'Beat the Holiday Bulge' Weight Management Challenge a Success!

BURLINGTON, Vt., Jan. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Successful results have been reported from the Second Annual, 'Beat the Holiday Bulge' Weight Management Challenge, delivered by PureWellness, a leader of on-line wellness solutions, in partnership with the prestigious Brigham and Women's Hospital.

The 'Beat the Holiday Bulge' Challenge provided the tools, education and motivation to help individuals maintain their weight over the holidays.  While the average American gains 2 to 5 pounds during the holiday season, the 2,469 BHB participants combined to lose 971.4 pounds in the four-week program.

Brigham and Women's Cardiovascular Wellness Service sponsored and participated in the 'Beat the Holiday Bulge' program this year. "We are always looking for new strategies and programs that can deliver improved health and individual wellness.  'Beat the Holiday Bulge' was a successful program to manage weight and reduce risk factors for heart disease.  My hope is that online programs such as 'BHB' have the potential to ultimately reduce cardiovascular events," said Dr. JoAnne M. Foody, Medical Director, Cardiovascular Wellness Service at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

While the 'Beat the Holiday Bulge' program has ended, an ongoing partnership between PureWellness and Brigham and Women's Hospital, called, 'Building Wellness One Heart at a Time', will now focus on maintaining heart health through online interventions to reduce multiple risk factors including overweight and obesity.

"We saw great results again this year with our 'Beat the Holiday Bulge' Program.  We are excited to continue our partnership with Brigham and Women's Hospital to make an impact in reducing individual risk factors for heart disease," said Ron Keen, president of PureWellness.

For more information, contact Frank Jakka at [email protected]

About PureWellness, Inc.

PureWellness, founded in 1997, provides a comprehensive, scalable, online wellness platform. The PureWellness platform allows for administration and management of all wellness initiatives within each organization. This wellness platform provides numerous resources, including an online Health Risk Assessment, tracking tools, employee incentive program, device integration, and full reporting suite to ensure that every wellness initiative will succeed, with the ability to document success that demonstrates return on investment. For more information, contact Andrew Comeau at [email protected].

About Brigham and Women's Hospital

Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 793-bed non-profit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is the home of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, the most advanced center of its kind. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute, BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 900 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty. BWH is home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org.

SOURCE PureWellness, Inc.