Hazardous waist
Super-sizes and not-so-super exercises have born one nation under lard
It’s a fat, fat world. More than 60 percent of all American adults are categorized as overweight or obese. And Virginia is expanding right in line with the trend. According to the Virginia Department of Health, 36.7 percent of adult Virginians are overweight and 20.9 percent obese (obese means 30 pounds or more overweight—a 5’4” woman would weigh more than 175 pounds and a 6‘ man might tally in at more than 220). One decade ago those percentages were a comparatively slender 29.4 percent and 10.6 percent, respectively.
But the price is more than personal. Studies show that bulging bellies are an inflating burden to employers in the form of medical costs, absenteeism and on-the-job performance to the tune of $117 billion annually (for more on this, see “Big numbers” on page 14). What’s worse, today’s teens and young adults could be the first generation in a century to live fewer years than their parents because of weight-related health problems.
The problem can be summed up in two words: Over-consumption and inactivity. If we’re not in line at Billy Bob’s Sizzlin’ Barbeque Buffet, we’re parked contentedly on the couch absorbing 75 hours of television per week while packing away the simple sugars and complex carbohydrates.
We literally are eating ourselves to death and not moving a muscle to do anything about it.
Some claim that this fatty epidemic really started with the Industrial Revolution, when automation began to make humans far less active. Others blame it on the 1970s, when moms went to work and frozen foods or McDonald’s became the norm for rushed dinners around the TV. Whatever the principal indictment, there is one factor that weighs heavily in all this fat: Portions are out of control.
“We’ve become accustomed to these immense portions when we eat,” says Rita Smith, who is a registered dietician at Martha Jefferson Hospital. “Inexpensive buffets have become the accepted norm, and we think nothing about getting the fast food jumbo sizes.” This kind of distortion might be acceptable if we were all consuming oranges and broccoli, but much to health professionals’ dismay, this is rarely the case.
In a study recently concluded by The American Medical Association, for instance, researchers found an average soft drink has increased to 20 fluid ounces and 193 calories, from its original 13 ounces and 144 calories in 1977. An average cheeseburger now comprises 7.3 ounces and 533 calories, increased from 5.8 ounces and 397 calories nearly 30 years ago.
“We’re consuming snack foods that are non-nutritious and high in calories, along with sodas instead of water, all day long,” says Smith, who has spent 25 years in the good food field. “These days, as opposed to 25 to 30 years ago, we eat out of bags and containers instead of at the table.”
Another alarming trend is modern-day youngsters who are not only accustomed to eating out several times a week, but just plain expect it. Fewer families today dine around the table where food types and portions can be better controlled. Furthermore, family traditions such as Mom’s apple pie are quickly becoming a thing of the past: Satisfying desserts made with real butter, milk, eggs, sugar and flour are being replaced by boxes of candy with refined sugars, chemicals and ingredients like hydrogenated oils, soy lecithin and cocoa processed with alkali. If children and teens command what’s for dinner (or worse, what’s tossed into the grocery cart) chances are higher for childhood obesity, which leads, research shows, to adult obesity.
Aggressive advertising campaigns are also to blame. The Mars Company, for instance, spent $13 million in one recent year to advertise the Snickers bar. Meanwhile, the Chicago Times reports that Burger King, the second-largest fast food chain in the nation, forks over $350 million annually for ad costs.
Then there’s the question of the tuber on the davenport—in other words, the couch potato who lurks inside most of us.
“People today put no emphasis on exercise and our lives are largely dormant,” says Smith, noting that the combination of healthy food and exercise (even as little as 15 minutes a day) could significantly reduce obesity’s rising trend.
Statistics also show that American neighborhoods built within the past three decades are not conducive to walking: Although 25 percent of all trips made on a daily basis are less than one mile away, 75 percent are made by car, according to The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
Albemarle County has its share of such subdivisions (West Leigh, Forest Lakes), but there may be some hope for our chunky selves in the County’s much-vaunted new neighborhood model, which, in theory, designates growth areas as mixed-use, walking-friendly neighborhoods. Still, building a sidewalk and getting people to use it are not one and the same.
If we continue to waddle along our present course, severely overweight and obese Americans (and those headed in that direction) will self-destruct in five years. Maybe even less. The Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center predicts that at the current rate of expansion, nearly 40 percent of Americans will be obese by 2008. Furthermore, physicians today are fearful of the growing number of young adults with diagnoses traditionally linked to aging adults, such as high cholesterol, diabetes and heart attacks.
