Communications Law and Ethics Project: NOURISH 4 LIFE

PRAD 575 Communication Law and Ethics Susan Fleming and Jordan Lange Project: NOURISH 4 LIFE

Communications Law and Ethics Project: NOURISH 4 LIFE Overview and Social Impact Campaign NOURISH 4 LIFE SXC Health Solutions will be the environment for the Nourish 4 LIFE social change

communication campaign. The program will have a positive effect on two societal issues: obesity and hunger. According to the CDC, obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more. Obesity related health problems have a significant economic impact on the U.S. health care system (US Department of Health and Human Services). Medical costs associated with overweight and obesity may involve direct and indirect costs (Wolf and Colditz, 1998). Direct medical costs may include preventive, diagnostic, and treatment services related to obesity. Indirect costs relate to morbidity and mortality costs. Morbidity costs are defined as the value of income lost from decreased productivity, restricted activity, absenteeism, and bed days. Mortality costs are the value of future income lost by premature death. Obesity is a major societal issue. According to the Hunger in America 2010 study, around 142,000 men, women and children depend on emergency food assistance from a food pantry, soup kitchen, or other food distribution center served by the Greater Chicago Food Depository. In 2006, the number was around 88,000.

Consider the facts below (stopthehunger.com): Amount spent per day in the US due to obesity related diseases: About $130 million

Spending on food purchased then tossed per day:

Over $60 million

Spending per day on weight loss programs and products:

About $60 million

Amount per day that would allow us to feed the hungry:

About $20 million

Communications Law and Ethics Project: NOURISH 4 LIFE

It is morally reprehensible that we live in the wealthiest nation in the world where one in six people are struggling to make choices between food and other basic necessities, Vicki Escarra, President and CEO of Feeding America. The statistics above helped to inform the framework of the Nourish 4 LIFE social change communication campaign. At SXC Health Solutions, among upper-level, well paid executives, a campaign combating obesity and hunger contributes to the wellness of the participant, improves productivity, reflects a sense of corporate social responsibility and, ultimately, impacts all layers of SXC Health Solutions loyalties. Our project contemplates the social issues related both to obesity and hunger. We promoted a communications campaign to a set of executives at SXC Health Solutions. This campaign was designed to gain participation in a weight loss effort. The targeted participants are all over the age of 40, most are over 50 and are at an increased risk for cardiovascular and other obesity related diseases. We solicited the senior management team to participate. It was positioned as a competition and a way to give back to the community. The ground rules were laid out. Those participating were required to declare a weight loss goal, to weigh in either every week or every other week and to post their weight. The program is running for six months, but we measured results over eight weeks to see if we had made a difference. The second component of the program was about taking the money saved from dieting (i.e., not eating out as often, not drinking wine and such) and donating that money to the GCFD. A Community was established on the Companys intranet. Weights were posted there and donations to the GCFD were posted there. This was also a space to pull in feeds from respected diet/nutrition experts and to share recipes, words of encouragement, etc. Following the initial solicitation of the group, we developed messages that were designed to encourage the group toward their weight loss goals and sent those messages out periodically.

Ethical Analysis: Nourish 4 LIFE In order to determine the ethical stability of the Nourish 4 LIFE campaign, the information was evaluated and categorized in the Potter Box analysis model, which is attached at the end of the Nourish 4 LIFE executive summary. Nourish 4 LIFE includes key values dealing with humanitarianism/human interest, compassion, commitment, self-control and immediacy. Also, Nourish 4 LIFE relates to several

Communications Law and Ethics Project: NOURISH 4 LIFE ethical principles, including Aristotles Mean, Confucius Golden Mean and Mills Principle of Utility, all explained in the attached Potter Box, which leads to the conclusion that Nourish 4 LIFE rests upon ethical foundations and binds with the SXC Health Solutions loyalties. The key ethical principle at the heart of the Nourish 4 LIFE social change campaign is Confucius Golden Mean. Obesity and hunger are two extremes. By creating a program that directly contributes positively to the improvement of these competing obligations, and by

combating these two extreme societal issues, Nourish 4 LIFE aspires to achieve both equilibrium and harmony for the participants and those who benefit from the donations to the GCFD.

