"Raise the Standard of Health" incentives offered for participation in 100 Day Wellness Challenge

Live Healthy Iowa’s 100 Day Wellness Challenge will begin in just a few days, and The Standard Newspaper is offering some incentives for area businesses and individuals to try and “Raise the Standard of Health" in Allamakee County.
Businesses willing to pay the discounted entry fee for a team of employees to participate in the 100 Day Challenge could have that entry fee completely reimbursed in advertising with The Standard. Likewise, individuals who form their own team or are signed up on their own can receive $10 off a new 12-month subscription to The Standard.
According to online statistics, Allamakee County ranks as nearly the worst, 97th, among Iowa’s 99 counties in factors that influence health. Those factors include health behaviors, such as smoking, drinking and obesity; clinical care, such as percent of population without health insurance; social and economic factors, such as unemployment and percentage of children living in poverty; and physical environment, such as air pollution and access to healthy foods and recreational facilities.
The Standard sees the Live Healthy Iowa 100 Day Wellness Challenge as a positive way to improve Allamakee County’s health ranking and the health of the county's residents. The subscription and advertising incentives being offered by the newspaper are seen as a way for The Standard to “help others help themselves”.

PROMOTE A BUSINESS BY PROMOTING HEALTH
Businesses that provide proof of having paid the discounted registration fee for a team of employees before the program starts (January 23) could have half of that discounted registration fee credited against any new advertising placed in The Standard in 2012. The other half of that registration fee could then also be credited toward new advertising in 2012 once the business team captain provides proof of team members actually participating and reporting their results in either category of minutes of physical activity or weight loss. Contact The Standard at 563-568-3431 for further details on the promotion.

NEW SUBSCRIPTION, NEW YOU
Individuals who may or may not be part of a team can also benefit from the “Raise the Standard” incentive for participating in the 100 Day Wellness Challenge. Anyone providing proof of registering for the Challenge event to The Standard office by January 31 will receive $10 off a new subscription or new gift subscription. A new subscriber is one who has not had a subscription to The Standard in the past 90 days.

ONLINE REGISTRATION
Registration for the program can be done online as either an individual or as part of a team through a team captain at www.livehealthyiowa.org. The registration fee of $20 entitles participants to a number of items and features helpful guidelines in meeting the Challenge. A link on the Hy-Vee web page, www.hy-vee.com, also allows a $5 discount off that registration fee, which will be payable online at the completion of registration.
Participants can register for either or both of two divisions of involvement in the 100 Day Wellness Challenge program, recording minutes of physical activity or weight loss, or both. Both measures are reported at the end of each week either individually or to a team captain.
Minutes of physical activity are those that involve activity above and beyond normal daily activity, such as walking during a lunch break or taking part in an exercise class or other activity. The goal is to simply increase physical activity on a regular basis.
The weight loss division records initial weight for an individual or team and then reports weekly weight loss or gain as a percentage of that total individual or team weight. Individual weights cannot be viewed by anyone other than the individuals reporting or administering the weight loss division on the event’s website.

LOCAL REGISTRATION
Participants in Allamakee County may register a team or as an individual under the Allamakee Group ID code LHIALLCO. By typing in that code, all participants will be registered under Allamakee County, where a newly-formed wellness coalition is looking to increase participation in the event from its low levels of past years, hoping to get at least 10% of the county’s population to take part in the event this year.
Allamakee County is one of 20 counties throughout the state of Iowa designated for rural outreach, based on health and insurance statistics, to help improve the overall health of the county’s residents. The local coalition has been initially working with John Stevens, a former Grundy Center school district administrator who is now the Outreach Coordinator for Live Healthy Iowa.
It is planned to have each week’s results recorded by local teams in the Minutes of Physical Activity division published in The Standard as the program gets underway.

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS
In addition to the incentive to become more active and improve health, each participant will receive a training t-shirt, weekly motivational e-mails, a personal tracking page, unlimited access to recipes, workouts and health information, a chance to win team and/or individual prizes, a one-year magazine subscription to one of 10 health-related magazines, and much more.
Learn more about the 100 Day Wellness Challenge and Live Healthy Iowa at www.livehealthyiowa.org.