There are a multitude of factors that contribute to an individual’s overall health. With this in mind, Life Time Fitness developed myHealthScore, a health screening tool Life Time Fitness’ members and fitness professionals can use to identify potential risk factors to health. Paul Kriegler, a Registered Dietitian who works for Life Time Fitness, took time to explain how myHealthScore is beneficial to both members and the company.
CS: What is myHealthScore, and what are its capabilities?
PK: myHealthScore is a simple but comprehensive health screening process used to identify early indicators of suboptimal health in otherwise healthy people. It’s capable of expressing several important health risk factors into a simple score —out of a possible score of 100 — much like expressing your financial health using a credit rating. Those risk factors that are worthy of a discussion — even when pursuing weight loss, health maintenance or performance enhancement — are total cholesterol to HDL ratio, blood pressure, triglycerides, glucose, nicotine use and body fat percentage.
CS: Why is myHealthScore beneficial to members?
PK: myHealthScore allows members to look at internal health markers to have more meaningful conversations with their fitness professional about their best path to not only reduce the risk or progression of chronic disease, but aim towards and pursue optimal health. Even though someone might score a 100, they may still want to feel more awesome, achieve more optimal blood or body composition metrics, look better or perform at their peak potential. The myHealthScore starts those conversations with standardized, objective data.
CS: Why did Life Time Fitness think myHealthScore was needed?
PK: It’s impossible to see health or even subjectively measure it. We wanted a way to discuss with our members where they are on the spectrum between, on one end, disease risk or outright disease states, and on the other end, the pinnacle of health and vitality.
CS: Why are the six key indicators (total cholesterol to HDL ratio, blood pressure, triglycerides, glucose, nicotine use and body fat percentage) important?
PK: Together, they all relate strongly to future risk of cardiovascular diseases and Metabolic Syndrome, the precursor to Diabetes, which account for the leading causes of death in the U.S. and are also top healthcare expenditures in developed countries. These unfortunate outcomes are completely preventable in most cases, if identified early and addressed with personalized improvements to lifestyle, nutrition and exercise habits.
CS: What type of feedback have you gotten from members about myHealthScore?
PK: While some are surprised to find fitness professionals screening health metrics and tailoring individual nutrition, exercise and lifestyle programs, generally the feedback from both members and fitness professionals has been overwhelmingly positive. We take the time to explain how members can control their habits from meal-to-meal and day-to-day to efficiently achieve their desired results and make lasting improvements to their health metrics, and more importantly, their lives.
Many who have gone through myHealthScore become more educated, empowered and more confident in taking action to control their health and vitality, which ultimately allows them to have even more productive and effective relationships with their medical care providers. It’s a win-win-win situation that we believe could serve as a template to reduce healthcare spending drastically across the board.
CS: If there’s anything else you’d like to share about myHealthScore, please feel free.
PK: It’s amazing what this simple test can indicate about a person’s health when you look at it from the perspective of, “How close is this person to optimal?” as opposed to, “Is this person in need of medical treatment yet?” We hope this model of service in the fitness industry revolutionizes the model for consumers to become proactive participants in their own healthcare management, rather than feel they need to be passive recipients of care after something has gone wrong. None of us can afford to wait.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
