Who would benefit from joining and sponsoring Shape Up Sugar Land?
Dr. Breuleux:
Shape Up Sugar Land supports community and worksite wellness and provides the citizens in Fort Bend County, Texas with the resources and events to make healthy lifestyle choices. The mission for the organization is “Promoting wellness, raising awareness and encouraging activities that enable healthier lifestyles for the community.” We promote total wellness for the community including the Wellness dimensions developed by the National Wellness Institute: Emotional, Intellectual, Occupational, Physical, Social and Spiritual.
Every allied health, wellness, and medical professional can benefit by becoming a member. We would like to recruit new professional members including physicians, chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, osteopaths, nurses, physician assistants, physical therapists, and dietitians. Health and Wellness practitioners include massage therapists, health coaches, educators, teachers, physiologists, counselors, exercise technicians, fitness and personal trainers. By promoting a cross-disciplinary approach to personal wellbeing, everyone benefits—from the City, County, schools and universities, hospitals, employees, health and fitness clubs and the YMCA.
We welcome your comments here on our blog/website
Define some of your wellness and professional goals?
Dr. Breuleux: Our wellness goals include:
Ø Defining and promoting wellness practices and programs within the community
Ø Promoting the integration of health, fitness and wellness programs as appropriate
Ø Providing professional leadership and education for wellness in the community
Ø Developing community wellness standards, education, programs and training guidelines
Ø Developing wellness leadership and community recognition
Ø Enhancing networking and professional development opportunities
Ø Strengthening, supporting, and diversifying membership and community partners
Ø Collaborating with the city and partnering with high-quality providers & organizations
Ø Facilitating professional partnerships and coalitions to promote further wellness development, education and integration
Ø Educate and promote total wellness dimensions of wellness from the National Wellness Institute:
ü Emotional Wellness
ü Intellectual Wellness
ü Occupational Wellness
ü Physical Wellness
ü Social Wellness
ü Spiritual Wellness
Why support city, worksite and employee wellness initiatives?
Dr. Breuleux: Our wellness goals and initiatives focus on education, commitment to services that help employees adopt healthier lifestyles. Wellness begins with making individual decisions that will help prevent the onset of sickness and chronic disease. A major part of that is wellness and making changes for healthy lifestyle behaviors. According to the World Health Organization: increased physical activity, healthy diet, stress management and avoiding tobacco can help to prevent the majority of chronic diseases, including 80% of heart disease & stroke, type 2 diabetes and 40% of cancers.
Corporate and employee wellness programs work because they reduce health risks of employees and promote wellness. I have been fortunate to work with many companies and developed hundreds of worksite wellness programs all over the world. The common critical success factor is commitment from the “top” leadership. I believe strongly in employee health fitness and wellness for all employees and they’re families and believe we should direct resources, funds and support for wellness promotion and programs.
What inspired you to create the Medical Wellness Association?
Dr. Breuleux: I saw a need for medical and wellness practitioners to join forces to improve professional support, outcomes, and consumer services. Quite frankly, after years in health care leadership and administration, I was amazed at the lack of integration, communication, and knowledge of prevention and wellness with multiple medical disciplines. Our goal is to enhance wellness and care by informing members of the professional health community about emerging practices that may have efficacy in supporting and promotion the health of families and communities. Promoting wellness through proven outcome based programs with exercise, nutrition and lifestyle medicine serve as our primary focus.
Clearly, the need is to improve wellness outcomes, which then benefits everyone, from the community, citizens and individual family members. In our community there is a great need for working together to improve quality and outcome standards in our fast-paced evolving industry. We are excited with the positive impact with Shape Up Sugar Land and the new Mayors Fitness Council.
What are the major issues facing the allied health field today?
Dr. Breuleux: Our main challenge is overcoming the bias modern living with good health habits and lifestyles. We promote “proven wellness practices,” where evidence-based practices are researched and proven programs are implemented. This myopic perspective sometimes ignores one important component of health care: the individuals or patient’s informed health decision making, including preferences, treatments and expectations.
This is not to say that every complementary or conventional approach is appropriate. However, primary practitioners and providers should not summarily dismiss a complementary health and wellness approach. Similarly, complementary or alternative practitioners should not dismiss conventional approaches. We need to be open to new health and wellness approaches, with our first goal being premum non nocere (“first do no harm”), and our second, to improve the health status and quality of life for individuals and the community at large.
Join the Wellness Conversation:
June is national employee wellness month. We welcome your comments here on our SUSL blogs and website. You may also contact our organization by sending us an email to:
info [at] shapeupsugarland.org
Christopher Breuleux, President of the Medical Wellness Association
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