Open The Windows

Open the windows. Glasgow School of Art experts issue health warning over airtight new homes.

Glasgow School of Art experts issue health warning over airtight new homes: Poor ventilation in new homes could lead to health problems for occupants, architecture experts have warned. A lack of air vents or open windows leads to a build-up of pollutants and chemicals from furniture, flooring and plastics that is hard to detect, Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh Environmental Architecture Research Unit (MEARU) said.

The unit claims most modern homes are being built to be airtight, which can cause problems for people with asthma and respiratory issues if they are not ventilated properly. A public awareness film has been made by MEARU urging people to make sure they ventilate their homes. Recommendations include keeping vents or windows open when cooking, showering and cleaning; drying laundry near an open window; and opening windows at night.

Professor Tim Sharpe, head of MEARU, said: "Poor indoor air quality, particularly in bedrooms, is hard for people to detect. "There are clear links between poor ventilation and ill-health so people need to be aware of the build-up of CO2 and other pollutants in their homes and their potential impact on health. "Modern homes are increasingly airtight and can also contain a great number of pollutants and chemicals, many of which can have serious health effects.

"It is clear from this research that buildings are simply not well ventilated and this could seriously impact on occupants' health, especially vulnerable people such as those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma."

MEARU - which works between architectural design and scientific research - carried out a study of 200 modern homes and found "widespread evidence of poor ventilation, with bedrooms being a particular problem". Prof Sharpe added: "In the past, some houses had plaques telling people to open their windows and public information films would offer similar advice.

"We hope that this film will help people to understand more about the need to ventilate and how best to ensure that they get the best possible indoor air quality so as to avoid problems of ill-health and the associated cost to our health system."

The Glasgow School of Art body worked with Hanover Housing Association during the study. Development officer Kenneth Shepherd said: "It has been fascinating working with Professor Sharpe and the team at MEARU and receiving their conclusions has been very helpful. "Going forward all our new residents will be provided with information on the best way of ensuring that they ventilate their homes properly."

UK Policemen Urged To Clean Windows

British policemen urged to clean windows as part of their fitness regime.

Met's advice for blobby bobbies: Try snowball fights and window cleaning! Health guru offers tips to unfit officers ahead of upcoming fitness tests Police officers have been told to lose weight by tobogganing, having snowball fights and even walking their children to school. Overweight officers are also being urged to move furniture around, build snowmen, wash windows or jump on a trampoline in the garden.

The advice comes from Scotland Yard’s new health guru Sean Burgess in an attempt to help police pass their upcoming fitness tests. A few years ago, a survey of Metropolitan officers and staff revealed that 64 per cent of those on the force’s payroll were overweight, obese or morbidly obese. As a result, mandatory fitness tests - known as ‘bleep tests’ - were introduced in September 2014.  A total of 807 were failed - 237 by men and 570 by women – before passing them became compulsory. Any staff who repeatedly fail them face the sack.

Mr Burgess, head of occupational health, gave his fitness advice to officers in the Met’s in-house magazine The Job. He began by writing, ‘Exercise? Who has time for it?’ before listing tips to help officers lose weight. ‘Have snowball fights, build a snowman or do some tobogganing,’ he writes. ‘Household jobs involve moving, stretching, lifting and carrying. Do some cleaning by moving furniture or washing the windows.’

Mr Burgess, a former nurse, says that getting into an exercise routine is hard and suggested finding sports that officers can do with their families like swimming, running for a charity, cycling or walking. He said: ‘Walk the kids to school, or walk the dog around the local park or countryside, if you can. Have a trampoline in the garden or a basketball net.’ Mr Burgess told officers that they should not ‘fear the bleeper’ if they followed his advice. ‘Turn your preparation into a regular habit,’ he added. ‘Training sessions will become easier to manage in terms of time and motivation.

‘If you can train with a partner it will assist in motivation and help develop an exercise habit.’

Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has previously told how important it was that his officers were fit. ‘I think you’ve got a duty to your colleagues,’ he said recently. ‘If they shout for help, they want fit people to come. They don’t want somebody waddling down the road who’s never going to arrive, and when they get there they’re out of breath.’ Sir Bernard added: ‘It’s taken too long to get the annual test, but it will start to have an increasing impact. For me, the standard is too low, I think it should be higher. It’s relatively easy.’

The Met Commissioner went on to say that those who fail to make the grade should be given time to lose weight and get fitter. But he added: ‘If they don’t, then we haven’t got a job for them.’ Scotland Yard guidelines say those who fail at the first attempt should be put on a physical training programme for up to ten weeks before being told to retake the test. Officers who fail three further tests are recommended for dismissal.

