|
Local doctor pushes nutrition to reduce health care costs
By Larry Monteith
Contributing Writer
Dr. Ann Kulze is an evangelist, preaching nutrition and exercise to prevent chronic diseases. She has found in the business community, which is looking for ways to reduce health care costs, a receptive audience for her message.
“Corporations, small and large, realize that they are footing the lion’s share of health care costs. It is a problem of true crisis proportions. And it is a crisis on multiple fronts. It is not just health care costs; it is employees that are not productive,” Kulze said.
Kulze, known by many as Dr. Ann, is a local celebrity, appearing on local and national television shows and in numerous national magazines. She is also the nutrition spokeswoman for Gov. Mark Sanford’s Healthy South Carolina Challenge and recently spoke at the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Healthcare and Wellness Conference.
“I have had a life-long interest in nutrition, dating back to my early teens, but always knew that I was going to be a doctor. There is a huge legacy of physicians in my family,” she said.
She graduated cum laude with a degree in food science and human nutrition from Clemson University and graduated valedictorian from the Medical University of South Carolina.
“We cannot sustain these (health care cost) increases. What used to be a pretty minor expense that employers were happy to offer as little as 30 years ago is now the No. 1 source of anxiety for most business leaders,” she said. “And they are finally recognizing what drives these costs primarily are employee lifestyles.”
Kulze thinks nutrition-related chronic disease is the leading cause of adult morbidity and mortality, and preventing disease is much more cost effective than treating it.
“There has been this flood of rock solid and compelling science that has been coming to us for the last 20 years supporting the concept that most of these chronic diseases are preventable through healthy eating and healthy living,” Kulze said.
“The health care costs are just what is so obvious and so objective. This whole concept of what they call presenteeism, where an employee is present but operating at half speed, is rampant, and it is related to what is called the expansion of morbidity. We now have so many adults who have chronic diseases, and they are getting them earlier and earlier and earlier.”
Kulze finds the current medical system part of the crisis because the practice of medicine is geared toward diagnoses and treatment of disease and not prevention.
Physicians need to shift their focus to primary prevention, teaching people what they can do to stay healthy, she said.
“That is why employers are realizing they have to take this into their own hands. We can really reduce costs and improve productivity if we can get employees to live a little healthier,” Kulze said. “An obese employee is operating like someone who is 20 years older.”
While obesity is currently defined as a body mass index of 30 or greater, Kulze said waist size is going to be the most relevant measure.
“Men with a waist larger then 40 inches at the belly button and women over 35 inches are walking time bombs,” she said.
“If what you are ultimately trying to do is improve employee lifestyles, first they have to have the information. Second, you have to entice them to act on it; meaning, it’s about behavioral change.”
She advises offering healthy choices if businesses have a cafeteria, removing all the unhealthy choices out of vending machines and increasing the opportunity for movement and exercise wherever possible.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version