March 2005

Study: Americans’ perception of health is faulty

Americans tend to see themselves as healthy until they are actively sick, according to results of a new survey. The difference between their perceptions and reality may put their well-being at risk.

According to Dr. Charles Schutz, chief medical officer of Destiny Health, which sponsored the survey, “More than anything, the study shows the need for a new definition for the word ‘healthy.’ [Americans’] definition of healthy is ‘I feel fine.’ That is a dangerous notion that needs to be replaced by the understanding that a person is healthy only when he or she is living a healthy lifestyle and is regularly monitoring key risk factors, such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

“It is a fact that a person who is being properly treated for hypertension may very well be healthier and cause fewer health insurance cost problems for his or her employer than one who feels well and exercises regularly, but who never sees a doctor,” he said.

To that point, Schutz said the greatest employer “healthcare” cost comes in the form of lost productivity that University of Michigan professor Dr. Dee Edington and others have dubbed “presenteeism” — employees coming to work but getting less done due to chronic but not controlled diseases or health behaviors and risks. According to Edington, that cost, while often invisible, well exceeds the healthcare cost of the identifiable illness.

The survey of 1,004 adults showed that 67 percent reported being physically active and only 30 percent perceived themselves as being overweight.

“The reality, as reported by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), literally reverses those numbers,” Dr. Schutz said. HHS statistics show that more than 60 percent of Americans do not get enough physical activity to yield health benefits and that more than 25 percent are not active at all. HHS statistics show that 64 percent of Americans are overweight.

Similar disparities emerge from other data collected in the Destiny Health Study:
• While three-quarters of the survey respondents considered themselves “healthy,” a research program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that nearly half the U.S. population (125 million) “live with at least one chronic health condition and that many live with more than one.”
• 88 percent of those surveyed said they believed their health could be improved by eating healthy foods. Yet 43 percent of the survey respondents acknowledged dining on fast food one or more times per week, and almost 90 percent of those said they eat processed snack foods regularly.

Dr. Schutz described the results as “disturbing, but not surprising news” that dramatizes the urgent need for employers to offer health-education programs, wellness initiatives and incentives that encourage employees to adopt better health habits.

Source: Destiny Health http://www.destinyhealth.com

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