There are so many overweight policemen in Britain that belts large enough for 56-inch waists are becoming hard to find. Emergency Service Supplies, a uniform supplier, had recently sold out of the XXXL version of the belt that carries heavy equipment as well as holds up trousers. The next size down was in short supply. Utility belts are an essential item for all officers because they are used to carry their handcuffs, baton and other tools. The company also offers outsized clothing for bulkier community support officers, supplying an XXXL high visibility vest alongside other duty wear in sizes up to a 56-inch chest.

Working Too Hard?

Window cleaners hang from their lines as they clean an office building in Washington, September 1. Working too hard leads to strokes, diabetes and heart disease. Why are we killing ourselves?

Why Can’t We Enjoy A Three-Day Weekend Every Weekend? As we enjoy the Labor Day weekend, it is worth reassessing the amount of time we devote to work. What if all weekends could last for three or even four days? What if the majority of the week could be given over to activities other than work? What if most of our time could be devoted to non-work activities of our own choosing?

To even pose these questions is to invite the criticism of Utopian thinking. While a fine idea in principle, working fewer hours is not feasible in practice. Indeed, its achievement would come at the expense of lower consumption and increased economic hardship.

For some advocates of the work ethic, the route to health and happiness lies with the perpetuation of work, not with its reduction. Work makes us healthier and happier. Such pro-work ideology is used to legitimate welfare reforms that seek to coerce the non-employed into work, whatever its rates of pay and qualitative features. It also offers an ideological barrier to the case for spending less time at work. Working less is presented as a threat to our health and happiness, not a means to improve it.

Yet, the idea of working less is not only feasible, it is also the basis for a better standard of life. It is a mark of how we have come to accept work and its dominant influence in our lives that we do not grasp this idea more readily.

The costs of working more: A growing number of studies show the human costs of longer working hours. These include lower physical and mental health. Working long hours can add to the risk of having a stroke, coronary heart disease and developing type 2 diabetes.

By working most of the time, we also lose time with family and friends. And more than this we lose the ability to be and do things that make life valuable and worth living. Our lives are often too much tied up in the work we do that we have little time and energy to find alternative ways of living – in short, our capacity to realize our talents and potential is curtailed by the work we do. Work does not set us free, rather it hems us in and makes it more difficult to realise ourselves.

All this speaks to the need to work less. We should challenge the work ethic and promote alternative ways of living that are less work centered. And, if this reduction of time spent at work is focused on eliminating drudge work then we can also better realize the internal benefits of work itself. Working less may be a means not only to work better but also to enjoy life more.

Barriers to less work: Technological progress has advanced continuously over the past century, pushing up productivity. But not all the gains in productivity have fed through to shorter work hours. At least in modern times, these gains have been used to increase the returns of the owners of capital, often at the cost of flatlining pay for workers.

The lack of progress in reducing time spent at work in modern capitalist economies reflects instead the influence of ideology as well as of power. On the one hand, the effects of consumerism have created powerful forces in favor of longer working hours. Workers are constantly persuaded to buy more and in turn are drawn into working more, to keep up with the latest fad or fashion and to stay ahead of their peers.

On the other hand, the weakened power of labor relative to capital has created an environment that has suited the extension of work time. The recent expose of work practices at Amazon speaks to the power of capital in imposing poor working conditions, including excessive work hours, on workers. The effects of rising inequality has also fed a long work hours culture by increasing the economic necessity to work more.

David Graeber makes the provocative claim that technology has advanced at the same time as what he calls “bullshit” or pointless jobs have multiplied. This is why we have not realized Keynes' prediction that we’d all be working 15-hour weeks in the 21st century, as a result of technological progress.

Instead, we are living in a society where work gets created that is of no social value. The reason for this, according to Graeber, is the need of the ruling class to keep workers in work. While technology with the potential to reduce work time exists, the political challenge of a working population with time on its hands makes the ruling class unwilling to realize this potential. Working less, while feasible and desirable, is blocked by political factors.

Working for change: The costs of long work hours, as mentioned above, are poorer health and lower well-being for workers. But for employers too there are costs in terms of lower productivity and lower profitability. Yet these costs seem to go unnoticed despite evidence pointing to their existence. Here again politics may explain why shorter work time has not been embraced by many employers.

