Question

argue whether you think wellness programs are an intrusion of privacy.

Answer 1

Wellness programs are approaches by employers to improve the health of their staff by organising exercise camps, health check-ups, having breaks, exercising area in the office etc. Any company requires a healthy workforce for it to succeed. A healthy workforce is productive directly as well as through less health expenses, less sick leaves etc. Thus maintaining employee health is critical. It is for this reason that companies pay for health insurance etc.

Wellness programs certainly make people address their health concerns in the public eye. Fatter or obese people may be required to go through more checks or more scrutiny. The same applies to smokers and drinkers. This might be construed as invasion of privacy particularly in case of smokers, drinkers etc if they don't want to make their consumption public. But more often , these information are kept private between the employee and the employer with other people kept in the dark. Moreover, these programs come with a host of incentives like lower health premium etc which make employees opt in rather than it being forced. In that case, it ceases to be invasion of privacy as the employee chooses to part with the information.