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ENTRY FROM: 2019 Top Health Promotion Professionals

Nominee: Doug Schmidt

The Case for Employees Living the Good Life: How a plant based initiative helped to rein in insurance costs

I am a veteran teacher who has worked in the Victor Central School District in upstate New York for 23 years. Our district has over 600 employees including teachers, administration, aides, bus drivers, maintenance and groundskeepers. Four years ago, I was tapped to lead our district as Health and Wellness Coordinator. We are in a consortium of 35 school districts for health care called FLASHP(Finger Lakes Area School Health Plan) lead by Rick Amundson from Smola Consulting. He supports all of us by holding bimonthly meetings for the coordinators, but by far the most beneficial resource he gives each coordinator is our annual membership to WELCOA. As a classroom teacher I know the importance of furthering one's knowledge. Once I received the membership I worked to learn as much as I could. I used WELCOA's resources starting with the 7 Benchmarks. This gave me the groundwork to begin to develop my wellness team and to help ask the right questions of my staff to improve their health and wellness. Each year I strive to further my understanding in this field by taking these beneficial courses. In 2017, I earned my faculty designation. What brought me to this field was having a widowmaker heart attack at age 49, when I switched to a whole food plant based diet. I reversed my own heart disease with just changing what I ate. Now, a decade later, I have lost 60 pounds. I am off of all medications, even a daily aspirin. I ran my first marathon at age 58. I now lead others to help them to regain their health. My wife and I have a Facebook group with over 2500 members called Eat Plants Love which helps people navigate the world of plant based nutrition, guiding them to the reputable research and practitioners in the field.

Doug Schmidt

As health and wellness coordinator, my initial initiatives were helping the district take part in our annual 5K run, and a 10-Day Ditch the Dairy campaign. I produced monthly newsletters full of video content, recipes and research.  We held a screening of the movie “Eating You Alive” open to not just staff, but our community as well. To increase participation in our annual biometric screenings, I used a video of a 2nd grade student speaking to the staff on opening day of school, to encourage our staff to participate in getting a screening. This small video helped us to double our participation.

 

In January 2018, I lead a 10-day whole food plant based challenge for 35 school districts and garnered a segment on Good Morning America. In January 2019, we repeated the challenge. This time we had over 75 school districts participating. 3300 teachers and staff from across New York state completed the challenge. Participants have used the challenge to start their path to regain their health. We have staff using this to help keep their cancer in remission, reduce their cholesterol to normal levels, lose weight, prevent and reverse heart disease, lower blood pressure and some were able to come off of their diabetes medications. People have learned to take charge of their own health.  People who participated in the challenge averaged the following results:

Lowered total cholesterol up to 50 points

Lowered Blood pressure

Lower Glucose numbers

Weight loss up to 10 pounds

Increased energy

Better sleep

*Reduction in prescription medications

 

This happened all in just 10 days of eating a whole food plant based diet. Some of the comments we received were:

“So...total cholesterol went from 219 to 109. TC/HDL from 4.3 to 2.3. Glucose 95 to 84. Lost 6 lbs and BMI down 1.3. Place me solidly in the believer column. I have struggled with hyperlipidemia for 25+ years. My total cholesterol has never been so low. You did in 10 days what doctors couldn’t do for years!”

 

“I must say, I didn’t think I would have very interesting data to share because my original numbers were pretty decent. Total cholesterol 175 now 121 Ratio was 2.9 now 2.4 Blood pressure 121/83 now 105/69 BMI down 2.5 Waist down 2.5 inches I did do the challenge as directed with no cheating.“

 

“Timing is everything. I had scheduled a physical months ago before knowing about this 10 day rescue. So Monday I had blood work done and I just now got my results. My cholesterol was 194 in 2014. Today it is 133. I am not on statin drugs. I just changed my diet. Whoa!”

 

These are hard numbers. These are shifts in health that are measurable. The board of directors for our consortium of school districts said this was the most important health initiative that was ever implemented. Have we saved money? Lower health care costs? Compared to districts outside of our network who are seeing double digit health care increases, we are in the single digits. That is a start.