Experiments in shorter working exist, to be sure. Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing retailer, is to allow its employees to work a four day week. This has been widely reported in a positive way. Workers will benefit from a better work-life balance, while the firm will reap the benefits of lower labour costs due to lower turnover costs.

Yet, on closer inspection, the new scheme to be introduced by Uniqlo has its downsides. In return for a four-day working week, workers will be expected to work ten-hour shifts during the days they work (a 40-hour working week will be squeezed into four days).

This is not only an extension to the normal length of the working day; it also puts at risk the potential rewards of working four days in the week. Workers may be so exhausted after working a four-day work week they need a full day to recover from their previous exertions. In this case, their quality of work and life may not be enhanced at all; indeed it may be diminished, if they suffer the ill-effects of overwork.

Ironically, schemes such as the one to be introduced by Uniqlo illustrate the obstacles that remain in achieving less work. Only a reduction in the working week to 30 hours or less can be seen as genuine progress in the achievement of shorter work time.

For us to reach–and enjoy–a three or ideally a four-day weekend, we need to reimagine society in ways that subvert the prevailing work ethic. We need to embrace the idea of working less as a means to a life well lived. We need to reject the way of living that sees work as the be all and end all of life.

So enjoy the holiday while you can. See it as a reminder of a life that could be – a life that we should seek to achieve, by resolving to overcome the barriers, economic as well as ideological and political, to working less.

Second Job Window Cleaners

A 2014 survey by the Fire Brigades Union found that a third of full-time firefighters had a second job. 

'I ran myself into the ground': life at the bottom end of the public sector pay scale: Many public services staff in the UK take on a second job just to survive. Here, some of them reveal what it’s like living with anxiety, zero-hours contracts and low pay. A 2014 Unison survey revealed that 80% of school support staff were concerned about workload, and 90% were worried about low pay. And a 2014 YouGov survey by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) of almost 10,000 firemen found that a third of full-time firefighters had a second job.

So what impact does such insecurity and overworking have on people’s lives?

Mental health: An increase in zero-hours contracts has led to anxiety among employees uncertain of their weekly cashflow.

Physical health: Overworking can take its toll on physical wellbeing too – Greenwood took three weeks off work last year as a result of work-related illness, he says, but had to return for financial reasons. “I ran myself into the ground, but I need to work to get the money to do what I want,” he says. “It’s a double-edged blade.”

For those working long hours exercise often falls by the wayside, despite its importance in reducing stress, Donaldson-Feilder says. A lottery win for me would be to not work a second job so I could pick my children up from school and take them swimming.

A full-time firefighter and FBU representative, who runs a window cleaning business to help provide for his family, says he earns £30,000 a year but his large pension contributions mean his wage is comparable to a £22,000 job. “I’ll sometimes do window cleaning from 8am to 4pm, then do a firefighting night shift from 6pm to 9am,” he says. “I’d like a gym membership but there’s no point – I can’t afford it and I wouldn’t have time to go.”

Family life and relationships: The work-life balance can be significantly skewed when tackling two jobs. “There is a massive quality of life issue here,” says Mike Short, senior national officer for local government at Unison. “People take on a second job but should be spending time with family and friends.”

The firefighter says the biggest pressure he feels from holding down two jobs is missing out on time with his partner and four children. “A lottery win would be the opportunity to not work a second job so I could pick my children up from school and take them swimming,” he says. “Firefighting has a reasonably family-friendly work pattern, if only it paid more money.”

Donaldson-Feilder says maintaining support networks is crucial to prevent feelings of isolation. “Look for ways you can build in time for people who care about you and who are supportive of you,” she advises overworked staff. “If you don’t have a big social circle, get involved in activities that are altruistic in some way, such as at a local charity.”

And regardless of stressful working conditions, high pensions and pay cuts, altruism is the main reason many people continue to pursue a career in public services. “If I really pushed myself, I could probably earn enough money window cleaning,” says the firefighter. “But I love my job and many people join this profession and take a pay cut because it can be very rewarding.”

Window Cleaners Chat Saves His Life

Derek Roberts

Window cleaner's chance chat with customer led to life-saving procedure on 'inoperable' tumour: Derek Roberts was having a conversation while up the ladder at the home of James Arthur when the topic turned to a rare form of cancer Derek had A chance chat with a customer saved a window cleaner’s life.

