throughout the day as well. Besides forming healthy habits in children to carry through adulthood, increasing movement during and after the school day is believed to improve kids' focus and academic performance and perhaps even decrease the sky-rocketing use of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder medication. 

Carol White's Physical Education Program (PEP) is a grant program asking for more funding to go to better equipment and technology-based products for physical education in schools.

The Personal Health Investment Today (PHIT) Act would allow Americans to use up to $1,000 annually from tax-favored accounts (such as flex spending accounts or health savings accounts) on primary prevention measures like gym memberships, little league dues, dance classes, massages, etc. Essentially, this bill redefines the term "medical expense" to include health and fitness goods and services that are likely to decrease the risk/effects of obesity, heart disease, type II diabetes, and other life-style diseases. 

The Workplace Health Improvement Program (WHIP) would give employers a tax break on all gym memberships for employees, whether they are on- or off-site. Currently, the law only allows this deduction for on-site fitness facilities. Promoting a broader range of options to increase the convenience (and fairness) of exercise will hopefully slow (if not decrease) the rising cost of health care.

And finally, Burstein and her colleagues asked that the National Physical Activity Guidelines for America Act (which began in 2008) be reviewed and updated every five years to account for changes in research as the health and fitness field grows and the studies conducted and information provided multiplies.

A positive sign toward the support of these initiatives was the Senate support, this past March, of Resolution 97, affirming the importance of physical activity in reducing chronic disease and encouraging development of incentives to promote healthy lifestyles.

 In 1986, I worked on one of the first studies of corporate health promotion in the country, developed by American University’s National Center for Health Fitness and delivered at the U.S. Army Materiel Command. The project set out to prove what made intuitive sense—that prevention saves lives and money, increases productivity, and puts much less stress on the health care system. While it surprises me that lifestyle-related diseases such as heart disease, hypertension and diabetes are still rising, it is further support for making preventive health services more available, accessible and affordable to people in the workforce.

One of the highlights of Burstein’s lobbying experience was having dinner with Cornell McClellan, White House personal trainer. When she learned that the Obamas make the time to exercise several times a week, she was inspired.

“If any American can say he doesn't have time to exercise, it’s President Obama, so I will be reminding myself of that fact every time I consider skipping a workout because I’ve had a long day or feel overwhelmed,” Burstein said.

Even Burstein, who makes her career in the fitness industry, has to be inspired to “walk the talk” now and then.

So what are you waiting for? Congress doesn’t have to pass more bills for us to get healthy. Visit Laura at , renew your own gym commitment, or just get out there and move.