Listen Here:
Recorded September 4, 2024
Introduction
Britta Trepp
Britta Trepp MS, ACSM CEP is the Associate Director of PEAK Health and Fitness for Wellness and Integrative Health and a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Recreation. She has worked for the University of Utah since 2009.
She earned her Bachelor of Art degree in Kinesiology from Hope College and Master of Science degree in Exercise Science from the University of Utah. In addition to teaching fitness and wellness class pedagogy to her students, she manages the University of Utah employee fitness program as well as Build a Bone, an osteoporosis prevention program, through the L.S. Skaggs Patient Wellness Center. Her passion is clinical teaching and enjoys collaborating with students from various departments on campus to create well-rounded health, fitness and wellness initiatives.
Transcript:
David Pace 0:02
Hi, my name is David Pace and this is Pace Yourself, the University of Utah College of Science podcast on wellness. Hello, everyone. Today we’re talking to Britta Trapp, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology in the College of Health right here at the University of Utah. She’s also wellness programs manager in the Osher Center for Integrative Health. Welcome, Britta.
Britta Trepp 0:29
Thank you for having me.
David Pace 0:30
It’s nice to see you. Actually, I got to know Britta because of this podcast a little bit more, you know, intimately, I guess is the word when I went to the Wellness Ambassador program.
Britta Trepp 0:44
And that’s right.
David Pace 0:45
That was last February, right?
Britta Trepp 0:47
Yes. And you spoke to our wellness ambassadors about the things you’re doing in the College of Science and help to kind of, I guess, increase enthusiasm around wellness at the University of Utah.
David Pace 1:00
It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun meeting other people that are doing this kind of service at the university, which I’ve really enjoyed. And we’ll talk a little bit more about the ambassador program at the end of this, if that’s all right. Kind of give it a plug, and see if there are others interested in it. So inquiring minds most want to know right now how the U wellness requirements have changed this year. Do you want to give us a little update on that?
Britta Trepp 1:26
Yeah, sure. I would say broadly, we’re not asking you to do more. They’ve just shifted a little bit. So yesterday between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m., you should have received an email invite. It’s personalized from wellness@utah.edu. And so if you didn’t, check your spam in your other folders. It has a hyperlink and you log in with your unid at utah.edu and your personalized pass code. So that’s the HRA.
David Pace 2:01
HRA stands for?
Britta Trepp 2:02
Health Risk Assessment. Historically, you did something similar through Regence and this year the Osher Center for Integrative Health is housing that HRA. So that’s the only one you need to do.
David Pace 2:16
You don’t have to do the Regence one as well?
Britta Trepp 2:19
Correct. So that’s kind of samesies, right? It’s just a different vendor, if you will. Once you get in there and answer your questions — It’s all self-reported — you will be walked through kind of a goal-setting process, so you can choose to engage towards a particular goal if it’s meaningful for you.
David Pace 2:43
Okay. I did this yesterday, actually, expressly for this. And prior to this conversation that we’re having.
Britta Trepp 2:47
Yeah, market research.
David Pace 2:48
Yes, definitely. I was doing some market research and actually I thought it went really well. I thought it was very smoothly set up and articulated what I needed to do. It does give you two options at one point about how to to earn your discount, I guess it is, every month for insurance for your health benefit. And the one that looks like they were two — the tailored care pathway. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because the other one is the activities that I think most of us are familiar with.
Britta Trepp 3:23
Sure. Based on your answers, your self-reported answers, you may qualify for a tailored care pathway. If that’s the case, when you get to your final results sheet, or right before the final result sheet, it’ll ask you, it’ll tell you that you’ve qualified and ask you if you’d like to engage with that or not. And so if you say yes, you’ll be contacted by a care navigator, which is someone on our team that just wants to talk to you about your goals and what types of programs or services might be meaningful for you and how best to kind of get you towards your goals. If you opt out of that tailored care pathway, you would just participate in other options or opportunities. And those, by and large, are the same as those offered last year and, honestly, the year before.