Derek Roberts was up his ladder at the home of James Arthur when they got talking. The 54-year-old from Boothstown, Salford, had been told by several doctors that a very rare type of cancer growing in his abdomen was inoperable. But while cleaning windows at Mr Arthur’s home in Boothstown he told him of the tumour. Mr Arthur is a consultant surgeon at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool, and suggested he get a second opinion there. Surgical teams at the hospital specialise in removal of tumours which are very complex to operate on, and they perform about ten operations a year.

Aintree University Hospital, Liverpool.

Derek went for a check up at Aintree and it resulted in a team led by consultant hepatobiliary surgeon, Mr Hassan Malik, successfully removing a 7kg gastrointetinal tumour, which was the size of a football. After a 10-hour operation, the team had successfully removed the tumour, along with parts of Derek’s liver, stomach and spleen.

Derek, who has been cleaning windows for more than 15 years, said: “I’d been told that nothing could be done, so who would have thought a chat while I was cleaning windows would lead to this? “I’ve been cleaning Mr Arthur’s windows for about six years but this was the first time I’ve shared any health concerns with him, and I’m so glad I did. “The whole team at Aintree was excellent and I can’t thank them enough – they have saved my life.”

Derek Roberts with James Arthur, Consultant surgeon (left) and Hassan Malik (right) consultant hepatobiliary surgeon, outside Aintree University Hospital.

Mr Arthur said: “I was around when Derek turned up to clean the windows and we had a bit of a chat, which turned to his health situation. I suggested a second opinion from my clinical colleagues. It’s a complicated condition to operate on but luckily Derek met the criteria.”

Since his operation just over 12 months ago, Derek has held a number of fundraising events, including some at his local pub, the Greyhound in Boothstown, and he recently handed over a cheque for £3,000 to the hospital’s hepatobiliary fund.

Derek Roberts (left) with James Arthur consultant surgeon (right) and Hassan Malik consultant hepatobiliary surgeon (centre).

Mr Malik said: “These are rare tumours, which are complex to manage and challenging to operate on, particularly when they are so advanced. We had to remove the tumour and parts of Derek’s stomach, liver and spleen, but the operation went smoothly.

“Even as one of the country’s leading centres, we still only carry out a very small number of these operations each year. Derek was certainly very fortunate and we wish him all the best with his continued recovery. We are extremely grateful for his fundraising work, which will support the treatment of patients in a similar condition on our wards.”

An x-ray showing Derek Roberts' seven kg tumour.

Meth' Clean Up

Despite this accreditation, the process of cleaning up a meth site is not all that complicated, chemically speaking. The solution Jennifer and her crew use is a mix of carpet cleaner, degreaser, and dish soap.

The Hard, Grim Work of Cleaning Up Meth Labs in West Virginia: Usually, when Jennifer McQuerrey Rhyne's truck pulls up to a property, it's the first time neighbors have seen any activity there in weeks. Even though the decals on her hulking Tacoma read "www.wvmethcleanup.com"—literally spelling out why she is there—she becomes a magnet for anyone looking for information about the former proprietors of the meth cook sites she cleans for a living. Along with a bevy of shady characters, the business offers a window into the changing drug habits of rural, white America.

A guy in a sweatpants and a hoodie tattered by cigarette burns approaches, mentioning the apartment's former tenant, a woman I'll call Rachel. "She was into some bad stuff," he says. "She was advertising as an escort on a site called BackPages.com and was going all across the county."

Jennifer, 43 years old and about five feet tall with crimson-colored hair and a stud poking out of the upper right side of her lip, quietly absorbs the story. She's used to this. They come to her hoping to gather gossip, ease their worries, or collect debts. "Over her time here, I loaned her over $1,000," the man says. "I heard she was at a rooming house in Bridgeport, but I was wondering if you knew anything."

"No, I don't know anything," Jennifer replies with a polite smile as she checks her phone. "Well, I'd like to at least like to get my air mattress back," he says. "I'm sorry but all this stuff has to go to the dump," Jennifer explains. "There's been a meth contamination here." "Well, that figures," the guy says, wandering off. It's because of encounters like this that Jennifer keeps a Ruger 380 in her truck. The gun usually stays there. Only once, in a run-down "apartment building full of tweakers" in Elkins, did she conceal it beneath her Hazmat-style suit as she cleaned.

