Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota
Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota
We are honored to be featured in a new video by Prevention Speaks, which documents public-private efforts to help Minnesotans live healthier. Click the video to check out our progress!
Public – Private Partnership Gets Results from preventionspeaks on Vimeo.
Video: see Tom Mason's remarks to town hall attendees
Tom Mason, President of the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota
The search for a definitive actuarial link between worksite wellness programs and reduced insurance risk may well emerge from HealthLead™, a rigorous new wellness accreditation program that last year was alpha-tested by Target.
On April 30, 2012 more than 200 leaders in business, academia and local government gathered for a panel discussion among national experts in workplace health promotion moderated by Senator Amy Klobuchar. Hosted by the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota at Target’s headquarters in Minneapolis, the event highlighted HealthLead™ accreditation - the emerging standard in workplace health promotion – and Target’s award-winning culture of well-being.
The Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota is a group of Minnesota employers joined together to create fun, engaging and informative events and competitions to help Minnesotans get and stay healthy. Members of the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota are united in the common belief that when we work together and provide the right tools for prevention, we can help Minnesotans live longer, healthier lives.
In the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota’s 12-week BizicallyFIT™ 2012 Health Challenge, 10,000 Minnesotans achieved healthier lifestyles, but Armaity Bilimoria, 38, of Plymouth won a Grand Prize Drawing for one free week at a Biggest Loser Resort fitness camp.
Armaity was selected in a random drawing for a free seven-day stay at a Biggest Loser Resort in California, New York or Utah. She plans to use this Biggest Loser Resort experience to lose 25 pounds before a trip to see her childhood classmates in her hometown of Mumbai, India this December.
“Winning this trip has been the best motivation to get back to a healthier weight,” says Armaity. “I’d like to make the most of my experience at Biggest Loser Resort – to form a sustainable fitness plan that will help me reach my long-term goals after I come home from the Resort.”
Dream Team members, listed from back left: Madeline Waage, Derick Converse, Rob Mickelson, Eric Etherington, David McDonald, Keith Wheeler, Alietia Nygaard, Sean Sorteberg (team members not pictured: Shannon Converse, Alicia Spilde)
Employees teamed up to compete in statewide BizicallyFIT™ 2012 Health Challenge with support from Central Boiler’s workplace wellness program.
The recent BizicallyFIT™ 2012 Health Challenge lit a fire under Alietia Nygaard and her colleagues at Central Boiler in Greenbush, Minnesota. Nygaard’s 11-member team, called “Alietia’s Dream Team,” won first place in the Pedometer Steps division of the 2012 Health Challenge with a team average of 17,030 steps per day over the 12-week competition, beating 10,000 other participants on more than 1,600 other teams.
Nygaard and her team were among 88 individuals who joined the Challenge with coworkers from Central Boiler, an outdoor wood furnace manufacturer with more than 200 employees in Greenbush, Minnesota. To encourage 2012 Health Challenge participants, Central Boiler’s growing workplace wellness program spread the word and offered an intra-company leaderboard for participating teams. Each week, Central Boiler’s teams received an email that ranked each team from first to last in each category.
Hennepin County, Connexus Energy and Central Boiler win first place in competition’s Weight Loss, Steps and Exercise categories
Minnesota employers and community organizations geared up for summer with the BizicallyFIT 2012 Health Challenge and earned incredible healthy lifestyle results. Ten thousand Minnesotans from every corner of the state joined together with coworkers, friends and family to take extra steps, exercise more and drop some extra pounds, competing for online rankings and bragging rights. Together they lost 20,409 pounds, walked 1,610,427,079 steps and exercised 13,176,822 minutes. One lucky participant won the grand prize drawing, a free one-week stay at a Biggest Loser Resort.
“We’re very happy about the successes of Minnesotans who took time to engage in the BizicallyFIT 2012 Health Challenge,” says Tom Mason, president of the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota. “It’s amazing how effective friendly competition and support from employers, coworkers, friends and family can in motivating people to adopt and maintain healthier habits.”
On Monday, April 30th, Senator Amy Klobuchar and a panel of national experts in workplace health promotion today encouraged an audience of more than 200 leaders in business, academia and local government to work together to help Minnesotans adopt healthier lifestyles and reduce preventable chronic diseases. Hosted by the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota at Target Headquarters in Minneapolis, the event highlighted HealthLead™ accreditation – the emerging standard in workplace health promotion – and Target’s award-winning culture of well-being. See what they said.
“Wellness programs have made a major difference for employers large and small, across Minnesota”, said Senator Amy Klobuchar, co-chair of the Congressional Wellness Caucus. “We really have the opportunity to teach the rest of the country about what we’re doing, involve companies that felt they weren’t big enough to tackle this and give them models that they can use.”
“We’ve heard from employers throughout the state that their rising healthcare costs are unsustainable and they want to do something about it,” said Tom Mason, president of the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota. “HealthLead™ accreditation and Target’s culture of well-being highlight the practical next steps for employers of all sizes to get a handle on these costs.”
Target is among the first companies to achieve accreditation in US Healthiest’s HealthLead™ program, an emerging standard in workplace health promotion.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (far left) moderated the HealthLead™ discussion between panelists (from left to right) Jodee Kozlak, Jim Harter and Nick Baird at Target headquarters in Minneapolis.
The search for a definitive actuarial link between worksite wellness programs and reduced insurance risk may well emerge from HealthLead™, a rigorous new wellness accreditation program that last year was alpha-tested by Target.
A panel of national wellness experts convened on April 30 in an auditorium at Target’s national headquarters in Minneapolis to discuss the program for an audience of more than 200 leaders in business, public health and academia.
The event was hosted by the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota and moderated by Senator Amy Klobuchar, co-chair of the Congressional Wellness Caucus. Panelists included Nick Baird, M.D., CEO of US Healthiest; Jodee Kozlak, Target’s VP of Human Resources; and Jim Harter, Ph.D, chief scientist of Workplace Management and Well-being for Gallup’s workplace management practice.
The city of Willmar has been a leader in driving BizicallyFIT 2012 Health Challenge participation, amassing 15 local teams with a total of 150 participants. Now, a recent article in the West Central Tribune reports that workplace wellness is becoming second-nature for many Willmar-area businesses as they find ways to fit exercise and healthy eating into their day. While friendly competition between the local teams is keeping motivation strong throughout the 12-week competition, everyone will win better health. Willmar has been an active city in the competition from the outset, and kicked off the competition February 3 with a special event at the Kandiyohi YMCA.
To read the full story, click here.
USA TODAY: A recent survey by survey by Principal Financial Group, Medical costs improve by an average of $3.27 and absenteeism costs improve by an average of $2.73 for every dollar spent on wellness.
Learn more about how to start or strengthen a workplace wellness program in your company through our BizicallyFIT web portal, available through participating Chambers of Commerce.
Have you registered for the BizicallyFIT 2012 Health Challenge yet?
On Monday, Minnesota Vikings starting cornerback Asher Allen, former Biggest Loser contestant Sione Fa, State Senator Carla Nelson and Dakota County Regional Chamber of Commerce President Ruthe Batulis today kicked off the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota’s BizicallyFIT 2012 Health Challenge at the Minnesota Vikings’ Winter Park field house with businesses of all sizes, colleges and universities, K-12 educators, non-profits and other community leaders. These teams will earn points for healthy behaviors like exercise, pedometer steps and weight loss, competing with others throughout the state for online rankings, virtual trophies and bragging rights.
Hear remarks from Dakota County Regional Chamber President, State Senator Carla Nelson, watch the full news conference, or checkout the photos on the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota’s Facebook page!
Learn more about the 2012 Health Challenge.