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30 years after first advancing the concept of wellness, Italian-based fitness equipment manufacturer Technogym is reaffirming its commitment to exercise and healthy lifestyles as a lifeline for preventative healthcare and ailing populations.

Now a global mega-trend, wellness, a vision identified by Technogym founder and Chief Executive Nerio Alessandri in 1993, has transformed the industry and is high on the list of priorities of governments, businesses and the general public.

Promoting links with the preventative health industry and general practitioners, Alessandri sees exercise prescriptions as being key to future health systems, explaining that he envisions a future where “doctors will prescribe patients an hour of Technogym per day”.

Supporting this, Technogym’s evolving ecosystem includes its personalised Biocircuit and Biostrength systems to its interoperable Mywellness software.

In addition, Alessandri’s latest book Be Wellness: choose to live well continues with the application of the Exercise Is Medicine initiative - which involves the medical prescription of structured exercise programs as a treatment for numerous cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.

Technogym has also partnered with the American College of Sports Medicine’s Exercise as Medicine initiative since 2010.

This campaign has the goal is to include movement - intended as structured and systematic exercise - in medical prescriptions, with the amount and quality of physical activity performed by the patient must be considered by the general practitioner as a clinical parameter on a par with blood pressure, weight and glycaemia.

Be Wellness
Alessandri also expands on his vision in his latest book Be Wellness: choose to live well.

Published in June by Mondadori Electa, this latest work follows on from Wellness: choose to live well! The philosophy of the man behind Technogym published in 2001, Wellness: History and Culture of Living Well from 2007 and Born to Move from 2014.

Through this list of publications, the Technogym founder sets out to raise awareness among the public of the importance of the wellness lifestyle.

In this most recent book, Alessandri reveals all his secrets in the belief that staying healthy is not just about individuals and their health. Unhealthy lifestyles such as being sedentary, smoking and eating an unbalanced diet pose a serious threat to all of us but also to economic and environmental sustainability, and to society as a whole. When we’re able to perform our favourite activities with little effort, when food is a healthy pleasure and not a daily obsession, when physical exercise is an integral part of our weekly routine, then we can “Be Wellness”, and it is society as a whole that will reap the benefits.

The new Be Wellness text offers a step-by-step guide to wellness, with Alessandri explaining in detail all the components for living well, one per chapter, integrating new scientific evidence and digital technologies into his vision. The chapters also contain insight boxes (around 20) including practical suggestions and solutions for applying wellness concepts to our daily lives.

From the basics, such as the difference between physical exercise and activity, to the scientific distinction between aerobic and anaerobic exercise, and how to structure the perfect workout, then moving on to psychological well-being, where meditation and mindfulness are an important aspect. The third pillar is nutrition, which must be balanced and include quality raw ingredients. There is no shortage of practical diet tips and insights into metabolism, weight loss and how to fight inflammation through food. Indeed, exercise and nutrition are essential to living well and longer.

The book continues with the application of the Technogym philosophy to the medical field covering the scientific evidence that shows that exercise - as well as being one of the most effective tools for combating all the diseases linked to an unhealthy lifestyle (such as obesity) - prevents and helps combat a series of chronic disorders as well as the treatment-related side effects (in the case of diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and related ailments).

In addition to the clear benefits for fighting diseases, wellness can also be seen as a key tool for “treating healthy people”, i.e. preventing chronic silent inflammation and oxidative stress linked to the excessive production of free radicals, ultimately guaranteeing people not only a long life, but a healthy longevity.

The book concludes with a positive look at the significant potential of wellness in the field of economics and sustainability: the more people that follow the wellness lifestyle, the lower the burden on the health service. Nerio Alessandri presents real metrics to measure the benefits of wellness on the economy, in a concept that goes by the name of the wellness economy.

Alessandri has been strongly arguing for years that “wellness can lead to a new virtuous economy, the wellness economy; an opportunity for everyone: for governments to lower healthcare costs through policies that put prevention at their core, for companies that invest in health, for workers who can gain real benefits in terms of increased productivity and creativity, and for people in general, to help them live longer and better.

“Living longer is not enough. The new model will be about living well for a long time: from simple longevity to healthy longevity.”

Lower image: Nerio Alessandri at the launch of his latest book Be Wellness: choose to live well. Credit: Technogym.

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