It's not an uncommon scene in the Mountain State. Like rural populations all over the US, West Virginians are smoking a shit-ton of meth. Two years ago, 533 meth cook sites were uncovered in the state, though as of the end of November, 2014's numbers were down 40 percent, with just 290 reported busts compared to 500 at the same time a year earlier. Still, the drug is entrenched in this land of arch bridges and rolling hills, where the population density rarely reaches 500 people per square mile. Increasingly, West Virginia meth comes not from the makeshift labs of yore but a crude "shake and bake" process of packing cold medicine, anhydrous ammonia, water, and a reactive metal into a bottle to make a sludgy but effective product. It doesn't take Walter White to do this, and it makes it possible for a meth operation to be cloistered into a closet, a car trunk, or even a backpack.

No matter how large or small, once a cook site is busted, state law dictates it be " remediated."

No matter how large or small, once a cook site is busted, state law dictates it be " remediated" by a licensed company after police determine there is no immediate threat of an explosion. This has meant steady income for Jennifer's company, Affordable Clean Up, LLC, the only one in West Virginia dedicated solely to cleaning meth cook sites. (There are also general industrial cleaning companies that can be contracted for the job.) Since starting in 2012, they've cleaned about 20 sites a year. The average job rakes in $10,000, usually paid by a landlord or mortgage-holding bank.

This apartment in Clarksburg is netting Jennifer only a shade under four grand. She tested surfaces in each room with a kit and only three of them had enough meth residue to meet West Virginia's standard for contamination, 0.1 micrograms per 100 square centimeters. Then she filed paperwork with the state Department of Health and Human Resources and awaited an OK to clean, a process that can take weeks, much to the annoyance of landlords. These owners "did the right thing," Jennifer says. "Most landlords would have just tossed everything and never said a word."

Jennifer is a landlord herself who's been flipping houses for nearly 20 years and has dozens of rental units across the state. It was in that capacity that she got the idea for this side business. She attended a seminar lead by an official from the state Department of Health and Human Service's Clandestine Drug Laboratory Remediation Program. He explained how to spot the signs of a lab and what the landlord is obligated to do when one emerges. It was one offhand comment in particular that stuck with her. "He said, 'When I retire from the state, I'm going into [the decontamination] business,'" Jennifer recalls. "'I'll make a killing!'"

Jennifer had a business administration degree and was always looking for flexible forms of work as her daughter moved through adolescence. So why not clean up old meth labs? She began researching the qualifications needed to tidy up after tweakers and recruited her father, a retired elementary school principal, and Heath, a maintenance man for her rentals. They moved through the trainings and certifications: a $350 class on handling hazardous materials, an $800 multi-day program on the risks of meth sites specifically, an annual $300 methamphetamine remediation license for the company and $50 yearly meth remediation technician certificates for each person on her crew. In West Virginia, you need all this to even walk through the door of a site after a meth bust.

Despite this accreditation, the process of cleaning up a meth site is not all that complicated, chemically speaking. The solution Jennifer and her crew use is a mix of carpet cleaner, degreaser, and dish soap. Like the ingredients for meth itself, all that can be bought at Lowe's. They spray it onto every surface. "Then, we scrub the shit out of it," Jennifer says. It usually takes three sprays and scrubs before the residue is below the state standard.

That standard might be overly cautious. In 2009, the federal Environmental Protection Agency concluded that 1.5 µg/100 cm²—15 times the amount of meth residue allowed by West Virginia—was the threshold for health hazard and set that as its own recommended standard. But that's only a suggestion, and the laws of meth contamination are a patchwork from state to state. Minnesota, Kansas, Virginia, California, and other states use the EPA's recommendation. Some—like Nebraska, Washington, Alaska, and West Virginia—go by the harsh 0.1 µg/100 cm² standard, and several set it somewhere between.

Just like the cleaning, the disposal of meth-contaminated stuff is surprisingly simple, albeit hampered by bureaucracy. Jennifer deposits everything she takes from a site at a municipal landfill, where it is buried, but first she has to photograph each item and file an accompanying form, all of which goes to the state.

All of these measurements are lighter than the weight of a single grain of rice, but between them is a difference of tens of thousands of dollars if a cook site is found on any given property. Take for instance, an elderly woman whose home Jennifer cleaned. She lived with an adult grandson who cooked and smoked meth. By West Virginia's 0.1 µg/100 cm² standard, the whole house was contaminated. In addition to the hefty cost of the cleaning, everything she owned had to go to the dump. "She lost everything, all her belongings she collected her entire life," Jennifer remembers. "I would petition the state to raise the level. I don't even care if I lose business. I've seen too many people pointlessly lose everything."

Anthony Turner is director of the West Virginia Department of Health's Clandestine Drug Laboratory Remediation Program. He's sympathetic to property owners, but tells me, "I'd rather err on the side of caution when it comes to public health. These are residential units where children might live."

