Vitality
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http://www.peteava.ro/id-677371-penn-and-teller-bullshit-season-5-episode-1-obesity
If you're gonna share, at least share the full show.
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I'm not sending people to some virus-ridden Russian domain. If they wanted the full episode, they can find it on their own.
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Sounds like I should be glad not only for the NHS but that company provided private health insurance is available for all permanent employees regardless.
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Yes. The good thing about private health is that you get to pick your specialist. Look at what happened a few months ago to the parents of some kid with cancer that had to escape from the NHS so they could treat their kid with some new tech.
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They could have done that anyway.
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From what I understood, the NHS wouldn't allow them.
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If people aren't running adblock and noscript when entering unknown waters on the web, what happens to them is part of the Darwinian process. Double for anyone that uses these forums.
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I'm not sending people to some virus-ridden Romanian domain. If they wanted the full episode, they can find it on their own.
FTFY (and yes, the Romanians have something of a reputation that way too).
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FTFY (and yes, the Romanians have something of a reputation that way too).
But that ended last night, so we're safe for another year.
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You don't pay extra taxes.
Bullshit. The money comes from somewhere. If you didn't have a NHS, your taxes would be lower. Therefore, you are paying extra taxes.
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The reason I used the word ‘agreement’ was because, regardless of whether you have a legal document, you and your employer must have at agreed at some point about the terms of your employment (at least, that's what I'm assuming—that you knew what the deal was when you started working there). So if you've agreed to work for them for a certain rate, and you do the work you agreed to do, and then they don't give you the amount they said they would, that is unacceptable.
I guess the position that I've taken here is that nobody is forcing you to anything, but I'm having trouble trying to express it without sounding like a jerk. I just feel very enthusiastic about viewing things as a type of negotiation, where the situation could be described as “they are willing to offer you an amount equal to 10% of your insurance premium, in exchange for making you do something that you don't want to do”, rather than viewing it as a battle between good honest people and corporate scum.
But on the other hand, considering what I seem to be hearing here, I suppose this thread might be headed where so many of them do: it seems like you don't respect your employer, and they don't respect you; it might be time for you to look elsewhere.
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Eh, you can lose the weight.
Not everyone can achieve the "healthy" BMI range, no matter what they try. Some people try everything, and lose no significant weight.
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Some people try everything, and lose no significant weight.
Really? Everything? Find me a picture of a fat Jew in the newly liberated concentration camps and I'll believe that.
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- The way your body handles metabolism is very influenced by genetics. The pool you requested a sample from is a pretty limited gene pool.
- Any half-intelligent person would reasonably believe that I meant "tried everything reasonable". Obviously malnutrition and starvation will most likely lead to weight loss, but not in a healthy manner. If you are using malnutrition and starvation to lose weight, you probably need to look to your mental health more than your weight.
Tl;dr: use your brain.
Filed Under: Did I really just have to explain that?
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Pedantic dickweedery: actually, most weight loss experts suggest a caloric imbalance that favors use over input. ie. controlled starvation.
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caloric imbalance that favors use over input. ie. controlled starvation.
Yeah, that's not starvation. That's called dieting. And, like I said before, it doesn't work for everyone.
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And, like I said before, it doesn't work for everyone.
Changing calorie use to exceed consumption will make you lose weight, either through loss of fat or loss of muscle, and if you've not much left of either of those, you definitely shouldn't be dieting. You've got to consider both sides of the energy balance though; reducing calorie intake naturally encourages people to be less active, so you can't just eat less.
Sedentary jobs in temperature-controlled environments, they're the devil for staying fit in…
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It's actually relatively easy to lose weight while you're above a certain percentage of fat. Higher for women, because women naturally store more fat, blah blah blah, but it's about not letting your diet control your energy levels.
So like dkf said, you will lose weight if you diet and work out, and if you've got a higher ratio of fat it'll mostly come from fat, while if you've got a higher amount of muscle to fat you'll burn up the muscle. Otherwise you're playing shenanigans with the laws of thermodynamics.
