Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

I don't like scales. They scare me. Seriously. They scare me so much in fact, that I can't even stand to look at it on the bathroom floor. I hide mine in my closet. But unfortunately, doctors-doctors love scales. They love them so much in fact that they like to put them right in the middle of their office where everyone can see the big numbers that appear when you step on it. Total nightmare.

Last week, I had the privilege of going to visit my lovely "woman" doctor. Never  a happy visit, but this year I would give it the all time worst award. My visit went a little something like this:

Scene: Amy sitting on the examining table reading US Weekly waiting for her doctor who is now twenty minutes late.

Enter doctor.

Doctor apologizes for lateness, gives the usual small talk and starts rattling through my chart.

Doctor: "Well let's see, everything looks good so far. Your blood pressure is great. Hmmm, I'm sorry about the weight."

Silent, awkward, horrible longest pause in the history of the world.

Me: (Face turning as red as a tomato and general look of absolute what the hell?!)  "Excuse me?"

Doctor: (Realizes she has extremely offended me and starts to compensate). "Oh, I don't mean your fat, but you've gained six pounds since last year and we don't want it to keep going up. I mean, it has gone up." Flashes me fake smile.

Me: Well, there are no words.

I stared at the BMI chart on her wall for the duration of my visit. According to her handy dandy chart I'm in a normal weight range and have a healthy BMI. I am not overweight. but somehow when I left her office that day I was on the verge of a panic attack and racking my brain for the quickest way to get rid of those absolutely terrible, horrible no good six pounds. 

What my doctor doesn't know about me is that a few years ago I actually weighed a lot less than I do now. A lot less than my weight six pounds ago. So much less in fact that I was anorexic and was forced to gain weight by my friends and family because they honestly thought I looked like a skinny freak. And I did. I never ate more than half my food in those days regardless of what it was, I skipped meals and drove my mother insane when she tried to feed me at dinner. Going to a restaurant with me was probably the most unpleasant experience you can imagine, and I was an absolute control freak about food. I judged my self worth based on whatever number appeared on the scale. I also weighed myself five to 10 times a day.

I realize it's our doctors' jobs to be concerned about our weight, but my doctor had no concern for my overall health. I workout six days a week and eat healthy 95% of the time. I have abnormally low blood pressure, healthy cholesterol levels and great cardiovascular fitness. I run, lift weight and ride my bike. I also wear smalls and buy a size four. The average woman is a size 12.

Would it really kill health care professionals to have a little bit more compassion? Our health is the most important thing in our lives. But I don't want to be a skinny bitch. I love to workout, but I also like to drink wine and eat ice cream sometimes. It took me a long time to get a healthy attitiude about eating and even longer to embrace the way that I look. My doctor should be praising me for making healthy choices and taking care of myself in a postiive way, not lecturing me for a influx of six pounds. It's especially important when we are bombarded with images of size zero celebrities and women of all ages are suffering from eating disorders. Being skinny doesn't equal being beautiful and I would much rather be what I am now than the unhappy rail that used to. My scale will stay in my closet and me and my six pounds will continue to be very happy together.

 (Also please note: My doctor was at least 20 pounds overweight.)

A brand with the fangs of a dragon and the sights of a Stinger Missile is back. It's one of my favorite brands of all time -- especially when its tough and unflinching. It's The News and Observer. And over the last three months, it's reminded everyone from the governor to the Joe & Jane Public just how it earned its reputation as one of the nation's best dailies. This even as it lays off staff. In fact, because of the challenges facing the N&O, its fire-breathing return to fighting form should be an inspiration to all businesses.

A newspaper -- like a lot of enterprises -- serves many audiences and often shifts its brand identity to meet different needs. The brand identity that's conspicuously roared back at the N&O isn't the USA Today-style shorts and tips. It's the investigative reporting, agitator-for-the-public-good brand that made the paper's bones under the leadership of its founders and legendary editors like Pulitzer-winner Claude Sitton. The firebrand brand, if you will.

This isn't to say the N&O ever lost that element of its character. It's just that recently the paper has become a must-read thanks to coverage of stumbles on mental health policy and other government goofs. Did you catch the phrase "must-read"? What print publication in America wouldn't kill for that description?

So what? Well, the big biz lesson here is the wisdom in tough times of identifying and seizing on your strongest value proposition, the one thing that makes you close to indispensable. The N&O is apparently betting its key value is uncovering and righting wrongs. Considering how much buzz I've heard about the paper's recent front page stories, I'd be hard pressed to disagree.

On another front, Starbucks is going through a similar process. As it closes stores, the kingdom of caffeine is re-evaluating what it does best -- is it the half-caff skinny mochas or classic rock CDs? Thousands of companies big and small across recession-wracked America face similar challenges. I'm impressed and thankful the N&O is answering the questions with an exclamation point.