Just like the cleaning, the disposal of meth-contaminated stuff is surprisingly simple, albeit hampered by bureaucracy. Jennifer deposits everything she takes from a site at a municipal landfill, where it is buried, but first she has to photograph each item and file an accompanying form, all of which goes to the state. After conferring with a few sanitation workers sitting in a trailer, she drives the truck to a set of metal dumpsters full of tires, stoves, bedframes, and five-gallon buckets. The place smells like gasoline and burned plastic. Jennifer puts on gloves, photographs each item, and tosses it into a dumpster.

Premiums & Health For U.S. Window Cleaners

Tom Beckfeld, a self-employed snowplower and window cleaner, poses outside his home in Big Lake, Minn. Beckfeld acknowledged he's worried about getting a big rate increase notice from PreferredOne but added he has saved so much money thanks to the Affordable Care Act's ban on excluding patients with preexisting conditions that he'll be better off no matter what.

Renewal costs may surprise MNsure customers (Minneapolis): Minnesotans who bought policies on the state's health insurance exchange are starting to get their first renewal notices, and many could be in for a jolt. Premiums for most of the more than 55,000 individuals signed up for private insurance plans via MNsure are going up. For the nearly 33,000 who have coverage from PreferredOne, most who want to keep those policies next year will have to pay over 60 percent more, according to officials with the Minnesota Association of Health Underwriters who've seen the company's rate data.

Tom Beckfeld, a self-employed snowplower and window cleaner from Big Lake, acknowledged he's worried about getting a big rate increase notice from PreferredOne. But he said he has saved so much money thanks to the Affordable Care Act's ban on excluding patients with preexisting conditions that he'll still be better off. Beckfeld, 56, has diabetes and high blood pressure. The only insurance he could get before MNsure cost about $750 a month. PreferredOne charges him $421 a month and covers much more, including drugs. He put the savings at about $12,000 this year.

"Even if PreferredOne doubled its rates and came more in line with Blue Cross and everybody else, I'm still looking at saving thousands of dollars a year," he said.

Most people who bought PreferredOne policies via MNsure are expected to switch to other carriers because PreferredOne —which grabbed the largest market share by offering the lowest rates — is pulling out of the exchange. Consumers who qualify for tax credits definitely will have to choose other carriers because subsidies are available only through MNsure.

Tom Beckfeld, a self-employed snowplower and window cleaner, poses outside his home in Big Lake, Minn. Beckfeld acknowledged he's worried about getting a big rate increase notice from PreferredOne but added he has saved so much money thanks to the Affordable Care Act's ban on excluding patients with preexisting conditions that he'll be better off no matter what.

Premiums for three of the four carriers sticking with MNsure will also rise, the plans have confirmed. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, which was No. 2 with 22 percent of the signups this year, will raise its premiums an average of 17.2 percent. HealthPartners's rate increases average 8.1 percent, while Medica's will rise just 1.8 percent. However, UCare's average premiums will fall 9.1 percent.

State officials say MNsure will still offer some of the lowest premiums in the country. Blue Cross and HealthPartners recently started sending out renewal notices. Medica and UCare officials said theirs won't go out until early November, just ahead of open enrollment, which begins Nov. 15. A PreferredOne spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on its rates and renewal plans.

Heidi Michaels, an insurance broker with Dyste Williams in St. Louis Park, said she's already helping clients sort out their options. For example, she has an Eden Prairie family of four with a PreferredOne plan with a $710 premium and a $4,000 deductible. The closest 2015 PreferredOne plan they could choose would cost 42 percent more with a $7,700 deductible, and their clinic isn't in that network. They could also choose a Blue Cross plan that includes their clinic and cuts their deductible to $2,000, but the premium is 37 percent higher and office visits are limited to two. "So they're left with not-great choices, but regardless of their choice they're going to have an increase," said Michaels, president-elect of the underwriters group.

HealthPartners has already sent "pre-renewal" letters to help its members prepare, said Executive Vice President Andrea Walsh.

Anthony Schmitz, a custom kayak builder and writer from St. Paul, indicated that he'd be glad to get a renewal notice, whatever it says about a premium increase — at least it would be evidence that he's insured. Like many Minnesotans, Schmitz had difficulty enrolling due to technical problems with the MNsure website. He said he's paid his premiums regularly, but got a cancellation notice from Blue Cross in July and has been struggling to straighten things out. "I believe as of yesterday I have insurance again, but who knows?" Schmitz said.

