The GWI and Everyday Health’s recent study, “Unlocking the Power of Company Caring” (based on a survey of U.S. employees), takes an in-depth look at how work environments impact employee health and productivity. A key finding was that, when it comes to what drives the most wellness at work, age matters. In the study, employees weighed in on their personal wellness priorities, and according to the results, millennials rated “emotional” and “social” wellness higher, Gen X placed a higher value on “intellectual” wellness, and for Baby Boomers, “physical” and “spiritual” wellness mattered more.
U.K. Announces Plans to Tax Sugary Drinks — and More Such Taxes are Coming Globally
A new study just revealed that global obesity has skyrocketed 167 percent since 1975. It’s numbers like these that incited the U.K. to announce a tax on sugary drinks, rolling out in 2018. Read Malleret’s thoughts on how the structure of this new U.K. policy could have been simpler and smarter – but ultimately reveals the phenomenal power of the food/beverage industry – and his forecast that the obesity explosion will make it inevitable that more countries will start taxing high-sugar and highly-processed foods.
“The World Retreat Study” Initiative Launches
When guests return from a stay at a wellness/spa retreat, they may personally know that their physical and mental health has been improved, but the impact of these stays at global wellness retreats has remained largely anecdotal and under-analyzed. A new GWI Initiative, “The WORLD (Wellness Outcomes from Residential Lifestyle Destination) Retreat Study,” chaired by Professor Marc Cohen, professor of Health Sciences, RMIT University, aims to change that. This research project will empirically aggregate and assess the outcomes from wellness retreat stays through a standardized online assessment tool that will measure guests’ depression, stress, mood, sleep, health symptoms, quality of life and cognitive function, etc. before and after the retreat experience. This research will help lead to increased investment and government support for these facilities.
Wellness Evidence Study: Mindfulness Therapy Powerful at Reducing Relapses of Depression
A new meta-analysis of European and North American studies by Oxford University researchers found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MCBT) was more effective at reducing relapses and recurrences of depression than ongoing antidepressant medication. Also, mindfulness was particularly effective for people with more severe depressive symptoms.
Must-Reads from the Wellness World (Week of May 3, 2016)
“The science of happiness can trump GDP as a guide for policy” – The Conversation, April 13, 2016
At a time when global GDP is bound to be structurally lower, this is an important article. The economist (best known for the “Easterlin Paradox”) argues that and explains why happiness could supplant GDP as a measure of societal wellbeing. He offers four reasons as to why happiness should be preferred to GDP. In a nutshell: “Happiness tells us how well a society satisfies the major concerns of people’s everyday life. GDP is a measure limited to one aspect of economic life: the production of material goods.”
What’s the Difference Between Wellness and Well-being? Or is There One?
Shakespeare famously wrote, “What’s in a name?” The answer is a lot. Words, and how they’re mobilized, matter. The subtle ways that words evolve and the “work” they do have a major impact on how people think. Most of us have probably used the words “wellness” and “well-being” interchangeably. We probably haven’t thought much about whether there is (or should be) a distinction.