“Life isn’t easy for overweight or obese children in so many ways,” says Smith, adding that it’s not much easier for obese adults.
As a society we need to take the stairs, walk to work and stop at one bowl of Cap’n Crunch. But Smith and others forecast obstacles along the way that have as much to do with social structure and economics as they do “Must See TV” and Big Gulps.
“Over the last 20-30 years, there’s been a whole change in family structure and food preparations,” says Smith. “We must change that.”—Kathryn E. Goodson
Slim Chance
UVA Hospital surgeons offer the severely overweight hope, but not without risk
A couple of years ago the San Francisco musical duo Matmos released A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure, an album whose opening track “Lipostudio…And So On” layers the squeal and gurgle of suctioned fat with beats and loops. It’s more than a testament to our national obsession with body modification—it’s a surprisingly gorgeous piece. The surgical riddance of fat is an art form, and Americans, it turns out, are mavens of this particular grace.
Fifty years of experimentation and innovation in bariatrics, the medical field devoted to obesity, have yielded the gastric bypass operation, also known as stomach reduction surgery, in which the stomach is stapled to create a small upper pouch about 10 percent of the stomach’s original size. Surgeons then sever and reconnect the small intestine to the pouch. A smaller stomach means smaller meals are needed to sate hunger. Doctors consider the operation a final resort. Dr. Bruce Schirmer, a bariatric surgeon at UVA, and his group perform between 20 and 25 of the operations each month, each at a cost of about $35,000, and the number of surgeries keeps growing. The American Society for Bariatric Surgery estimates a four-fold increase in the number of operations performed since 1992.
“Typically, we see patients first off that have done a number of things to lose weight on their own, like Jenny Craig, some type of diet pills, Slim Fast, etcetera,” says Dr. Rebecca Evangelista, an instructor of surgery with a one-year fellowship in Schirmer’s office, “and despite those things—going to a nutritionist and having been put on weight reduction programs—patients still considered morbidly obese we evaluate for surgery.”
When asked if these patients remain overweight after the surgery, she quickly responds, “Absolutely.” Successful gastric bypass surgery, Evangelista notes, reduces a patient’s excess weight by half and allows him or her to maintain that loss, which she claims nearly 90 percent do. For example, an obese 5’10” man who weighs 236 pounds, but should weigh less than 167 pounds, could expect to maintain a weight of roughly 200 pounds, disregarding exercise and strict dieting.
“What we’re trying to do,” she says, “is get them out of the range of morbid obesity.”
The risks associated with morbid obesity, such as heart problems and diabetes, trump the possible hazards of surgery, such as infection and death, in the minds of many doctors. Most of these surgeries are performed laparoscopically—that is, with a video camera’s aid—and require no large incisions.
“There are anywhere from five to six small one-centimeter incisions. Through those incisions we use instruments and a camera to do the operation,” Evangelista says.
Not all operations go as smoothly as NBC weatherman Al Roker’s or singer Carnie Wilson’s, the celebrity poster girl for stomach reduction surgery. Avid People Magazine readers will remember the obese former member of Wilson Phillips who underwent a high-profile surgery four years ago. Avid Playboy readers can ogle Wilson’s newly svelte figure in the August issue.
Some patients die, as with any operation. According to Evangelista, between 1 percent and 2 percent of those who undergo surgery develop serious complications, which sometimes lead to death. Blood clots, in the legs especially, can break free and lodge fatally in the arteries of the lungs, known as a pulmonary embolism. Alternately, the new stomach may leak its contents into the abdominal cavity.
The Adjustable Gastric Band (AGB), another more elegant procedure, has gained popularity in Europe and Australia. The AGB cinches the stomach into an hourglass and thus also creates a small upper pouch, without staples or severed intestine. Doctors adjust the band’s aperture, injecting saline solution through a port just under the skin, to control weight loss. With either procedure, patients must strictly monitor what and how much they eat—too much food or the wrong sort will be vomited.
Besides wound infection, there are other, less dire problems associated with such rapid weight loss, like drapes of excess skin, which plastic surgeons like UVA’s Dr. Thomas Gampper can tuck.