Signing up was also a "long ordeal" for pastor David Berge. But the 32-year-old, his wife, and two sons ultimately got Medica and UCare plans through the public Medical Assistance program for lower-income people, which comes without any premium. And a note in his mail recently was welcome. "We got a letter saying we were automatically re-enrolled, so we don't have to do anything, which is definitely good news," Berge said.

“I ran into trouble with marathons,” said Herzog, who is a professional high-rise window cleaner. “Marathons were not the best distance for me.”

Bill Herzog – Running Is All About Getting Fit And Giving Back: Bill Herzog had a unique incentive for tying up his brand new running shoes and going for his first jog nine years ago. The nudge to get out the door and down the street was his wife, Tammy. His incentive was a kiss. “My wife got into running before me,” Herzog said. “It gave me an incentive. If I couldn’t run as fast as my wife, I was never going to get a kiss.”

So began Herzog’s unlikely journey in running that has led him to 5K road races, to half marathons, marathons, triathlons and (gasp) to being the president of Club Oly Road Runners in 2009 and is now race director for the club. His chase for kisses led him to a community embrace. “It’s all about giving back,” the 48-year-old Herzog said.

And it’s about getting people to get out and run, to pursue fitness and good health. In hopes of being a nudge for others to take that step and get involved in running, Herzog is helping to organize the annual Turn Back The Clock run, which will be held Nov. 2 at Rainier Vista Community Park in Lacey. Since it’s on Daylight Savings, the day we turn back the clock and get an extra hour that day, Herzog is encouraging people to take part in a “healthy, enjoyable and well-organized event.” Runners can choose to do a 5K, 10K or, for the first time, a half marathon that day.

Growing up in southern California, Herzog was never much of a runner. His sport of choice was rock climbing and surfing. Tammy, looking for a way to get into better shape so she wouldn’t be panting as she taught her self-defense classes, helped change that. Unexpectedly, Herzog’s running fetish turned him a marathon man. But after running five of them, he made an important discovery. “I ran into trouble with marathons,” said Herzog, who is a professional high-rise window cleaner. “Marathons were not the best distance for me.”

After running over 200 miles in preparation for the marathon and then running the marathon – his best time was 4 hours and 6 minutes – his legs would tighten up about a month after the event. That nudged Herzog to triathlons. “I think by mixing it up and doing different activities and not just running was better for me,” Herzog said. “Some runners can tolerate a lot of running. Others can’t. I break. If I just run and do nothing but running, I have injury problems.”

Just under 5’11″ and weighing 200 pounds, Herzog doesn’t have the lean body of a long-distance runner. But by mix in running with swimming and biking, Herzog can go on and on. He’s done about 50 triathlons, including the Leadman Triathlon, which is a longer version of the Iron Man.  It’s held every September in Bend, Ore., and the swim portion of the race is 3.1 miles, the bike portion is 138 miles and the run is 14 miles. This year, Herzog did the shorter version. “Doing the swimming, biking, and running has been best for me,” Herzog said.

Interestingly, while Herzog has found his niche in triathlons, he’s not content with it just being about his accomplishments. Instead, he gets involved, volunteering. “I think it’s important to give back,” Herzog said. “I think it’s really important not to be so self-focused.”

Over the years, Herzog has been involved with non-profits. He moved here to Washington from California nearly 20 years ago and helped plant a couple of churches. So, when Herzog got involved with running and joined the Club Oly Road Runners, he saw it as his responsibility to raise his hand and volunteer to help. “People had helped me, nurtured me. And given me help,” Herzog said.

Andy Fritz, Miguel Galena and Rich Brown befriended Herzog and helped him learn more about running and training. Brown, the Tumwater High School cross-country coach, is now coaching Herzog’s daughter. “There were things that needed to be done. Someone needed to put a hand up, a hand in and help out,” Herzog said about his commitment to volunteering. “I just started helping. That’s the other thing that the club is all about – giving back and helping others. It’s always been about volunteering.”

Herzog, with his passion for triathlons, was a catalyst in bringing the Black Hills Triathlon back. He’s on the committee for that event that’s held every year at Long Lake Park.

In addition to encouraging others to start running, Herzog and the running club he’s part of also helps by donating money to organizations and individuals. They help Crime Stoppers put on its annual run, the Reindeer Run. They’ve also helped the Olympia Education Foundation with a number of races. Their upcoming race – Turn Back The Clock – is a fund raiser for local high school cross country programs. “We’re all about helping the running community,” Herzog said. On occasion, they’ve also helped individual families. They donated about $600 to a club member’s family when her husband went through cancer treatment. “We try to help where we can,” Herzog said.

