Research shows individual health choices directly influence the health and well-being of friends and family

INDIANAPOLIS, June 29 /PRNewswire/ -- WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE: WLP), the nation's largest health benefits company by medical membership, today announced it has teamed up with Bob Harper from 'The Biggest Loser' to expand current efforts to provide the tools and information necessary to help individuals improve their health and be a positive influence on the ones they care about. Through this collaboration, WellPoint and Bob Harper will work together to highlight how our health connects us and how one person's healthy behaviors can positively affect someone else's health behaviors.

'WellPoint is pleased to work with Bob Harper to create a movement that starts with each individual and extends to their friends, family and coworkers,' said Dijuana Lewis, president and chief executive officer of WellPoint's Comprehensive Health Solutions business unit. 'Bob Harper's approach to wellness is based on the powerful insight that healthy living isn't about a quick fix, it's about making a lifestyle change. We recognize that our health is connected with, and part of, our everyday lives. We want to help people get healthy, stay healthy and have a healthy impact on the health care system itself.'

'Whether we realize it or not, when we are around others who eat healthy and model healthy behaviors, we begin to follow,' said Bob Harper. 'Expanding this into a more formal, conscious effort can help each of us become role models for others in our lives. For any person who's ever tried to quit smoking, lose weight, eat healthier or adopt a more active lifestyle, knowing you will also have an impact on others can be a powerful motivator. By working together with WellPoint, we hope to provide the information and tools to help millions across the country live healthy lives.'

According to a recent report* released by the WellPoint Institute of Health Care Knowledge, an individual's health choices directly influence the health and well-being of family members, friends and others in his or her social network. The report looked at two specific studies by Harvard's Nicholas Christakis, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., and the University of California, San Diego's James Fowler, Ph.D., about communities in which individuals with close ties demonstrated significant corollaries with obesity and smoking cessation.