Dear Tribe,
Did you know that:
Women spend 25% more of their life in ill health than men?
More than half of the health gap between men and women, occurs in their working years: ages 15 – 50?
This gender differential is reflected in multiple research studies. Most recently, the Cigna Healthcare International Health Study 2024, reported that men have higher vitality (where vitality is defined by high perceived autonomy and competence across all health), at 67.9%, than women, at 64.7%.
We women also face higher stress levels which translates to different behaviours:
20% of women report they delayed getting medical attention vs 18% for men;
17% of women report delaying counselling or therapy services versus 12% for their male counterparts.
The toll of professional work on health impacts women disproportionately to men. So, with the Accelerate Action theme of International Women’s Day, I would like to invite you to take action on this key area for us!
Action 1: Become an internal Spokesperson: Drive Awareness and Education:
With women’s health transitions from the ages of 16 to 60 are substantially influenced due to hormonal fluctuations, awareness of these changes, their implications and how they can be managed are critical. However, with 80% of autoimmune conditions sufferers being female, women’s health should be given a wider focus and deep dive into the 4 Ms of Health:
Metabolic Wellness: e.g. Insulin Resistance and Diabetes 2
Mental Wellness: e.g. Stress, Depression, Dementia and Alzheimer’s
Maternity and Reproductive Health: e.g. infertility
Hormonal and Menstrual Wellness: e.g. Perimenopause/Menopause
Contact me for my Peak Performance for Women programme to help embed these into your business.
Action 2: Demonstrate how Change can be Measured:
As the saying goes, what gets measured, gets done. Health metrics can be clearly measured – what is missing is the lack of understanding on how this is possible, as well as the knowledge of what to measure. Employers can encourage their female employees to take their health into their own hands, demystify the important dimensions and measure the critical indicators which drive those.
A simple example is diabetes – women are prone, as they go through motherhood and also in their perimenopausal phases, to suffer from increased insulin resistance (the precursor to diabetes). The ability to measure fasting insulin through simple bloodwork and then support it with lifestyle changes, can reverse the increasing incidence of what is a silent epidemic.
My Personal Health Dashboard is the ultimate tool get you and your teams to focus on the key metrics – contact me to discuss it at length and make it available to your teams.
Action 3: Spearhead Health-centred Policies
Menopausal leave is now a new popular policy that corporations in various parts of the world are taking on. However, women’s health ailments are more than in just that life-stage. Speak to your internal sponsors on driving policies that can shift the dial for women’s health inclusion, such as introducing:
Health Days: days where employees to take time to visit their doctors (or take it as a day to recover from conditions that may be taboo that affect women more, e.g endometriosis).
Health Coaching Programmes: how emotions and hormones can be impacted by the microbiome (the friendly bacteria in the gut), and how they, in turn, impact mental health and performance are some of the key areas that professional women can benefit from as part of long-term health coaching. Seek this as a benefit that underlines long-term awareness AND drives accountability.
Health Transformation Days/Activities: corporate HR / Talent should be encouraged to share positive, transformative health experiences to enable dialogue and openness on what are often seen as taboo subjects.
Action 4: Drive a Culture of Health (and Performance)
Health is not a women’s issue. It is relevant for both genders. Today, there is pressure on the C-suite to not only be part of the employee health and performance conversation, but they are expected to model effective health and performance management as well. Creating a Culture of Health must start from the top and be inclusive.
To achieve this, it is important to develop the internal capacity within corporations to measure and discuss Health, which underlines Performance, for both genders. Encouraging women to focus on their Personal Health dashboard (see Strategy 2 above), creating trust by instilling the ability to discuss health issues, are but some of the actions that could support change. It is down to the organisational culture to drive this trust to, thus, improve health and wellbeing for all!
It is time we take our health and performance in our hands! Let’s #accelerateaction today!
Remember, paid subscribers get these super benefits:
Special discount for my latest book: ‘Reboot, Rebuild, Reconquer: Thriving with Uncertainty.’
Free access to #PeakPerformance & other events organized around the planet!
Special discounts on virtual and in-person coaching and training programmes I offer.
And remember, if you want to get in touch with me to help you and your teams get on to your/their Peak Performance, you can do so here
Warmest, as always,
Christina