Healthy Leaders R Us

In an attempt to lower health insurance premiums and health care expenditures, and to try to deal with the fact that a lot of ministers just aren't very healthy folk, the ELCA has been on a campaign to make us all "Healthy Leaders" for several years now. The amusing part about this is that nearly every pastors meeting one goes to has donuts or coffee cake or some other such unhealthy goodies on which to gnosh. Even at seminary, which in theory should be setting the pace for this initiative, my friend Mike noted the irony of coming out of a "Healthy Leaders" meeting to a plate full of cookies.

In any case, the latest, greatest part of this campaign is again one of those things that is good in theory. It started a year ago, when they raised our deductables by a few hundred dollars, but also gave us the opportunity to earn "free" money (really, more like credits) to offset that increase. We earn the free money by taking a health risk assessment online (100 points, first 100 bucks) and thereafter logging into the designated website (10 pts/day) and completing various "programs" available therein (usually you get 50-100 pts per program; once you earn another 300 pts, you get another $300 credited to your offset).

Like I say, it's good in theory - providing incentive for us to be proactive about our health and find out important info like our cholestoral and blood sugar levels, etc, and to take on more preventative care like working on diet/nutrition and exercise.

But here's the thing: if you're already trying to lead a healthy lifestyle, there's not a lot for you to do. Last year I signed up for the stress program, which I knew I needed to work on, and which the assessment confirmed as one of my "risk factors." The program proved to be mostly unhelpful, because it was written for people in a regular 9-5 corporate kind of job, it was not tailored at all to the unique stressors that pastors deal with on a regular basis.

I also signed up for the exercise program, which was intended to help people get into an exercise regimen - I already was, so this was also not very helpful.

For a while, I debated taking up smoking, just so I could get the points from the program for quitting. But I drew the line at getting pregnant just to get the points for the healthy pregnancy program.

That was it, those were the only options other than simply logging in for my 10 points a day.

And those remain the only options again this year. Only for some reason, the website didn't reset the stress and exercise programs like it did the health risk assesment, so as far as the website is concerned, I've already completed those programs, I can't do them again for the points.

Which means the only way to earn my offset is to log in for my 10 points a day. Which is fine, except that I never just log in to the site quick, once I sit down at the computer, I end up checking email, getting on facebook, blogging, basically, dinking around on the internet for at least an hour, if not longer.

So essentially, in my case, this tool that's supposed to help me become a "healthy leader" is actually having the opposite effect, drawing me into a sedentary activity and stressing me out because the time I waste on the internet could have been better spent on a walk or reading a book or finishing work that needs to be done.

Viva la irony,
C.