Whether or not someone should do so is a decision that needs to be left to the individual.
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Changing calorie use to exceed consumption will make you lose weight
Are we really having this debate?
Fine: It will, in the short run. But what it also does is signal to your internal regulation mechanisms that you live in a time of famine, which raises your set point, which is the weight your body thinks it needs to maintain to ward off lean periods. Which means when you do, eventually, binge (because caloric restriction leads to cravings leads to binging), you retain all of it, gaining weight in the long run.
Today's source: Isabel Foxen Duke: http://stopfightingfood.com/video_series/
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Not everyone can achieve the "healthy" BMI range, no matter what they try. Some people try everything, and lose no significant weight.
Or gain...
Well, ok, I didn't "try everything" really, but looking at the famous "pyramid of bullshit" I should look like the Fat Bastard at this point, especially since I don't really get the time to exercise as much as I would want to.
Maybe I should try eating babies?
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Which means when you do, eventually, binge (because caloric restriction leads to cravings leads to binging), you retain all of it, gaining weight in the long run.
Not really. But dieting that sticks takes a hell of a long time.
I'm crap at dieting. I like chocolate too much, and pizza too.
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The "No smoking discount" (in reality, a smoker's fee) thing is more or less normal these days. Though I've never heard of anyone wanting hair samples. The normal way is ticking a box on a form. Me, I'd quit.
We also have a voluntary discount program - but again, it's all form based. "How much do you weigh, what are your cholesterol figures, blood pressure, etc."
It's rightfully not our employer's fucking business, so the numbers all get anonymized by a third party research agency and fed back in statistical form. There's nothing keeping you from just punching in the reference values for "normal healthy human being" and some of the numbers even have a "Dunno" checkbox.
We also have a voluntary, no-benefit wellness program. I had a good laugh the other day when they announced that participants had lost a total of 900lbs in 2014 so far!
We're a Fortune 500 employing vast armies of people around the world.
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A tax I gladly pay.
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My grandmother has had a horrible BMI for at least the last 40 years* -- and she's over 90 now.
If her BMI is over 90, she really should think about a diet.
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Or, as I would expect @boomzilla to point out, start a grassroots political movement, push through a bunch of poorly-conceived changes to the law, and end up exacerbating the exact problems you were complaining about in the first place.
Bastards.
Meh. Sounds like they (you) get a break on insurance for non-smokers, which seems like a reasonable proposition, from an actuarial point of view (IANAA). If that's too creepy for you, get your insurance elsewhere.
Blame FDR for creating the mess of employer provided health insurance.
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This is such a WTF that a company feels entitled to control every aspect of its employee's lifes.
WTF. They aren't controlling your life. They're passing along costs. Stop being stupid, people.
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I vaguely thought it was the last article in the sentence that didn't need repeating with unit type, but I cba to look that up.
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waits for treatment in countries with socialized medicine.
Guess what, private healthcare has plenty of wait times too. Unused appointment slots in the schedule are lost money, so private healthcare providers choose staffing levels that keep the schedule full.
And no, I'm not talking out my ass. I've probably spent more time in the doctors office over the last two months than most do in a year, and I'm thoroughly sick of hearing that the next available appointment is two weeks out.
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Unused appointments on the schedule are lost money
Really? Seems like every doctor's office have a sign along the lines of "Appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours notice will be charged the cost of the visit." That's not a lot of "lost money."
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Yes, it's creepy. My $work has that Humana Vitality crap, too. So far, the smoking thing hasn't come up yet, but I know it will.
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Really? Seems like every doctor's office have a sign along the lines of "Appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours notice will be charged the cost of the visit." That's not a lot of "lost money."
Clarified my original post. A schedule slot that is never filled doesn't get paid. Private healthcare wants money (duh), so they prefer keeping the schedule full. Which means a lot of time waiting for an appointment.
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Clarified my original post. A schedule slot that is never filled doesn't get paid. Private healthcare wants money (duh), so they prefer keeping the schedule full. Which means a lot of time waiting for an appointment.
