The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) held its sixth roundtable July 14, in Wales, in partnership with the Institute of Life Science at Swansea University’s Medical School. Thirty-seven high-level experts from the government, academic and private sectors sat down to debate how to make this country a wellness leader among small nations. Now Wales is small, but it’s already a big wellness innovator—just check out its new “Well-being of Future Generations Act.” Gathered leaders identified seven key interventions that could build a more “Well Wales,” from promoting its unique wellness tourism assets like raw nature, peace and cultural authenticity to creating “wellness schools.” Read the press release | Read the full report
24/7 Work and Connectivity Is Killing Employees—Companies, Turn It Off
Technology has suddenly spawned new, global work realities: imprisonment by screens and a powerful erosion of the line between now always-on “work” and “life.” And assembled experts agreed that we have not yet begun to grasp the wide-ranging impact on employees’ physical and mental health…and productivity.
New Finding: Taxing Unhealthy Products Does Change Behaviour!
Thierry Malleret dives into how one “must-watch” issue for wellness is the way in which governments are increasingly attempting to legislate to limit the consumption of unhealthy products. But the consensus is that taxing products like sugar/soda doesn’t do much to change behaviour.
Well, new evidence from Mexico, where 30 percent of the population is obese (and the average citizen drinks the equivalent of half a litre of Coca-Cola a day), shakes up that “doesn’t-work” established wisdom. Read how much consumption has dropped after new taxes—and for more insight on another “must watch” wellness issue…
Must-Reads from the Wellness World: Week of August 19, 2015
- “Wellness tourism taking the vacation world by storm” (Audio)
– NPR News, August 16, 2015 - “Which Character Strengths Are Most Predictive of Well-Being?”
– Scientific American, August 2, 2015 - “Why We’re Sick and Tired of Wellness”
– Alternet, August 11, 2015 - “The Average Worker Loses 11 Days of Productivity Each Year Due to Insomnia, and Companies Are Taking Notice”
– The Washington Post, July 30, 2015 - “Can We Reverse the Aging Process by Putting Young Blood into Older People?”
– The Guardian, August 4, 2015
Global Wellness Institute Roundtable on “Redefining Workplace Wellness”
On July 15 the Global Wellness Institute held its seventh roundtable. This time the topic was “Redefining Workplace Wellness,” and the roundtable took place in Manhattan. Twenty-five-plus experts from high-profile organizations (like the Cleveland Clinic, the Clinton Global Initiative, Johnson & Johnson, Citi and Goldman Sachs) sat down for a wide-ranging discussion about how the very idea of “work”—and the profile of the global workforce—is now changing at lightning speed.
Women: Step Away from the Desk and Lower Your Risk of Cancer & Early Mortality
Few medical studies have analyzed the relationship between sitting and total mortality. But a large (123,216 individuals) new study from the American Cancer Society found that women who sit for more than six hours/day were 37 percent more likely to die (over the 13-year study period)—and 10 percent more likely to get cancer—than those who sat less than three hours/day. Surprisingly, the “sitting risk” was lower for men: six-plus-hour-a-day male sitters were 18 percent more likely to die, but the cancer risk was not considerably higher.