David Pace 4:19
Yeah, I noticed a lot of that. Well, just give a sampling of those activities that I think you need to do four of, include just getting an annual physical or wellness checkup which you can even do here at the staff outpatient facility here called . . .
Britta Trepp 4:40
Red Med
David Pace 4:41
. . . Red Med. And so that’s a pretty easy thing to do. They’re very, maybe I’ll just give a little plug for these activities. They’re very recreational. You can log in or stop in at Red Butte Garden ten times and tap your card and you get one of the wellness activities that way.
Britta Trepp 5:03
Yeah. And the HRA is neat because it’s been crafted in such a way that if you indicate, let’s say that you don’t eat vegetables as much as maybe you’d like to or and then at the end you say, Gosh, this is really important to me or this is meaningful for me. This is something I want to work on. The HRA will pop up four options, ways that you can work on them, and you can choose one that speaks to you. And those, by and large, will count for WellU, you know. In that example, you might want to see a registered nutritionist or you might want to take a workshop. So there’s other options.
David Pace 5:47
So what I was struck by with Osher Integrated Health is that there are lots of classes that you can take, some of which, I think you were just talking about, fulfill these activity requirements. Maybe all of them do. I don’t know. But do you want to give us a brief rundown, not an exhaustive rundown, about what some of those classes and activities are that you can actually access here as a staff or employee?
Britta Trepp 6:16
Yeah, I’m glad you asked. So most of the services that count for WellU are offered through Peak Health and Fitness, which is our brick-and- mortar clinic right here on campus. It’s located in HPER East, and those services include a personal training or exercise prescription, a meeting with a registered dietician, a “bodpod” body composition test, a fitness assessment. And most of those are available both in person as well as virtually. So we make sure to have lots of virtual opportunities for our satellite locations, as well as individuals who maybe work hybrid. And I should have mentioned health coaching as well as another service through Peak Health and Fitness.
The other things that Osher Center for Integrative Health do are more the programs. They’re more longitudinal, and when you go through the HRA, those are options you can choose as well. Programs that count for WellU wellness activities are ‘build-a-bone’ in osteoporosis prevention program, diabetes prevention program, intensive lifestyle program, everyday mindfulness and mindfulness-based stress reduction.
David Pace 7:45
Wow. It’s pretty comprehensive.
Britta Trepp 7:46
Well, it was quite a mouthful as well.
David Pace 7:47
Yeah. And I like the alliteration. Build-a-bone. So what is this intensive lifestyle class that you just mentioned? That popped out to me. Yeah. Because I have an intensive life, and I’m wondering if I would fit.
Britta Trepp 8:03
Yeah.
David Pace 8:03
And how does that square with mindfulness, which is what you’re trying to drain away some of that intensity?
Britta Trepp 8:09
Yes. Okay. The word “intensive.” Don’t be afraid. All it means is that the course programming covers a wide variety of things to elevate your health and well-being. So, in intensive lifestyle program, we will talk about nutrition. We will talk about stress management, including mindfulness strategies. We will talk about moving more and financial wellness, just a wide variety of things, which makes it more intensive or inclusive, if you will.
David Pace 8:45
Or maybe more comprehensive health and wellness in general. I noticed also that Osher also offers — if you have an internal program here, say, in the College of Science — that you can register that as a WellU wellness activity that can count for these four activities that you need. Yeah. Is that correct? Can you tell me a little bit about that? Because we have one of those programs here at the College of Science and maybe we should be registering that.
Britta Trepp 9:23
Yeah. Yeah. So we’re tiptoeing into ecosystem of health program.
David Pace 9:28
Ah, there’s that word we were talking about before the episode here. Tell me about the ecosystem.
Britta Trepp 9:34
The Osher Center and myself mostly are tasked with flavoring the ecosystem of health at the University of Utah. And yes, H.R. has their hand in elevating the ecosystem of health with this wellness program, WellU. But the other things that the Osher Center does is think about ways employees and employee groups can elevate wellness, health and wellness, from the grassroots or from your team level. And one of those is through departmental wellness challenges.