(Full disclosure: I was a reporter at the N&O for two years under the aforementioned Claude Sitton and alongside some of the guys still running the paper's investigative operations. And yes, I still love them, the paper and the whole notion of daily journalism.)

There are few things in the universe more evil than carnival food. Check out Newsweek's list of the 7 most unhealthy carnival foods.

7. Cotton Candy
One large cone of spun sugar is 200 calories. It's practically health food.

6. Snow Cones
The sugary syrup used is 100 calories an ounce. A 12 oz. snow cone will end up being 550 calories, depending on how syrup-heavy you take it.

5. Corn Dogs
a.k.a the "nitratesicle" contains 375 calories and 21 grams of fat and 1170 mg. of sodium.

4. Deep Fried Twinkie
One deep fried Twinkie contains 420 calories and 32 grams of fat. That doesn't include any sugar or jelly topping.

3. Deep Fried Oreos
Each cookie contains 157 calories and 10.1 grams of fat.

2. Funnel Cake
An 8.3 oz. cake contains 760 calories, 44 grams of fat, 80 grams of carbs and 20 mg. of cholesterol.

1. Deep Fried Candy Bars
Everything from Snickers, Mars, Milkyway and 3 Musketeers is deep-fried and slapped on a stick. A king-size, deep-fried bar has over 700 calories and 44 grams of fat.

What's your favorite carnival food?

In the distant future, health care is a commodity the average person can access only by winning a highly publicized lottery. A bad sci-fi movie, possibly starring Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis? No, it's a real program underway in Oregon.

Can't a country routinely affording $3.60 cups of coffee can do better than to let citizens gamble their lives on the long odds of winning a lottery?

Working at an agency can sometimes be hard on your diet. We frequently get food treats as motivators and are always looking for ways to take a break and eat some sugar. In fact, that same day we called out Chief Creative Officer and asked him to stop by Whole Foods and buy a cake on his way back from a meeting. He is a super busy executive and he did it. We loved every bite.

Despite this demand for cake, we have turned over a healthier leaf at Capstrat. A few years ago we had chocolate every day of the week. Our health premiums went up, and now we only have it on Fridays. Last year, we made some even bigger changes. We introduced fitness clubs to help us stay active. We now have yoga at the office every Friday, a walking club, a running club and a biking club. We also evaluated our lunch menus and make a more concerted effort to bring in healthier lunches. We still have pizza. We still have cake. We just don't have it every day (or at least we try not to).

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a health-nut. I'm the crazy girl who spends hours in the grocery store examining food labels and trying to depict the elements of the "helpful" ingredient list. There are certain words on a food label that if you see, well let's just say you better run screaming into the soy section and pick up a container of yogurt in the hopes it will cleanse your body of the toxins that probably seeped in from that package of granola bars. If anyone can tell me what "fractionated palm kernel oil" is I'll give you a cookie. (Free of partially hydrogenated oils of course). Some people may think it's border line obsessive compulsive the way I examine food. Whatever. I'll be the one laughing at my 97th birthday party.

Wake-up.Turn on any morning TV show, and you're bound to learn a plethora of information about food. Fries are bad, oatmeal's good. Common sense, right? One would think that's the case. But in the next breathe after Meredith Viera tells us to eat our oatmeal and berries, she delivers a statement that made me gag on my toothbrush. For the first time since the Civil War (again I iterate the Civil War) American's life expectancy is now on the decline. Declining. Going down. No more growing old with our loved one until we're 100. Now we should just be praying we get in a good 70 years. Why is this? Childhood obesity rates have surged so greatly in the past few years that kids have knocked 10 years off their lives before they're even teenagers. An acclaimed food Nazi, I hear this and am in moral disbelief. The problem is that most American families listen to Meredith Viera's words and rush out the door to make the usual morning pit stop for a McDonald's bacon egg and cheese biscuit. Does this fact not shock us? Does it not make us stop and think, "Hey, maybe I should eat Cheerios instead." No. It's just like teens who think they'll never get cancer from smoking. That won't happen to me. I'll lose weight when I'm older. I'll start exercising. I'll get a Wii!

Oh the Wii. Props to you, Nintendo. A valiant effort to get the kiddies up off the couch and moving around the living room. The New York Times even did a story on a British study conducted on the health benefits of the Wii. A heart-racing game of Wii tennis will burn about 179 calories an hour. Impressive. And I'm sure that little Bobby washes down his victorious game of tennis with an ice cold Coca-Cola and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Make that Cooler Ranch Doritos. We should all run out to Best Buy and make a purchase toward our health. An hour of real tennis burns at least two times as much as the pseudo version brought to us in our living room. Do they list that on the box? Kids who watch hours of TV and play video games are more likely to be obese. The Wii is a step in the right direction, but it's not the answer.