 

How do you coordinate 3300 people from disparate regions of the state to make them feel part of an event and not alone? We had a kickoff event a month before the challenge to encourage people to signup with guest speakers and vendors. I created a Facebook group for the challenge which had over 800 participating in discussions. I shared resources, videos and recipes for the group. We had Youtube live sessions to answer all their questions for all the participants. I sent out daily newsletter emails with success stories, video content on plant based nutrition and more recipes. Each school district had a built in support network of individuals who were participating. They shared recipes and made lunches for each other.

Many of the districts that participated in 2018 had Plant Based Coaches established that I trained (Fall 2018) to be their districts go-to-person for questions and answers. Many of those coaches held cooking demos and planning sessions to help the participants. I brought in a local doctor to speak to our coaches to further their knowledge of how plant based nutrition helps fight most chronic diseases. One of my proudest moments was when our district chef and our district dietician decided, on their own, to make up challenge compliant meals for the staff. I hadn’t asked them, they just went ahead knowing that it was something to try to help build our culture. They have continued making these meals on a weekly basis for the staff. As a result of this initiative I received the Wealth of Health Award for “Best Company Group Wellness Initiative” by Excellus Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Rochester Business Journal for 2018.

At times it is hard to calculate ROI in the health and wellness field. How do you record savings on events that never happened by changing the course of health for an individual?

The pre-diabetic who now no longer is pre-diabetic. The person with hereditary heart disease who improves their numbers so well that their doctor takes them off of all their medications. In a survey after the event, over 90% said they would participate again. Over 80% said they will continue adding more plant based options into their meals. Since running this challenge in my district for 4 years, the culture of the school has changed. At district functions healthier options are available. We are looking at how to incorporate healthier food for our students. My wellness team attends workshops offered by universities on greening the school meals. I have one employee using plant based nutrition to reverse his diabetes, another to prevent the progression of her macular degeneration, another using it to heal her IBS. Other districts are conducting  cooking classes and weekend meetups to batch cook to help people get ready for the next week. Health and wellness is not just about “savings” and “ROI”. It is about families living long and healthy lives. It is bringing health where there was illness. This challenge was not a “one and done” experience, but a segue to people making fundamental shifts in their health.

 

My Vision

Our nation is a nation in crisis. We are a country exploding with chronic diseases making the costs for employers, and employees, skyrocket. Right now, it is a runaway freight train with no signs of stopping. 1 in 3 Americans will die of heart disease, the leading killer of all Americans. More women will die of heart disease than all cancers combined. 1 in 4 children suffer with chronic disease. 1 in 3 are obese. 1 in 5 have high cholesterol. There is hope and there are things that cannot just slow, but stop, and even reverse, the train.

By making people aware of their lifestyle choices, we can reduce cancers by 40%. By helping people take charge of their own health, we drastically lower the heart disease risks and insurance costs. I want, not only my staff to be healthier, but I want my students to be healthier. I want to inspire the community to take charge of their own health and not delegate it to a doctor’s office visit.

The tides are turning. Plant based nutrition is the most effective way to change our health. It is the only way of eating proven to prevent and reverse heart disease. Local restaurant owners have asked me for help to adjust their menus. More and more fast food places have plant based options. Doctors, from cardiologists to nephrologists, are recommending people to shift their eating instead of taking pills. We see the term ‘plant based’ pop up daily in the media. Nutrition is but one piece of the puzzle on leading our employees to better health. With this one piece in place, people are better prepared to incorporate other shifts to improve their health even more. A recent article in the magazine Fast Company stated that Tufts University researchers say moving towards a diet more centered on fruits and vegetables would save 100 billion in medical costs. This was shown in one testimonial from our challenge.

