It's no secret that many entrepreneurs put in long hours,
have high stress levels and don't get a lot of downtime. It
comes with the territory. But, in the long run, how does an
entrepreneurial lifestyle affect your health?
When we sent questionnaires to Entrepreneur's Hot 100
business owners asking them to identify themselves as
"healthy" or "unhealthy," everyone picked
"healthy." Contrast those answers to the results of a
recent study by James M. Rippe, a professor at the Tufts University
School of Medicine, and you'll discover a serious
inconsistency. Rippe's study indicates corporate executives are
at high risk for serious health problems. So what gives? Are
entrepreneurs really in good health? Or are they simply in
denial?
"I work out every day," says Robert Blomstrom, 44, CEO
of Workplace Interiors, an Irvine, California, office furniture
company. "It makes me feel better about eating the inevitable
cheeseburger that I grab at lunch, as opposed to the salad I'm
supposed to eat." For entrepreneurs like Blomstrom, who quit
smoking 10 years ago and runs five kilometers per day, good health
is a way of life. For others, the issue is a bit more complex.
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Ned T. Lester, 62, CEO and president of Maxim Systems Inc., a
software engineering, system integration and computer development
firm in San Diego, considers himself healthy and
overweight-with an asterisk. Next to the box marked
"overweight" he wrote, "According to my wife and
doctor" (we can only imagine what a survey of the spouses and
doctors would have yielded). "The main thing is that I feel
great," says Lester.
Like Lester, most of the entrepreneurs surveyed feel
great. But feeling healthy and being healthy are two different
things. The truth is, almost everyone thinks they're healthy.
"Over 90 percent of people rate their health as good or
excellent," Rippe says. "But three-quarters of the
population is inactive and 30 to 40 percent are obese. Those people
carry enormous risks, yet they rate their health as good or
excellent."
Rippe's study also reveals that, when it comes to health
habits, executives are actually the same as everyone else.
"The surprising finding from our study was that the executive
population mirrored the rest of the country," he says.
"Here's an affluent, highly educated group of people used
to acting on data, but they run their own health at a much lower
level of sophistication than they run their businesses."
But what about entrepreneurs? Are they any different from the
Fortune 500 crew? Ninety-five percent of our entrepreneurs say they
exercise on a regular or occasional basis, and only 14 percent
think they're overweight. Conversely, Rippe's study found
that only 27 per-cent of executives exercise enough and 36 percent
are obese. An astounding 83 percent of entrepreneurs claim their
weight is average. "They're probably telling the
truth," says Rippe. "Because the average person in
America is overweight."
The problem seems to be that most people don't even know
whether they're healthy or not. "It's one thing to
ask, ‘Are you active?,' but if you start probing and say,
‘How often do you get 30 minutes of physical activity on a
regular basis?,' you start getting different numbers,"
says Rippe. "The vast majority of people who came into our
clinic [for the study] thought they were healthy, but left
understanding that even though they might feel healthy, in many
instances, they were carrying one, two or three risk factors for
coronary heart disease."
Early diagnosis is the key to reducing those risk factors, but
only half our entrepreneurs see their doctors on a regular basis.
The average age of those who get annual physicals is 42, while
it's 36 for those who wait until something's wrong. Most
young entre-preneurs claim they don't need to see a doctor,
don't have time or are too young to worry. Clay Mazur, 29,
co-founder and general manager of Interstate Resto-ration Group
Inc., a fire and water restoration firm in Fort Worth, Texas,
hasn't seen a doctor in the last five years. Why? "I'm
rarely ever sick. Maybe a cold now and then, but I feel pretty
good. I play soccer and work out once or twice a week."
While young entrepreneurs like Mazur may be in relatively good
health, Rippe says, it's still important for them to take
preventative measures. "Even if you're young and otherwise
healthy, you should see a doctor at least every other year to get
your cholesterol checked," says Rippe. "If you're a
man, get your prostate examined, and if you're a woman, get a
breast exam."
For many people, it takes a major problem to get their
attention. In his early 40s, Lester, who played football in high
school and was in the Navy for 20 years, didn't expect his
health to be a problem. "In 1984, I found out I had an atrial
fibrillation," says Lester. "It was a major wake-up call.
Now I'm religious about going to the doctor."
For Lester, taking care of his health isn't just good
sense-it's also good business. "My health affects my
company," says Lester. "If I feel good, I do my job
better, and the company runs better."
Rippe echoes the sentiment: "Seeing a doctor now is far
more cost-effective and timesaving than treating a major problem
later."
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