Tightening The Belt

Hélène Charlebois, a registered dietitian and nutrition coach in Ottawa, says excess weight can be detrimental to workers with jobs requiring physical exertion, such as firefighting, policing or window cleaning.

Tightening the Belt: A study down south, which finds obese employees cost companies about twice as much money on average as other employees do, highlights the consequences that obesity may have on the workplace.

The study, published in the May/June issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion, reports that overweight workers have higher rates of absenteeism and claims for workers’ compensation, medical care and short-term disability. An employee who is not obese costs an average of $3,830 per year in covered medical claims, sick days, short-term disability and workers’ compensation, while a morbidly obese person costs employers $8,067. The findings are based on data from nearly 30,000 employees over a three-year period.

“I don’t think we fully understand the direct association of obesity and the impact on the workplace,” says Mary Forhan, assistant professor with the University of Alberta’s faculty of rehabilitation medicine in Edmonton and a member of the Canadian Obesity Network.

Hélène Charlebois, a registered dietitian and nutrition coach in Ottawa, says excess weight can be detrimental to workers with jobs requiring physical exertion, such as firefighting, policing or window cleaning.

It can also affect positions like those of a cashier or waitress. An employee who has to stand at a cash register for eight hours a day is “not going to be able to be at that job very long, because it is just physically impossible,” Charlebois says, referring to the strain on the feet, knee joints and ankle joints.

“It predisposes you to a lot of other problems,” adds Kim McClelland, a registered nurse and wellness coordinator with the Toronto Police Service (TPS). Obese workers take more time off from work and have more diseases. “They are more tired, they take more breaks, they can’t concentrate.”

Ian Janssen, Ph.D., professor in kinesiology and health studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, co-authored a study published in 2011 that found obese workers have a 40 to 49 per cent higher risk of occupational injury. “Surprisingly, this related more to sedentary injuries that happen in more sedentary occupations,” Dr. Janssen says, citing repetitive strain and lower back pain as among the common ailments reported by the obese. “There is more increased likelihood of other illnesses and disabilities as well, even the flu. So that means persons with obesity are going to be potentially away from work more often.”

Obesity has been on the rise in Canada over the past few decades. In 1985, less than 10 per cent of the population was clinically overweight. By 2004, the level leaped to more than 20 per cent in every province and territory except British Columbia and Quebec, according to Statistics Canada.

In 2005, there were more than two million obese workers aged 18 to 64 in the country, 21 per cent of whom were older than 55. Men in the top-quarter income bracket were more likely to be overweight than other men were.

Forhan says the safety risks that obesity poses often depend on the job itself. “There are a lot of workers with obesity who actually could be very fit, strong and quite capable,” Forhan says. “When the risk starts to come in is when there is a disconnection between the person’s body size and shape and the workspace and demands of the job.”

An employee’s size might be incompatible with the required equipment or safety gear, and chronic health conditions like heart disease or high blood pressure could be dangerous in a job that involves physical exertion. So how can employers deal with this issue without being discriminatory?

“You need to be delicate, obviously, about the situation,” Dr. Janssen advises. “Just as you might accommodate somebody who is short or tall, you need to accommodate the person that might have a weight issue in the same way.”

Forhan agrees. “It is a matter of having a really good conversation with the employee about what their needs are,” she says, “in terms of being able to do their job safely.”

Dr. Janssen recommends making workplaces more health-conscious by allowing employees to stand during meetings, providing healthier choices in cafeterias and company lunches, offering subsidized gym memberships and permitting extra break time for exercise.

Charlebois believes that every employer should have access to a registered dietitian. “You should be able to take the receipt and put it through your medical insurance” — similar to claims for eyeglasses and dental, she says.

McClelland reports that the police service has a holistic nutritionist on staff. Other programs include educating police-force employees on the real cause of obesity, fatigue management and mental health.

“The more comprehensive they are, the more likely they are to have an impact,” Dr. Janssen says of corporate wellness programs, adding that staff feedback and evaluation of these programs are also important.

Whichever option an employer takes to address workplace obesity, McClelland says the focus should be on preventing and solving the problem, because “obesity is a symptom.” Jeff Cottrill is editorial assistant of ohs canada.

Also see: Window Cleaning Without Ladders