GUIDELINES for a Workplace Wellness Program
Warren B. Karp, Ph.D., D.M.D.
Professor Emeritus, The Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
The Diet To Promote Health and Prevent Disease
Workplace Wellness Programs Focusing on Food, Nutrition and Preventive Health
What does nutrition have to do with the workplace? Plenty. The fact is that people who don't feel well because they are overweight, have diabetes, have heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, degenerative joint disease, etc....these people are not very happy and productive. The quality of their life and the quality of their work is much poorer than healthy people. From a business perspective, coworkers with chronic diseases resulting from poor nutrition, miss more work, have more on-the-job health issues, and cost the company money including higher insurance premiums. Oftentimes, health insurance companies reduce the premiums if workers receive some wellness education. It is estimated, for example, that overweight and obese people in the United States cost our healthcare system more than 300 billion dollars, annually. More importantly, doesn't everyone want to wake up every morning feeling healthy?
What should a nutrition wellness program contain? First of all, it should not push a product or service. If your organization is putting together an employee wellness program that has a nutrition/diet component, then insure that your presenters and the organizations with which they are affiliated are not selling or promoting a specific product, book or diet. If they are, then...beware. They are, most likely, not going to be objective, scientific sources of high-quality evidenced-based information for your employees.
Guidelines For A Workplace Wellness Program
Your workplace wellness program on diet, food and nutrition should be, at a minimum, based on these principles:
1) The program should help your employees, coworkers and management team understand the current dietary and nutritional recommendations from evidenced-based organizations like the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, The American Heart Association, The National Institutes of Health, the USDA Dietary Guidelines, and The Surgeon General.
2) The program should not focus on specific foods, diets or supplements, but rather on overall eating patterns and lifestyle behaviors. The program should not demonize certain foods and glorify others...i.e., "superfoods."
3) The program should help your employees, coworkers and management team learn how to translate dietary and nutrition advice into practical information that can be integrated, in a very personal way, into their own lifestyles, their workplace and their families.
4) The program should give your employees, coworkers and management team the tools to distinguish between fad diets/nutrition quackery and evidenced-based nutrition and help your employees self-evaluate if they are actually following current scientific nutrition and diet thinking and understanding.
5) The program should offer resources for continued lifelong learning, after the presentations are concluded.
6) People involved with the program should not be selling books, supplements, foods, diets or any products or ideas that are being mentioned in the program. People and companies involved in the program should sign a "Conflict of Interest" statement, declaring either no conflicts of interest or listing possible conflicts of interest. No self-promoting books, supplements, foods, diets, personal training expertise or other tangible or intangible "products" should be mentioned in the program. The focus of the program should be on evidenced-based, objective scientific information about diet, nutrition and food.
Being Healthy In The Workplace
Today, people receive different, many times, conflicting, nutritional and dietary advice from health professionals, the media, and advertising. All Americans need to receive accurate nutrition and diet advice based on science, not internet rumors or advertisements. A number of significant advances have been made in the understanding of how diet and nutrition relate to both a person’s wellness as well as to chronic diseases, such as dental disease, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and cancer. People are often uninformed about effective diet and nutritional approaches to these diseases.
Dr. Karp has over 120 different presentations on nutrition and wellness, which can be selected from and presented in a series of one-hour presentations or in a series of 1/2 day seminars. Dr. Karp has given over 4000 state, regional, and national continuing education courses and lectures over the past 40 years in the area of nutrition and prevention. He is the former Vice Chairman of the Augusta (Columbia County) Board of Health and has directed the nutrition consult service at Augusta University's Dental College of Georgia for over 20 years. He has served on the Governor's (Georgia) Obesity Taskforce. In addition, he can also use distance learning technology (videoconferencing and skyping) to deliver programs, or use a combination of on-site interactions and distance learning interactions. A more complete bio is here: Bio WB Karp
A sampling of suggested topics includes:
The Diet to Promote Health and Prevent Disease
Nutrition and Life Stages – Aging, Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Childhood Nutrition
Nutrition and Chronic Disease – Heart Disease, Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, and Cancer
Dr. Karp is a highly interactive speaker. If you have other needs, just contact him and let him know. He develops his presentations to meet the needs of specific companies and audiences.
LIVE, VIRTUAL PRESENTATIONS
Are you in a smaller or more rural workplace and your business cannot afford to bring in a wellness speaker in person? There is another way of offering live workplace wellness programs to your employees or business associates via realtime videoconferencing...using www.join.me, www.gotomeeting.com, Skype or any of a number of other very simple-to-use formats...ask about this, if you are interested.
Target Audience
The audience for these presentations are executives and employees in businesses, corporations, educational institutions, societies, unions and their staffs. It is important that everyone in an organization is on the "same page" when it comes to workplace wellness. Dr. Karp travels anywhere (actually or virtually) in the United States and Canada to present these programs.
Dr. Karp maintains a Facebook page and Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest accounts. Participants use these accounts to post or message questions on nutrition, diet or preventive medicine, before, during or after his programs.
Participants are free to share information in these presentations with other coworkers, friends and family members. It takes a community and a culture to facilitate change. You can find past nutrition articles Dr. Karp has written at:
In addition, Dr. Karp has published an eBook, "Nutrition for Smarties," which is available in the public domain. That means it is free to download, share and copy. There are no products or ads in this eBook. Click on the image, below, to find out more about this eBook and to go to the download site for "Nutrition for Smarties."
An example of a website that Dr. Karp maintains for participants in his wellness courses is:
Regards, WBK
www.wbkarp.com
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About the speaker
Warren B. Karp, Ph.D., D.M.D. is Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Pediatrics, Oral Biology and Oral Diagnosis at Augusta University, in The Medical College of Georgia, the Dental College of Georgia and The Graduate School. He holds a Ph.D. in biochemical nutrition from The Ohio State University and a D.M.D. from The Dental College of Georgia. He is an elected member of The American Society for Nutrition (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), and is past president of the Georgia Nutrition Council. He has served as Director of the Nutrition Consult Service at The AU Dental College of Georgia for over twenty years and Vice Chairman of the Augusta (Columbia County) Board of Health. He has won numerous regional, state, and national awards for his teaching ability and is nationally known for his lively and informative lecturing style. You may also know him as an award-winning jazz musician. You can find a biographical sketch and more about Dr. Karp here: www.wbkarp.com
Even though Dr.Karp is a Professor Emeritus at Augusta University, his statements, views, and opinions are his and his, alone, and do not reflect the statement, views and opinions of Augusta University. Dr. Karp has no financial or other interests in any food, book, nutrition product or company. His interest is only in providing evidenced-based, scientific nutrition knowledge and education.
