As a health care provider, Butler Memorial Hospital is a logical workplace to launch an ambitious wellness program to help employees become healthier. As a group, BMH employees certainly know the risks associated with being overweight, smoking and other unhealthy behaviors or conditions.

To many people, it seems odd that a noticeable number of employees of the hospital are overweight — and it's almost jarring to see hospital employees taking smoking breaks outside the various buildings on the campus.

It would seem that health care workers, more than anyone else, would understand the risks of being overweight and of smoking. No doubt they do, but the fact that the hospital is addressing these issues with a comprehensive wellness program illustrates the fact that health care workers are like people in any profession, and have health issues such as being overweight, being out of shape and being addicted to nicotine.

If the hospital's new wellness program proves successful in making BMH employees healthier, by dropping pounds from overweight workers, increasing their strength and flexibility while at the same time shifting people toward healthier diets and also slashing or eliminating smoking and the use of chewing tobacco, the hospital will reap benefits on several levels.

Healthier employees should be more effective at work and will likely miss fewer days due to illness. Workers who are not overweight and do not smoke will require less medical care throughout their lives and thus will save the hospital money through reduced costs of providing employee health care.

A hospital has the in-house expertise to launch a wellness program, but other companies should be watching the BMHexperiment to see what kind of results the program produces. With about 1,700 workers, the hospital's results should provide a fair representation of what would happen at other companies making a similar effort.

The hospital will therefore serve as a local pioneer in implementing a wellness program. Through the course of its effort, hospital officials will discover what works and what doesn't work. Researching similar efforts around the country, hospital officials are doubtless prepared to take different approaches and copy programs that have worked elsewhere and adjust their efforts here, if necessary.

Clearly, the experiment is worth the effort — for BMH and other employers who might follow its lead.

A walk down Main Street or a stroll through a mall will provide evidence that Butler County is not immune from the obesity crisis creeping across America. Studies have confirmed that Americans are consuming about 300 calories more a day than they did 20 years ago. To make matters worse, those same Americans also are exercising less than they did years ago — and it shows.

The linkage between smoking and an increased risk of cancer has been known for decades. Likewise, the connection between being significantly overweight and a higher risk for diabetes, heart disease and stroke is well documented. Many of these ailments are preventable, but it takes effort.

Like many things, becoming healthier and dropping bad habits, while starting new, healthy ones, is easier said than done. Most employees at the hospital who are overweight or smoke know that they would be better off if they changed their behavior. The hospital's new wellness program wisely provides plenty of support for people to make the necessary changes.

There also are incentives such as subsidized health club memberships. But, employees must show that they are doing their share — showing up for workouts and becoming more fit — for the financial assistance to continue. That is the way it should work.

Measuring the results of the program could be a challenge, but it also is a way of holding employees accountable, providing BMHwith documented results to prove the return on its investment.

BMH deserves credit for launching its wellness program, and as it begins to show results, other employers in the county should consider similar efforts.