“I've been plant strong for a year now, and I am no longer on statins (total cholesterol of 130, triglycerides at 95). I'm constantly within 3 lbs. of ideal weight for 7 months straight. I'm able to play tennis, compete in 10-11 races, including trail, road, duathlons, and triathlons every year, and do soccer refereeing on the side. I feel like I've turned back the clock! I feel more like 31 than 51.”

You can’t mandate people to make healthy choices. With a little creativity and help from supportive health and wellness advocates, we can help people realize that small changes can lead to big results. This will not be a top down government lead initiative. It will be a grassroots groundswell by people like us in the trenches every day, helping to make changes in our employees lives.




 

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Photos

Doug Schmidt Before and After of Doug Plant Based Coaches Training The Doctor came to talk to the coaches Challenge Participants Coaches learning to cook
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Douglas S.
Heart attack survivor. That event has lead me to seek health and wellness not only for myself but also for those I work and come in contact with. The 3 leading killers in America are Heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes and cancer. They are also some of the most costly diseases for insurance providers. I use my experiences to give hope and encouragement to others while also reducing employers insurance costs. View Douglas S.'s Profile.
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Doug is changing lives. What started as a local effort has gone regional. The care and concern that he gives to creating better health for people is clear. He is not a doctor, but he may be curing more people of illness (or preventing illness) than many doctors who provide pills for symptoms rather than lifestyle changes for real health.

M H. on 6/01/2019

Sometimes we get lucky in life. I am so lucky to work in a school district where Doug Schmidt is the wellness coach. Everyday is an opportunity to learn from Doug as he exemplifies,in every way ,the very best of what it is to be a wellness coach. He is so well studied and dedicated to hundreds of people in our school district and the community. When I consider one school year, Doug has supported me in the following ways: offering 2 jump starts-including biometrics.. offering cooking demo-wfpb- organizing a personal borrowing library wfpb/ wellness giving wellness info- websites/fb etc.. offering many new recipes -wfpb- personal consultations – too many to count this year… Doug is making a positive impact on our NY State communities. He has offered jump starts to multiple districts as far as New York City connected with local physicians to support wfpb eating, and caught the attention of National Media. He was featured on Good Morning America. Doug truly lives wellness ! He is a gift. I am so thankful for Doug. Allison Murphy

allison m. on 5/30/2019

Because I attended Doug’s workshop at a professional conference, I have done his challenge twice. I have become well read on the topic of eating whole food plant based and had 15 colleagues sign up to join me with Doug’s January challenge. Since then (6 months), without eating less food- but changing to the right food, I have lost 15 lbs, my husband over 20- we feel better, have overcome stomach issues, have more energy, husband came off statins and baby aspirin. My colleagues lost a collective 55 lbs that I am aware - have come off medications and many of us have introduced this way of health to family and friends who are also now on a healthier path. Doug’s life experiences (Baker, teacher, heart attack survivor) have led him to effectively educate masses of people that are now living healthier, longer, more productive lives. We are more than fortunate that he and his wife have dedicated themselves to helping others in their mission. I am extremely thankful and appreciative.

Lisa H. on 5/23/2019

Doug has helped so many people in our community improve their health over the years. For years, I tried to encourage my own extended family members to improve their health as I am a nurse. In January 2019, I mentioned to Doug that I was trying to encourage my brother to participate in Doug's 10 day WFPB Jumpstart challenge. Doug offered to meet with my brother and sister in law to answer any questions they might have and to share his own story. It worked! They enrolled in the challenge along with my parents and my husband and I. Six of us participated in the challenge! Although my husband and I are a healthy weight and are not battling chronic health conditions, the others were all overweight and battled chronic conditions including hyperlipidemia, hypertension, chronic obstructive sleep apnea, etc, We lost approximately 60lbs collectively in the 10 days! My brother lost 17lbs in just those 10 days! By March he had lost 35lbs! After years of trying to help him, it was Doug who was finally able to make a difference! Thank you Doug for helping improve my family's health! I am so grateful!

Patty H. on 5/22/2019

1 have been on Doug’s team since January. He keeps me focused and motivated everyday.

Sandra M. on 5/18/2019

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