Oh, yeah. I see what you meant now.
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"Appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours notice will be charged the cost of the visit."
Fun fact: the office can call YOU and cancel 2 hours prior to the appointment with no problem or reimbursement. You just get to sit on your ass in pain for another week :(
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Hmmm... true. That shouldnt be allowed. If i get charged for canceling without enough notice then surely they have to give me money if they cancel, and mot just my copay, the full amount. And my insurance doesnt get any of it. Because im not insured against canceled appts.
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Speaking of pain, I'd better go take my pills and get to bed before I get really cranky :/
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sick of hearing that the next available appointment is two weeks out.
Yeah, my doctor is super busy so I too have to wait 2 months when scheduling a physical with him, and I can't actually get another doctor because no one in the city is taking on new patients. Though for the sleep clinic I did have to wait 3 months for my first appointment, with the followup being 2 months later. And I haven't heard anything from the kidney specialist, despite it already being over 3 months.
So I guess it's much the same.
Oh, wait, you said weeks.
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Toronto, Canada. I may have overstated the case, although not by much. Most established general practitioners aren't taking on new patients except family of existing ones unless they specialize in specific immigrant groups. Mine happens to actually be very busy (and one of the few that does take on new patients).
I'll grant that I could go to a walk-in, but I have only ever had one good experience with a walk-in clinic, ever. Also, they don't do physicals or the general maintenance stuff your family doctor would do.
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Here in Vancouver (also Canada), we have the same problem finding GPs (or once you find a good one, actually getting in to see them) but I've actually mostly had good experiences with walk-in clinics except for one time when I had breathing problems and wanted them to send me for a chest x-ray and they kept trying to convince me I had asthma (I didn't).
Edit: and I did finally convince them to send me for one, still before I would have been able to get in to see my regular doctor.
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Hi,
I registered to discourse to reply to this... so you better read it.
Many years ago I was a member of prudential health insurance in the UK which implemented Vitality scheme, I think this is unique to them.
They use a service which takes all the health inputs and outputs a 'health score'... I think it was called a Q score... I can't remember the company name that provides this service.
Anyhow it sounds like your company has moved it's health insurance to prudential or a linked company on the promise of 'on average' cheaper premiums assuming that most staff follow a healthy life style. So they offer the HR department a cheaper quote for the first year, and an HR executive gets a pat on the back for cost savings. In the meantime they pass on the risk buck by asking you to do all the work to quantify the risk.
What happens is over the year they collect data and then adjust the next premium, if no data for that person then assume the worse case. Of cause the HR dept. complains but the service provider says "if you get us more data the outcome might be more favourable".
And yes, when I did a private Vitality scheme it did include offering information on dietary salt, fat etc, reading articles on healthy eating and life style and submitted assessments from the gym.
I did this because in the UK they reduced the heath insurance premium and also supplemented gym membership. Since I already wanted both at the time it worked out to be a good discount for the bother. It was something like 30GBP per month for basic health insurance and membership to virgin active, whereas buying both separately was 80GBP per month at the time (2006??).
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grrrr I wish a thousand infi-scrolls on your life
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I'm fine with going to the gym or running 5 miles everyday, but I don't have the time. If my company wants me to live a healthy life style, I'll be more than glad to do this, on company time.
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Catching up on some topics I haven't read for a while (INB4 necro toaster: Yes, I do; STFU):
Lower your height-to-weight ratio and receive 30% off!
So are you supposed do this by getting shorter, or getting heavier?
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If you do it by getting shorter, you probably won't be able to work any more and thus are someone else's problem. So that's a win for the insurance company and for your (ex-)company, so it's probably the approved version.
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Yamikuronue:
Lower your height-to-weight ratio and receive 30% off!So are you supposed do this by getting shorter,
How things go really does depend on whether you get a head shorter or a foot shorter.
[size=6]If this doesn't get me flagged...[/size]
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If this doesn't get me flagged...
Nope--apparently that's the one place where we're not tolerating abuse of the forum, for some reason.
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