“I just saw a teenage girl who lost 100 pounds on her own, so she had all that extra hanging skin,” says Gampper. “So we did a tummy tuck and a tuck on her arms as well. That’s really where plastic surgery falls into weight loss. A lot of people aren’t told that—that, ‘If I lose a lot of weight, what’s my skin gonna do?’ Self-image is where we come in.”
Gampper warns that liposuction—the other popular hallmark of the plastic surgery trade—involves body contouring, and while it is about the loss of fat, it is not explicitly about the loss of weight. Nevertheless, the excessively overweight occasionally approach him in the hopes that the suction wand can collapse their waistlines.
“Somebody shouldn’t even be thinking in terms of pounds, but more like ‘I don’t like a bulge here or a flap there,’” he says. “People are looking for a magic bullet. That’s an American thing. We want an easy solution—just like when we want an antibiotic for a cold, even though it won’t work. [Liposuction’s] not a carte blanche to go and eat whatever you want or not exercise.”
Apparently many Americans disagree. Liposuction ranked as the most popular cosmetic surgical procedure performed last year, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
“It’s becoming more and more popular. I think people’s overall desire to have the figure they want is still strong and growing,” says Gampper.
Needless to say, some obese people feel trapped in their eating habits and oversized bodies: Their urge to have the figure they want and their desire for good health cannot prevail.
Evangelista sympathizes with her patients.
“The more I do of this, the less I believe that people could or should control this on their own,” she says. “People come in and say ‘I know I eat too much,’ but even so…. This is sort of the kick start to change some of those behaviors.”—Aaron Carico
Lunch lady land
When the lesson is about adopting a healthy lifestyle,
most schools don’t make the grade
Schools are institutions of learning. They’re supposed to be modeling the most healthy behavior,” says Peggy Brown Paviour. She’s a chronic disease consultant for the Virginia Department of Health and co-chairs the local Childhood Obesity Task Force. A recent study by the COTF found that about 42 percent of public school third-graders in Charlottesville were either obese or overweight.
Paviour is trying to find ways that schools can teach the value of healthy eating and exercise. But when cash-strapped school districts need to trim the fat out of their budgets, good food and physical education are some of the first things to go.
The weekly menu for City and County public schools reads like Jenny Craig’s no-no list––chicken nuggets, hamburgers, tacos, pizza. Some schools also offer á la carte options as well, with chips and ice cream the most popular choices.
“Don’t be too hard on us,” says Alicia Cost, nutrition administrator for Charlottesville City Schools. “Fresh foods and vegetables are expensive, and the money we get from the government doesn’t go very far.”
Charlottesville public schools charge for breakfast and lunch, which are discounted for low-income students. (Breakfast costs $1 at full price, 30 cents at reduced price. Lunch is $1.50 in grade schools and $1.75 in high school, or 40 cents at reduced price.)
The Federal government reimburses local school systems for the lunches they sell. Next year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Charlottesville school system will receive 21 cents for every lunch it sells at full price, $1.75 for every lunch it sells at a discount, and $2.19 for every lunch it gives free to the lowest-income students.
This money pays for food as well as staff labor and benefits. And Cost says local school officials want the meal programs to be self-sufficient, so she can’t dip into the general fund for better meals. The reality of school nutrition is that nutrition is a luxury. “We’re limited on how creative we can be,” Cost says.
More money for healthier foods isn’t necessarily the answer, says Cost, citing the well-known trait of children to refuse anything adults say is good for them. A tray full of red cabbage and carrots would likely go straight into the garbage.
“We tried to use low-fat ranch dressing once, and it bombed miserably. The kids knew we changed it,” says Cost. “We’re taking baby steps. That’s all we can do, because if the kids know what we’re trying to do, they won’t eat it.”
Paviour says kids need incentives to change their eating behaviors. “There’s a tension between what students are familiar with and what they’ll consume, and with what is healthy,” Paviour says. “Some have never been introduced to these foods. The key is to make it fun, not pedantic or judgmental.”
At Buford, for example, Paviour and Cost worked together on a project where a grant from the Virginia Department of Health was used to build a climbing wall at Buford Middle School. Then, the Buford Student Council launched a campaign encouraging students to buy baked potato chips instead of fried, with all the profit from baked chips used to buy hand-holds for the climbing wall.