Network executives at NBC learned that they could also capitalize on obesity in America. Hell, there are so many obese Americans why don't we create a show that awards the person who can lose the most weight? Beautiful. Enter "The Biggest Loser." Thousands of people send in their requests to be picked for the show. Everyone is so willing to prove that they are absolutely fatter than the next guy. Congratulations, you win. You're really, really fat. So now for a season of primetime TV we get to watch the NBC approved fattest Americans shrink before our eyes. Contestants get 24 hour access to top personal trainers and meals handed to them with carefully factored out calories. Entertainment at its finest. If anything, this only affirms for most Americans the difficulty of losing weight. Most people don't have time to give up their jobs and spend 24 hours a day on the treadmill. This isn't how real life works. In real life it takes serious effort to make the right choices that contibute to a longer, healthier life. We don't all have to be food Nazis, but we do all have to take a moment, step away from the Wii and start processing the words of Meredith Viera.

Obsessing over every calorie that enters your body will never make you happy. Nothing will ever be as good as fresh baked chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven. But trading in a pint of Ben and Jerry's for some frozen yogurt and taking a walk around the block are all very doable in our daily lives. 

In 2006, our client Blue Cross and Blue Shield began implementing workplace wellness initiatives among its employees. Out of 213 employees who participated the group lost a total of 700 pounds. The program, Blue Challenge gave employees the tools to undersand their health and nutrition. Weight loss is hard, but those in a motivating environment are more likely to stick with the program. Taking workplace wellness a step further, why not take these health and nutrition tools home to the family? 

If we learned nothing else from Willy Wonka, let's remember that gluttony will only get you a ticket to the furnace where you will be fished out by Oompa Loompas. The keys to your health are simple.

• Eat right.
• Exercise.
• Get enough sleep.
• Laugh as often as possible.

What's that last one again? Laughter. Happiness may be a temporary state in our lives, but those of us who are willing to take time to exercise, eat some fruit and laugh with our friends, won't have to start looking for a director to help out with our Biggest Loser audition tapes. These simple tasks are what make a healthy individual thrive. So do yourself a favor, and learn to practice moderation. Skip the drive thru in the morning and pour yourself a bowl of cereal. Take a walk, ride your bike or even take a trip to that strange universe known as the gym.

And if you have kids, don't think you can buy them a Wii, give them some Lucky Charms and call them the picture of health. Eating habits stay with you the rest of your life. Sit down with your kid and take some really good notes during Willy Wonka. Remember what happened to Augustus Gloop. You don't wanna be the poor Oompa Loompa that has to save him from the furnace, do you?

House Bill 267 requires that all North Carolina businesses with alcohol permits sort and have collected all glass, plastics and cans. Furthermore, any new businesses wishing to obtain alcohol permits must provide proof of contracted service to have recycling picked up. I salute such a huge step in the direction of sustainability. Business owners are sure to feel the pinch, however, and there is little doubt that consumers will share in that discomfort. It's important that the General Assembly run with the ball it's picked up and not drop it. Currently only 5 of 100 counties are offering to collect businesses' recyclables. Only 51 are going to allow businesses to drop off at community collection centers. Hopefully this burden will continue to be eased. As the old adage goes, you can certainly catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Senate Bill 862 - Smoke-free UNC - serves to:

"Allow regulation of smoking on the campuses of the UNC Health Care System, the facilities of the East Carolina School of Medicine and Physicians Practice Plan, and the buildings and grounds of the constituent institutions of the University of North Carolina."

To clarify, 'constituent institutions' means all member schools in the University of North Carolina system, and 'regulation' is defined as the prohibiting of smoking inside and within 100 linear feet of any building on the campus of any aforementioned institution. Legislation like this, and programs such as the North Carolina Health Wellness Trust Fund, are helping to shape and articulate national opinions on a number of important issues, from the economics of health care to the responsibility required of all of us in order to affect change. North Carolina is clearly ready to honor its legacy on Tobacco Road with smart, progressive decisions that will help safeguard its future.

Both pieces of legislation deserve kudos, and both have me feeling pretty great about Capstrat, and about my work that matters. To read more about new NC legislation ringing in with the new year, try these tips:

• Download the PDF . WARNING! EXTREMELY DRY READ!

• Grab your nearest Google search bar and type: "effective january 1, 2008" legislation inurl:ncleg. Takes you straight to the meaty bits. Supplement this search with additional keywords ('recycling,' for example) to further narrow the search. 

And if you see something you don't like, or otherwise have a strong opinion about, track down your representative and voice it.