Yesterday, Gawker Media property Jezebel reported that Whole Foods is offering their team members an opt-in employee incentive program that gives them larger store discounts tied to certain biometric parameters. Using blood pressure, cholesterol testing and BMI, they have different levels of discounts for certain stages met.
The regular discount of 20% still applies to all employees, however if you opt into the Healthy Discount Incentive Program and your numbers are “bronze” level, you are eligible for a 22% discount, and so on, all the way to the platinum 30% off level.
Whole Foods claims, first and foremost, that this initiative is being implemented because the company cares about the health and well being of its employees. Plus, according to CEO John Mackey in a letter to employees, on a core business level, Whole Foods is trying to reign in rising health care costs.
Last August, Mackey came under fire for an Op-Ed he penned for the Wall Street Journal attacking the proposition of Universal Health Care. With that Op-Ed, he succeeded in enraged his core consumers. The majority of people buying the Whole Foods organic, healthy living ethos tend to be liberal leaning and supporters of the government option.
The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed was clearly a PR blunder of epic proportions. It was not savvy for Mackey to use a public forum to showcase his libertarian streak on such a hot button topic as health care. However, pushing aside Mackey’s political leanings, the actual message of the opinion piece was clear–if you shop at Whole Foods, you don’t really need health insurance because Whole Foods keeps you healthy. As awkward and misguided as it was, Mackey was ultimately hawking his brand.
But this new employee incentive initiative is Draconian. And while It certainly leaves one to ponder its legalities (although I am sure that a company as large as Whole Foods has an army of legal eagles covering their trim behinds), the inclusion of BMI in the metrics means that this program is not at all indicative of a person’s health.
BMI is a measure of height vs. weight only and does not take into account muscle mass vs. body fat. The results of a Mayo Clinic study, presented a 2008 study at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session, showed that more than half of American men and women who had “normal” BMIs actually had higher body fat percentages that put them at risk for illness such as type 2 diabetes. It’s completely feasible that a “silver” level employee is actually less healthy than the “bronze” counterpart, although this “silver” employee qualifies for a healthier healthy discount.
Here’s something else to chew on. The “platinum” level discount calls for BMI of 23.99 or lower. What if an employee has a BMI at 16 or 17, which classifies that person as underweight? Researchers from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine published a study in the Lancet that found that those with low BMIs were a higher risk group for heart disease than those with normal BMIs. Why aren’t those who dip into the underweight category penalized like those who head into the BMI obese range?
Is this really about healthy employees? Or is this about presenting trim employees as the public face of the Whole Foods brand?
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