Paviour cities the project as a way to encourage not only healthy eating, but an active lifestyle as well. With some schools struggling to pass Virginia’s Standards of Learning requirement, courses like physical education no longer receive much emphasis.
“Seventy-five percent of the school day is devoted to academics,” Paviour says. “The rest is divided between physical education, art, music, computers, guidance and the library. There’s no state mandate for physical education or recess.”
There’s little that Paviour and the Obesity Task Force can do to offset the ubiquity of junk food advertising or the popularity of couch-potato pastimes like video games. But with parents also succumbing to the ease of a microwave dinner and a night in front of the tube, Paviour says schools bear some responsibility to show students healthier alternatives.
“Once we get their interest, we can maybe go a few steps further to change their attitudes and behaviors,” Paviour says.—John Borgmeyer
Big numbers
Overweight people cost Americans billions in healthcare
Over the years countless studies have been done on the negative health effects of being overweight and obese. But recently number-crunchers have started looking at the more tangible consequences of unhealthy living: how it affects Americans’ checkbooks.
The Surgeon General’s website reports that obesity in the United States cost about $117 billion in the year 2000. That number varies depending on which group you look to, but compare it to the average of $157 billion spent on smoking, the great bogeyman of the American medical profession. For just $40 billion more smokers are pariahs and shunned from restaurants and airplanes while the obese are welcomed with open arms—a double-standard for the double-chinned?
Those medical bills are the result of a variety of weight-related maladies, says George Pfeiffer, president of the WorkCare Group, a Charlottesville-based company that works with businesses to promote better employee health. “Obesity is what is called a co-morbid condition. If you’re obese, it’s most likely you have a higher probability of arthritis, heart disease, Type-2 diabetes, kidney disease, gall bladder and hypertension and sleep apnea and stroke,” he says.
And those are just the most apparent side-effects. Pfeiffer says that serious weight problems have an even bigger impact on economics when taking into account indirect costs in the workplace, including absenteeism, loss of productivity and “presenteeism,” where the worker is on the job but not engaged 100 percent. “Research shows that these indirect costs can be anywhere from three to six times the direct costs,” he says.
With smoking, several players in the tobacco industry were eventually forced to shell out big bucks to some states to cover medical expenditures the companies’ products were found culpable for. But it’s more difficult for taxpayers to recoup the extra money spent on weight-related health costs, Pfeiffer says, because “the major thing is it’s not addictive. With smoking, you’re getting people hooked. But with this it’s free choice and that’s what it comes down to: There’s a number of reasons why we’re becoming an overweight society.”
Indeed, lawsuits claiming fast food giant McDonald’s products led children to a life of weight-related health problems have been thrown out of court because, as U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said in a January 2003 decision, “it is not the place of the law to protect [people] from their own excesses.”
In the private sector, employers have been taking a more proactive role at reigning in corporate health care costs due to obesity too, Pfeiffer says. Typical corporate health-promotion programs with weight and nutrition components have a “pretty dismal record due to recidivism,” he says, and instead groups including the American Diabetes Association and others are trying to partner with businesses to offer ongoing support.
“There’s a groundswell happening now because we are in an epidemic and the economic implications of this are going to be huge,” Pfeiffer says. “A quarter of obese individuals are over age 65, and the chronic health conditions are only going to impact medical costs, and with Medicare it will be out of taxpayers’ pockets.”—Eric Rezsnyak
Gonna make you sweat
ACAC’s Phil Wendel has brought accessible fitness to Charlottesville’s masses
Meridia diet pills, Lean Cuisine, Cooking Light Magazine, Slim-fast, Jenny Craig, Sweet-n-Low, weight loss camps, Thigh Master infomercials, the Atkins Diet—according to Global Information, Inc., the business of staying slim is a $39 billion industry. As the economy continues to decline, the weight loss industry skyrockets.
Charlottesville’s economy is not immune to the plump business of staying slim. Besides having our own church basement versions of weight loss meetings and counseling groups, the locally owned ACAC Fitness and Wellness Center enrolls 10,600 Charlottesville members at roughly $75 per month, not including start-up fees. You do the math.
Membership numbers have grown significantly over the past five years—in 1998, ACAC had no more than 3,000 members on its books. Sole owner of the mega fitness palace Phil Wendel believes the local fitness craze is one part media, one part marketing.
