Spending Your Wellness Money on Candy

A few days ago, one of my more irascible friends dissed the ALS ice bucket challenge on Facebook, figuratively pouring cold water on event participants. He would have gotten a more favorable response had he announced to my wife’s book-club group (all of them mothers) that he didn’t think child-birth pain and labor was such a big deal.

His point was this, though — the ALS ice-bucket challenge (IBC) has raised disproportionate money/attention for an issue which pales (statistically) beside other diseases/health issues also in need of funding.  For example, heart disease and cancer (each) annually cause 100X the deaths of ALS. Diabetes-related deaths are 10X higher.  The numbers are more severe if we start talking about world-wide deaths from malnutrition or poor sanitation or lower respiratory disease. This info-graphic makes the point better than all of those words I just used.

Maybe the money going to ALS won’t displace funding for other causes (unlikely). Maybe the ice-bucket backlash is too harsh and misses the point. In any case, this post isn’t about any of that or the disease or how desperate or deserving ALS is for research funding.

The issue triggered questions for me about how people spend/invest their money. And forced me to work on new and improved excuses I could offer up to remain saintly without dousing myself with ice water.  And — after that, as a wellness coach — my brain went immediately to spending/investment related to wellness. I came away with three thoughts, which is three more than I usually have on important issues.  Here’s that ice-bucket-list and the connections to wellness:

• First, what we say we care about (are most of us really clear about that?) and what we actually spend our money on often doesn’t line up. I’m betting most of the good IBC participants knew/know little about ALS and would not have chosen it as a donation target without IBC.  The point is NOT that ALS was a “bad” spend. The point is that it wasn’t connected to conscious priorities, like me buying my 17th guitar. The IBC strategy bypassed conscious priorities.  With wellness, examples of mis-aligned spending are rife for those who care (or say they do) about personal health: unused expensive gym memberships, P90X DVDs played once or twice, protein powders and supplements, and the magical organic sugar that tastes/acts like sugar, but somehow isn’t.
• Second, it’s easy to get off track and spend/invest inconsistently.  IBC illustrates this well.  Admit it, the first 93 portrait videos of IBC’s were fun and highly engaging. Even swearing toddlers got into the act.  Social influence created the knee-jerk groundswell; irresistible fun linked to a good cause.  I realize I’m stating the obvious (I have a gift), but do most of us really get the extent/power of these messages?? Now consider similar messages around wellness (leading to inconsistent investment): miracle weight loss supplements, gorgeous fitness models with 8% body fat, Chuck Norris hawking the Total Gym, etc.  Combine this marketing barrage with real controversies and information shortfalls in the wellness arena, and you get to my third point (finally, you’re saying…).
• Third, even if you’re mindful of both your vision/goals and the means, choosing an effective spend/investment isn’t always easy.  The one apparent exception to this is the backyard trampoline, if the number of rusty trampolines in some neighborhoods and Walmart trampoline revenue are statistically valid indicators. Using IBC as the launching point again, how did you choose your charity/cause if you didn’t accept ALS as the default? How did you identify your criteria and match them to charities/causes? Harder than it sounds.  Again, give IBC credit; it pre-selected the low-hanging fruit for you.  Wellness initiatives have the same somewhat complicated dynamic; lots of low-hanging but maybe not optimal fruit.  The old adage “start somewhere” certainly comes into play here (hence, my trampoline), and there are simple truths that rule (e.g., move more, eat less sugar/more veggies). But the average Joe/Josephine is not clear about how their personal preferences/goals line up with the most effective wellness initiatives.

There’s an old joke when someone sings, and karaoke is the best opportunity to introduce the joke question: “Where did you spend the money your mother gave you for singing lessons?  The candy store?”  Or in my case, the guitar store, though I have a flawless, deeply resonant and pitch-perfect voice in the shower.

In light of the above issues, here are some parting questions.   What are the common candy-stores where we mis-spend our wellness money?  What should we be spending our wellness money on?  As it turns out, IBC is instructive for wellness spending in both positive and negative ways.

I’ll cover all of that in part two.  But right now it’s time for my INSANITY workout routine on the trampoline.