The General Good

Culture of Health?

Probably at least half of diseases are preventable. Or we get diseases because of the behaviors we engage in. So we’re going to talk about smoking, alcohol, unsafe behaviors, excess weight.

Much of the sickness I treated at the emergency department of Hennepin County Medical Center was preventable. And the estimate is that about 25 percent of the medical care that doctors are providing is either inappropriate or unnecessary.

I think that American culture is absolutely splendid. But the culture should support our health, our fitness, and our safety. In some respects, I don’t think that our culture is supporting us. The automobile, which is the icon of America, provides great flexibility, but in fact it is making us less fit because people drive everywhere. It’s very hard to get around in America without an automobile, and we spend more and more time in cars, and we’re actually becoming less fit because of it.

And as people age, the most important correlates of happiness and health are financial security and mobility—having the strength and mobility to get around. If we don’t start moving as a culture, we’re going to have very impaired elderly people.

The other thing that is very much a part of America is the great American hamburger. I’m not anti-hamburger, but with some you can eat about half your day’s calories in about 5 minutes. Nobody set out to make America obese when they started to make fast food, but the results of so many calories that are so tasty, so available, and so inexpensive is that Americans are packing on a few hundred extra calories per day, 10 pounds per year, and in 10 years—that’s 100 pounds.

General Mills is a food company. Our core mission is to make people’s lives healthier, easier, and richer. So it makes sense to work on work-site wellness as it relates to nutrition. For those of you who are in business and thinking about work-site wellness, aligning it with your company goals, I think, is very important.

When General Mills got into work-site wellness, it wasn’t about medical costs. It was just the right thing to do. And we wanted to create a nice work environment for employees. People want to work for a company that offers an environment that supports their health. You’ll find it really resonates well if you want to recruit people, and if you’re trying to retain people. Ultimately, you’re going to have more productivity and a better workforce if you’re fit, you’re healthy, you’re well rested, you’re not hung over, you’re not exhausted, and you’re not stressed out. Wellness programs help with all those things.

Work-site wellness is part of a broader strategy. We think that all people should have access to the health care system through insurance. You’ve heard that in the news, and all the politicians say that we’ve got to get these uninsured people insured. Of course, nobody is quite sure how to pay for it, because it’s going to be pretty hard to bring 47 million people into health insurance.