And so, I think what you were alluding to is that departments can think about ways as a team: they want to move more or talk about office eating culture or incorporate mindfulness activities with. [There are] Lots of different options and they send that to me, their application, and that’s available on the H.R. website, the WellU information and create a challenge and it has to be at least six weeks in duration. And there’s other things and, and you’ll, talk directly to me and I’ll say, ‘That sounds like a great idea. Let’s go for it.’ Or ‘that sounds like a great idea. And did you know we have these resources?’ So sometimes most of the times I’ll try to push a little bit more to really get at it.
So yeah, that’s one of the ecosystem-of-health things that we do, but we also try to coordinate with the wellness ambassadors to offer wellness walks that are repeated on a weekly basis. They meet at the same time, same location, let’s say, every Monday, just trying to break up sedentary time throughout the day. And so employees can start their own groups and hopefully they tell me about it, and we can promote it and get other employees to get involved as well, who may not have active groups that they can count on.
Yeah, we also have a wellness book club.
David Pace 11:40
I’ve heard about that. And since I’m an English major, that sounds interesting. How does that help with wellness or is it just reading about wellness or are you reading like, say, novels and just the activity social activity is considered …
Britta Trepp 11:56
Our most popular book last year was ‘Atomic Habits.’
David Pace 12:02
Tell us a little bit about that. That sounds interesting. Sounds very minute, but very microscopic.
Britta Trepp 12:09
Yeah, well, it was a great time. We read it in January and February. So, people are thinking about changing habits or starting to make change. And the idea is that small changes over time can really become atomic or, you know, build upon and and have great results. And there are lots of tips and tricks in that book on how to habit-form, form habits.
David Pace 12:36
Right? Yeah. So it’s not just about learning how to do sit-ups and things like that, but it’s more almost philosophical about how you form a regular, repeating behavior that’s going to improve your health and wellness.
Britta Trepp 12:52
Yes. And I’m honing in on the two books I want to choose for this fall. So stay tuned for the big reveal.
David Pace 13:00
The big reveal? Yeah, I want to hear about it. If it’s Moby Dick, then I might be interested.
I know actually that sounds very interesting, but again, not to underplay the fact that just getting together in a social setting like that and learning how to share your own personal experience and new ideas with each other is probably part of our social wellness that we sometimes talk about.
Britta Trepp 13:25
Yeah, certainly. Yeah. So you can read the book solo and then join in our conversation as a large university. Or you could say, well, let’s do this as a team and then join and have you could talk about it throughout the week or the month.
David Pace 13:44
So I wanted to share one of the experiences / activities that we have here in the College of Science that was actually instigated, if you want to use that word, by Osher. You sent down to us a graduate student, a very tall, lanky fellow who probably has graduated, but we all met downstairs as a college staff and it was part of, I think, Safety Day that we have here at the college. And he talked about, you know, movement breaks as part of his presentation. And so he gave us an 8-by-11 movement breaks, 12 movement breaks, things like the cactus sliders, plank, you know, sitting like with your back against the wall in a chair position. And so we actually took that on. And you’ll be happy to know that at least in the marketing and communications department here at the College of Science, we have a dice, a 12-sided dice, and we throw it and whatever it comes up with, we look at the sheet that he gave us, and we correspond what activity it is that we’re going to do. Sometimes we have arguments about it. Now, now we did that yesterday or we want to do something else. So it’s kind of kind of fun, kind of a game. And we all are in a very small, intimate space, which is kind of weird. It’s kind of weird when you’re doing movement at first, but then it’s kind of fun, you know, because it’s different. And we’ve been doing that for quite a while. We got a little bit of out of practice, but we have it tacked in there, and I’ll show it to you — the wellness or the movement break regimen that we go through every day. So it’s actually been a lot of fun. Sometimes we just go out and walk in Presidents Circle and that counts. So I guess if we wanted to formalize that, we would fill out the form, we would talk to you so that you’re tracking it a little bit and can give us some some advice on maybe how to improve.