Sustainability This project will be sustained for several months after our measurement, until the end of June. Once completed, or once all participants have reached their stated goal (whichever comes first), this program can be rolled out to the Company on the intranet, trumpeting the results and challenging other groups to run the program. The Company already has Health Bucks up to $300 that can be used for anything health related nutritional counseling, health club membership, etc. Employees will be reminded that they have this assistance available to them. In addition, we could take this program outside of the Company and share it as a best practice in other forums. The Society for Human Resource Management, for example, has an annual meeting where HR professionals come together and share best practices. In addition, we can seek opportunities for a story in the media that is focused on the impact of the project and how the program could be replicated. Examples of publications that would make sense include the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times, Crains Chicago, HR Magazine and HR News. In terms of the sustainability of the impact with the group, we will implement a plan to weigh in every month to keep tabs on weight. This is a long-term effort that we hope will establish the behavior needed to sustain the weight loss and remain healthy.

Campaign Success The combined weight loss over two months for this group was 109.5 pounds. This weight loss has been documented on the Nourish 4 LIFE Community on the Companys internal website. In addition, $1,800 was collected from the group and matched by the Company for a total of a $3,600 donation to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Communications Law and Ethics Project: NOURISH 4 LIFE When you put this in the context of the City of Chicago, we have impacted 2.36 city blocks: According to the US Census, there are 2.59 persons per household in the City of Chicago. There are about 30 houses per city block, or about 87.7 people. According to the

GCFD, $100 feeds one person for a year. If $3,600 is feeding 36 people and one in eight depend on the food depository, then we have taken care of 208 people, or 3.3 city blocks. Just think if we could get ten more groups? 20? 30? Even 50 is not out of the question. The greatest challenge with this project was keeping everyone on track. In fact, some of the participants believe that they can wait to get serious because they have six months. When we pitch this project to other groups, we will recommend a shorter timeframe. One of the reasons for a six month project, was that the participants in the project are age 50 or older; it is much more difficult to lose the weight at this age. Also, the participants did not volunteer for this project; they were recruited by the project sponsor and made a commitment to lose a specific amount of weight. This could have had an impact if they are not self-motivated to lose weight. One of the greatest successes is that this project has made this group of participants much more aware of the need to be healthier. This group is working on very demanding strategic projects in their workplace and the fact that they are not in top notch shape takes a toll on their ability to sustain the necessary energy level. This group is smart enough to know that weight and wellness can have a significant impact on their ability to work. However, they are all Type As and put their work first, often at the expense of their own well-being. The most significant learning that came out of this project is that just because people know what is right doesnt mean they are motivated to do the right thing especially when its difficult and its not their idea. Our strong recommendation as we roll this out to others will be to make this program voluntary. This project has somewhat changed our thinking around social and ethical issues in business: commitments arent necessarily intended to be lived up to. If commitments are made as a result of peer pressure, they are made for the wrong reason and have a higher chance of failure. Second, commitments that involve personal sacrifice are much more difficult to live up to than those that do not. It was much more difficult for participants to manage their eating habits and find time to exercise than to give money to a worthy cause. As we work on future

Communications Law and Ethics Project: NOURISH 4 LIFE projects, we will need to recruit employees who have a genuine interest in the outcome of the project, to ensure the likelihood of success. Overall, we view this project as a success. To be able to say we took care of more than two city blocks is something we can be proud of.

References http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/causes/economics.html http://www.hhs.gov/diseases/index.html http://www.chicagosfoodbank.org/site/PageServer http://www.stopthehunger.com/ http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/schlosser-fast.html http://www.chicagosfoodbank.org/site/PageServer?pagename=hungerstudy2010 Schlosser, Eric. The Fast Food Nation The Dark Side of the All-American Meal The Endocrine Society: obesityinamerica.org The Wall Street Journal. T.W. Farnam. Social Security, Medicare Face Insolvency Sooner, May 13, 2009. Retrieved from onlinewsj.com. US Department of Health and Human Services: http://www.hhs.gov/ Wolf, A.M and Colditz, G.A., Obesity Research. 1998 Mar 6(2): 173-5.