“Twenty years ago the health club industry did a really poor job at portraying an image,“ says Wendel. “You’d have a giant picture of a perfectly tall, fit beautiful woman jumping in the air with a pencil thin waist.
“It was all about the price and nothing about the results.”
But over the past decade, the trendy health club atmosphere has been significantly altered. Today’s members are looking for buffer abs through weekly Body-Pump courses, higher muscle tone by attending the Athletic Conditioning Express and to drop those extra 10 pounds after weeks of deep water runs and Cycle Reebok Expresses, not obtain a date for Friday night.
Furthermore, the late 1960s and early ’70s saw gender specific gyms with dimly lit boxing rings and dusty punching bags. Women and men were only allowed in on specific days with minimal machines available and even fewer group classes.
“The decision to make these clubs available to both men and women at the same time was truly a historic event for the industry,” says Wendel.
An exercise fanatic growing weary of the search for a full-facility club to work out in, Wendel opened the first ACAC location on Pantops in 1984. (ACAC had many residences in the few years to follow, including what is now Blockbuster on Hydraulic Road and ACAC’s present outdoor pool location on Four Seasons Drive.) At that time, studies deemed 80 percent of the population inactive. Wendel knew he had to attract three-quarters of that group who were interested in getting physical, but in need of a little nudge.
“We were forced to appeal to a demographic we call ‘the interested de-conditioned,’” says Wendel.
According to Wendel, studies have shown that more than 65 percent of the population wishes they did more, while only 20 percent are categorized as full-fledged active exercisers—or involved in some physical activity 100-plus times a year. The other 15 percent could care a less either way.
But it wasn’t until Wendel opened ACAC’s flagship location at Albemarle Square, the 64,000-square-foot palatial fitness castle in June of 1998, that his business finally began to appeal to a broader base of those same interested de-conditioned.
Besides providing a massive fitness facility, indoor aquatic center, walking and jogging track and three group exercise rooms, the Albemarle Square facility offers modern-day pampering amenities such as well-appointed changing rooms, private massage studios, a café appropriately dubbed the Trackside Café and a full child care facility.
“Albemarle Square is more of a medical model,” says Wendel, “offering things like physical therapy and cardiac rehabilitation.” Which might explain its attraction to the most active growing gym demographic in America today—seniors.
Recent statistics from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion show that 25 percent of today’s seniors are active, compared to only 12 percent of today’s teenagers.
“It’s a great phenomenon we’ve seen within the last few years,” says Wendel. “One hundred years ago the life expectancy was 45 years old, now it’s in the high 70s.
“We’re living 30 years longer than our grandparents did and we want to make them good years.”
But ACAC hasn’t toppled the million-dollar mark solely because of its attraction to older Charlottesvillians. It appeals to entire families with numerous activities for all ages, driving home the important balance of not only shedding those extra pounds, but keeping them off. Furthermore, ACAC fulfills Wendel’s evangelistic tendencies towards proselytizing what he considers to be the last word in health: Be responsible.
“The fact of the matter is, if you’re going to eat more, you have to move more,” he says. “If we as a society are not going to manage our food intake, then we must have the discipline to exercise.”
Along those lines, ACAC has few nudging tricks up its sleeve. “When members haven’t been in within a 21-day period, we add them to what we like to call the Code Blue List,” says Wendel, explaining they get friendly phone calls from the staff asking when they’ll be coming back in. He adds that encouraging people to come back in is the key to keeping them as members. “It’s twice as expensive to get a new member as it is to keep an old member,” he says.
Moreover, Wendel and his more than 300-person staff are cognizant that the average newcomer requires three months of constant attention and vigilance on their part before she can truly exercise independently. If Wendel had one mission statement to new employees, it would be “Make the experience as pleasant as humanly possible,” knowing that adherence to an exercise plan is the toughest discipline to uphold.
“Far too many of us will exercise like hell for three months straight, then take time off,” says Wendel.—Kathryn Goodson
Meridia diet pills, Lean Cuisine, Cooking Light Magazine, Slim-fast, Jenny Craig, Sweet-n-Low, weight loss camps, Thigh Master infomercials, the Atkins Diet—according to Global Information, Inc., the business of staying slim is a $39 billion industry. As the economy continues to decline, the weight loss industry skyrockets.
