LRC-Hood Wellness Program incorporates health into workforce

By Jessica Sanders, 407th AFSB Public AffairsJanuary 25, 2016

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FORT HOOD, Texas -- Civilians from Logistics Readiness Center-Fort Hood gathered, Jan. 7 to kick off the new year with its second Biggest Loser Challenge to help raise awareness about healthy living.

Teams of three to five people will work together to adopt a regimen of healthy eating and exercise in an effort to become the team with the most accumulative weight loss during a three-month period. This event marks the first anniversary of LRC-Hood's Wellness Program.

Mariana Shorter, a supply technician and one of the founding members of the LRC's Wellness Program, said that the committee's goal is to reach and help as many people as possible within the LRC, as well as the 407th Army Field Support Brigade. They encourage the workforce to adopt healthy living, incorporate exercise into their routines and find a healthy work-life balance.

"We always stress work, work, work, but an unhealthy body cannot be productive," she said. "If we can just give a slight push and provide some tools, we believe it will motivate people in the right direction."

According to the Journal of American Medicine, more than one third of U.S. adults are obese. Furthermore, obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, some of the leading causes of preventable death.

"If you look around, you will see a lot of our civilian workforce is overweight," Shorter said.

Dave Slaughter, LRC Plans and Operations Division chief and Wellness Committee member, explained that the LRC's Wellness Committee started in January 2015 as an outgrowth of their safety program. The committee incorporated wellness as a key component of their safety program, adopting the motto that "a healthy employee is a safe employee."

LRC-Hood is currently completing the final phase of a rigorous three-phased performance-based evaluation through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Voluntary Protection Program to achieve Star status. Slaughter emphasized that it's not the status that they are interested in, but the adherence to VPP principles.

"We've adopted the VPP to keep us on the path to safety," he said.

The VPP principles also guide their wellness program.

Since the Wellness Committee's inception, the team has developed and coordinated programs which have helped hundreds in the workforce. In addition to losing thousands of pounds in the process, they have donated more than 1,400 pounds of food, boxes full of toys, as well as raised hundreds of dollars in support of the local community during wellness fundraisers.

In less than a year, the impressive list of initiatives include quarterly wellness walks, a three month Biggest Loser Competition where teams competed in losing the highest aggregate weight, as well as a partnering with Metroplex Hospital to provide BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose screenings for LRC employees.

"We were able to possibly save some lives that day," said Harrison Riggins, Wellness Committee co-founder, reflecting on the first Metroplex event. "We had one employee that I know of who was advised to go immediately to the hospital because his blood pressure was so high."

Riggins' own journey to healthy living started last year when an innocent comment by his young daughter caused him to reflect on his own health. He vowed to lose his excess weight and with the help of the Fort Hood Wellness Center, he lost more than 100 pounds in seven months through healthy eating and exercise.

Riggins works out in one of the LRC storage warehouses which is now home to a room full of repurposed Abrams Gym equipment. The repurposing project is one he spearheaded when it was announced that Fort Hood's largest gym would go through a renovation last year. He now works out five days a week in that warehouse at 5 a.m. with other maintenance technicians before their shift begins.

The committee wants to reach more employees by improving 2016 events. After announcing the winners of the Biggest Loser II Competition in April, they will host a wellness screening event. Metroplex will set up activities like blood pressure and cholesterol screenings along with multiple wellness classes.