Britta Trepp 15:45
Sure. Yeah. I love that you shared that story because it hits on quite a few components of wellness. Right? You’re getting your social wellness, you’re having fun together, you’re connecting as humans, which is especially important in this hybrid setting. And then, yeah, you’re saying, well, we keep this up and we add in the walking and we do it every day instead of just on Fridays. It’s a good challenge. And then who knows, maybe there’s some push-up competition.
David Pace 16:15
We do push-ups too! It gets very competitive. And the other thing that’s very competitive is the plank. How long can you hold a plank? And while we were doing that one day we actually looked up the world record for planking and it was like, it was insane. It was like 16 hours or maybe even more than that. I know. And there’s this guy in Holland, in the Netherlands, and they’re showing him doing a plank.
Britta Trepp 16:40
I wonder if it’s my brother. That’s where he’s from.
David Pace 16:42
Oh, is that right? Yeah. How old is he? He was this guy was about my age, so I think not. So, yeah. cactus sliders, heel toe raises, plank, downward-facing dog. We do it all here at the College of Science, and we’re better for it. I think. Yeah. I mean, you have a lot of different activities. I think even Tanner Dance has got a class for adults where you can learn interpretive dance.
Britta Trepp 17:09
Yeah. So if during the HRA, well, you can find this information on the the H.R website as well. But during the HRA, if, if you say, gosh, you know, I’m not moving so much that many times during the week. And, also, this is important to me. I want to make a goal around this. That would be one of the options that would pop up to try to encourage you to make a movement towards that. And the cool thing with the HRA and the goal-setting is that’s all we’re trying to tap into intrinsic motivation. So if it is not important to you, you know, you self-report that you’re not moving that often; you don’t have to make a goal around that. But if it is important to you to do that, you would say, yes, I would like to make the goal in that. So that’s really tapping into intrinsic motivation. And yes, there’s a little bit of extrinsic motivation with the WellU program and the insurance premium reduction.
David Pace 18:16
So tell us the difference between those two. Define them for me, extrinsic?
Britta Trepp 18:21
Intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from within. Okay, So you do the activity because it’s internally rewarding to you. It’s satisfying or enjoyable. Extrinsic motivation is when you do things because there’s a reward.
David Pace 18:39
Or because someone’s holding a paddle over you saying, I’m going to hit you if you don’t do this. Yeah.
Britta Trepp 18:44
So perhaps you.
David Pace 18:45
Just kidding about that…
Britta Trepp 18:46
That’s okay. I’m from the Midwest!
David Pace 18:51
Where corporal punishment happens on occasion. Or. Yeah.
Britta Trepp 18:55
Perhaps you clicked on the HRA because you’re extrinsically motivated to do so.
David Pace 19:01
Because you get a discount …
Britta Trepp 19:02
Yeah.
David Pace 19:03
… In your insurance.
Britta Trepp 19:03
But when you’re trained through it and self-reporting, you know everything about you, hopefully you’re intrinsically motivated to make change because it would bring you joy to do so or because it’s important to you to improve.
David Pace 19:21
So it’s not that intrinsic is better than extrinsic necessarily. I mean, obviously it’s kind of a two-piston engine there when you’re looking at improving your health and wellness.You’re obviously always going to be if you want to go play with your grandkids, that’s an extrinsic motivation, is it not?
Britta Trepp 19:41
I would say that’s intrinsic.
David Pace 19:43
Okay.
Britta Trepp 19:45
Are you getting paid to watch your grandkids?
David Pace 19:48
Now, if your spouse is telling you, ‘you need to get in shape so that you can play with your grandkids,’ that might be extrinsic, punitive.
Britta Trepp 19:57
Yes. The deal is, is if you can find joy in something and you’re motivated internally to do it, you’re more apt to follow through and meet your goal. We can take like an example: if you want to become more active or you have a weight loss goal. You think to yourself, gosh, I’m going to run every day, but you don’t like running. Please don’t say you’re going to run every day. Find something that brings you joy so that you can reach that goal. So, if that means walking through campus or through Red Butte Gardens because it brings you joy, you’re more apt to stick to that goal.