Charlottesville’s economy is not immune to the plump business of staying slim. Besides having our own church basement versions of weight loss meetings and counseling groups, the locally owned Atlantic Coast Athletic Club Fitness and Wellness Center enrolls 10,600 Charlottesville members at roughly $75 per month, not including start-up fees. You do the math.
Membership numbers have grown significantly over the past five years—in 1998, ACAC had no more than 3,000 members on its books. Sole owner of the mega fitness palace, Phil Wendel, believes the local fitness craze is one part media, one part marketing.
“Twenty years ago the health club industry did a really poor job at portraying an image,“ says Wendel. “You’d have a giant picture of a perfectly tall, fit beautiful woman jumping in the air with a pencil thin waist.“It was all about the price and nothing about the results.” But over the past decade, the trendy health club atmosphere has been significantly altered. Today’s members are looking for buffer abs through weekly Body-Pump courses, higher muscle tone by attending the Athletic Conditioning Express and to drop those extra 10 pounds after weeks of deep water runs and Cycle Reebok Expresses, not searching for a date for Friday night.
Furthermore, the late 1960s and early ’70s saw gender- specific gyms with dimly lit boxing rings and dusty punching bags. Women were only allowed in on specific days with minimal machines available and even fewer group classes.
“The decision to make these clubs available to both men and women at the same time was truly a historic event for the industry,” says Wendel.
An exercise fanatic growing weary of the search for a full-facility club to work out in, Wendel opened the first ACAC location on Pantops in 1984. (ACAC had many residences in the few years to follow, including what is now Blockbuster on Hydraulic Road and ACAC’s present outdoor pool location on Four Seasons Drive.) At that time, studies deemed 80 percent of the population inactive. Wendel knew he had to attract the section of that group who were interested in getting physical, but in need of a little nudge.
“We were forced to appeal to a demographic we call ‘the interested de-conditioned,’” says Wendel.
According to Wendel, studies have shown that more than 65 percent of the population wishes they did more, while only 20 percent are categorized as full-fledged active exercisers—or involved in some physical activity 100-plus times a year. The other 15 percent could care less either way.
But it wasn’t until Wendel opened ACAC’s flagship location at Albemarle Square, the 64,000-square-foot palatial fitness castle, in June of 1998, that his business finally began to appeal to a broader base of those same interested de-conditioned.
Besides providing a massive fitness facility, indoor aquatic center, walking and jogging track and three group exercise rooms, the Albemarle Square facility offers modern-day pampering amenities such as well-appointed changing rooms, private massage studios, a café appropriately dubbed the Trackside Café and a full child care facility.
“Albemarle Square is more of a medical model,” says Wendel, “offering things like physical therapy and cardiac rehabilitation.” Which might explain its attraction to the most active growing gym demographic in America today—seniors.
Recent statistics from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion show that 25 percent of today’s seniors are active, compared to only 12 percent of today’s teenagers.
“It’s a great phenomenon we’ve seen within the last few years,” says Wendel. “One hundred years ago the life expectancy was 45 years old, now it’s in the high 70s.
“We’re living 30 years longer than our grandparents did and we want to make them good years.”
But ACAC hasn’t topped the million-dollar mark solely because of its attraction to older Charlottesvillians. It appeals to entire families with numerous activities for all ages, driving home the important balance of not only shedding those extra pounds, but keeping them off. Furthermore, ACAC promotes what Wendel considers to be the last word in health: Be responsible.
“The fact of the matter is, if you’re going to eat more, you have to move more,” he says. “If we as a society are not going to manage our food intake, then we must have the discipline to exercise.”
Along those lines, ACAC has a few nudging tricks up its sleeve. “When members haven’t been in within a 21-day period, we add them to what we like to call the Code Blue List,” says Wendel—they get friendly phone calls from the staff asking when they’ll be coming back in. He adds that encouraging people to come back in is the key to keeping them as members. “It’s twice as expensive to get a new member as it is to keep an old member,” he says.
Moreover, Wendel and his more than 300-person staff are cognizant that the average newcomer requires three months of constant attention and vigilance on ACAC’s part before she can truly exercise independently. If Wendel had one mission statement to new employees, it would be “Make the experience as pleasant as humanly possible,” knowing that adherence to an exercise plan is the toughest discipline to uphold.
“Far too many of us will exercise like hell for three months straight, then take time off,” says Wendel.—Kathryn E. Goodson