David Pace 20:48
I would like to shift gears a little bit.
Britta Trepp 20:50
Okay.
David Pace 20:51
Tell us how did you end up in a career as an integrated wellness professional? I mean, I understand that you’re an ultra runner. You may have to define that for some of us, but how does that, past and present, play into your career, for example, or just in general? How did you get into this field? Because it sounds very invigorating and gratifying.
Britta Trepp 21:12
Hmm. Well, I’m one of those crazy people that loves to run. I’m so sorry, but I’ve been doing that since I was a little girl. And I actually enjoyed running because no one comes to track meets or cross-country meets. So I’m actually a very private person, which is strange. I didn’t want people to see me. Yeah, no one comes to cross country meets. So running for a long time was always very health-focused. And, I actually worked with the U.S. Speed Skating Team for a while. I thought, I want to work with Olympic athletes, but I felt it was too hyper-focused for me. I couldn’t really get behind that.
David Pace 21:51
Too much performance-type thing.
Britta Trepp 21:54
Too much performance and not enough well-being for the masses for everybody. And so that’s kind of where I honed in on employee wellness and trying to elevate everybody instead of a select few.
David Pace 22:08
So you weren’t gunning for the Olympics?
Britta Trepp 22:10
No.
David Pace 22:11
Yeah, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Britta Trepp 22:14
No, but that’s how I got into employee wellness, and there’s lots of really great people at the Osher Center for Integrative Health that are very passionate about the things they do and bringing health and well-being opportunities to employees and working with them is a real blessing.
David Pace 22:34
Hey, excellent. Before we sign off, do you want to talk a little bit about the Wellness Ambassador program and where people might go as an employee here at the University of Utah if they want to do service in this way?
Britta Trepp 22:47
Sure. Yeah. The wellness ambassadors are a, well, I guess if you’re listening to this and you’re saying, ‘ooh, I want to learn more’ or, ‘ooh, I want to bring these, these projects or these ideas to my team,’ you can join the Wellness Ambassadors Group program, and we meet a couple of times a year, and I share grassroots programming. The things we’re working on. You help me maybe vet new programs or new surveys. And essentially we work much closer, more one-on-one, bringing some of these things to your teams.
And so the ambassadors, my goal would be to have an ambassador embedded into every department or clinic or research team on campus because they speak the language of the employees they’re working with. I don’t necessarily speak the language of the College of Science or of a research team. And you might not open my emails, but you will open an email from someone on your team speaking your language. And that’s where we can make some headway on campus and elevating that ecosystem of health.
David Pace 24:07
Whether it’s mental, social, physical, whatever it might be.
Britta Trepp 24:11
And the priorities of every group are different. You know, the challenges of every group are different. And so the embedded ambassadors are super helpful on interfacing between the Osher Center for Integrative Health in campus groups.
David Pace 24:27
Well, I have to say, Britta, that just talking to you inspires me to be more cognizant of my own journey, if you will, towards health and wellness. So ,and as an ambassado, by the way, I did sign up finally formally as an ambassador, and it’s actually been really gratifying to be in this space in the College of Science, giving these wellness tips and doing the podcast and and so forth. So I know that having those resources has made it a lot easier for us here at the College of Science. So I want to thank you for that. Is there anything else you want to say before we sign off?
Britta Trepp 25:10
You know, I don’t think so. Maybe you were planning to say this, but we’ll certainly put a bunch of hyperlinks in the description below this podcast and I guess a thank you to all those listening because I know you’re going to be the ones that are helping the Osher Center and our mission to improve employee health and kind of move the needle.
David Pace 25:36
Thank you. We’ve been talking today with Britta Trapp, who is the wellness programs manager in the Osher Center for Integrative Health, also an adjunct professor in the College of Health. Thank you for being with us.
Britta Trepp 25:50
Thanks for having me.
