From burpees to 'Blue Zones', let's celebrate May as Women's Health Month

Mollie Steiner knows a lot about health, fitness and longevity to life.   She also knows a lot about being grateful for all three.  She's an amazing athlete herself and has motivated and taught thousands of people in fitness classes over the years.    Today, she brings her knowledge, energy and vision to the City of Dublin as Recreation Administrator for Corporate and Community Wellness.    As a financial planner and a person dedicated to fitness, too, I often say it's tragic when people work really hard to save for a great retirement but don't live long - or healthy enough - to enjoy it.   Staying active plus a good diet are proven factors to longevity but as you're about to hear from Mollie, some things are out of our control.  Like cancer.   The disease struck her child and thus her family.   At the same time, another child, Abby, was setting records on the soccer field and on the track.   Fast forward to this summer and Abby is gunning for the Paris Olympics!      Mollie discusses it all:  from one daughter beating cancer to another one beating the competition.   Plus, we discuss Blue Zones and why Mollie and other experts say these regions around the world may hold the keys to living longer.  And to that end, I ask Mollie if the dreaded 'burpee' is the one of those fitness keys.    (Hint:  Mollie thankfully offers burpee modifications!)      

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Transcript

 Episode 2 Log – Mollie Steiner 

Andy Keeler Host

So May is Women's Health Month, and you're probably wondering what in God's green earth has that got to do with financial planning? A lot, actually. We spend years, maybe decades, helping put clients in a position to finally hang it up and cash in on many years of work, but there's nothing more tragic than a life cut short, a life before grandkids, travel and leisure. What good is money if you aren't around to enjoy it after all? So today, for Episode 2 of Financial Opportunities Uncovered, we welcome a special guest to help us celebrate Women's Health Month by sharing some of the factors that affect longevity. Molly Steiner is Recreation Administrator in charge of Corporate Community Wellness for the City of Dublin. Welcome, Molly.

Mollie Steiner Guest

00:48

Thank you, Andy, I'm excited to be here. 

Andy Keeler Host

00:50

Me too. I am stoked to hear about your career and fitness and women's health, men's health, all that kind of stuff. We're going to get healthy today. Your title is a test in breathing in and of itself. Seriously, though, what led you down this path and how did you end up in this role at the city?

Mollie Steiner Guest

01:07

You're right, it is a long title and my path has been kind of a winding journey of how I've ended up in this role. So, going way back in time, my degrees are in exercise, science and health studies. 

Andy Keeler Host

01:21

Well, there you go. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

01:22

So I've got a Master's Degree from Miami University, not too far down the road, and from there I moved to the Chicago area and I worked in the field of corporate fitness for a number of years. So always have been interested in health and fitness, growing up, playing sports, being active. From there we moved to lots of different areas in the Midwest. We did a stint in Michigan, we have I know the M word. We've been in Columbus for about 20 years now and my career has morphed from corporate fitness to group fitness instruction. I jumped out of the workforce for a number of years when my kids were young to raise them, but always continued on as a group fitness instructor, and then that led into being a group fitness manager for a local health club here in town. I then actually came to work for the city of Dublin in a part-time role as the city's wellness coordinator. 

So that was a number of years ago and I stayed in that role for about four to five years, went 

into the private sector for a couple of years in HR benefits and wellness. 

Andy Keeler Host

02:27

Interesting Okay. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

02:30

Wellness is very tied into many corporations' benefit plans, so there's a connection there. And then this role came to fruition at the city and I had stayed in touch with my coworkers at the city, and here I am. I've been in this role since 2017. 

Andy Keeler Host

02:45

Wow, so you've been at, you mentioned a lot of different gyms. As a fitness instructor, what gym have you not taught at in the city of Columbus or the city of Dublin? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

02:57

Yeah, I've been at quite a few of them and some have come and gone, as gyms do. 

Andy Keeler Host

03:01

That's the way it goes. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

03:02

Yes, exactly, and some have weathered the test of time. 

Andy Keeler Host

03:07

So what are some of your responsibilities at the city of Dublin, like what do you do on a daily basis? What are some of the things you're in charge of? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

03:14

Sure, so I like to break it down into three buckets because it is a unique role. One of those buckets is I oversee all of the fitness programming at the Dublin Community Recreation Center. So I oversee all of the fitness programming at the Dublin Community Recreation Center, so anything related to fitness, from the fitness floor to group fitness classes, to personal training, to Pilates programming, et cetera. So I oversee all of that within the DCRC. And then that's one bucket. The other two buckets one is I am focused on corporate wellness for the city. So we have a corporate wellness program called Fit Biz, which is a program that we offer to our businesses to aid them in their health and wellness programming for their employees. So we understand a lot of businesses are smaller businesses. They might not have somebody that is devoted to employee health and well-being, and so we've put together a package of onsite and virtual programming that we can offer to our businesses. 

Andy Keeler Host

04:07

Wow. So a small employer here in Dublin wants to keep their employees fit, maybe lower their health insurance premiums or keep those health insurance premiums in check. You sort of are their outsourced wellness department. How does that work? How would a company plug into that? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

04:24

They would just contact me. We offer onsite and virtual programming. It ranges from fitness classes to educational presentations. We partner with Ohio State and utilize their health coaches so they can deliver a wide variety of topics in terms of educating the workforce. Anything from resilience to mindfulness, to nutrition, to physical activity, you name it. We've got a list of programs that we can offer. 

Andy Keeler Host

04:50

Is there a cost for it? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

04:52

We offer the first program complimentary, so any company interested in that we're happy to deliver the first program for free. And then there is a cost, but we are just trying to cover our costs for the instructors and the presenters, so we try to keep it as low as possible. 

Andy Keeler Host

05:07

Seems like a no-brainer. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

05:08

Yeah, and just to finish up on my third bucket fitness was the first bucket, corporate wellness. The second and then my third bucket is community wellness, and I know we'll talk a little bit about that later on. 

Andy Keeler Host

05:19

So what are you most passionate about? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

05:24

I would say I'm most passionate from a professional standpoint about just being curious and trying to learn how to best connect all of the wonderful organizations and resources we have in Dublin to help improve the health of our community. You know, as a public servant and someone who works in the health and fitness arena, I strive to encourage people on their health and wellness journeys, whether that's from group fitness instruction or developing programs that are going to aid people in their journey or just trying to understand what the needs of the community are. I'm a curious learner wtih a standing joke in my family. My nickname is the Reporter, because I ask a lot of questions. 

So my family is always saying, oh, here's mom, here's the reporter, because I'm just very curious and want to understand kind of the why behind things. 

Andy Keeler Host

06:13

Well, you know I said when we were launching this episode, a lot of people would ask the question what does this have to do with financial planning? I'm a curious person too, and I think you know longevity and health, as I said, it's very important. It's just a tragedy to see clients work their entire lives and not be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. So we have that in common. I've always been interested in understanding the factors that lead to longevity and influence health. Can you help me understand that? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

06:51

Sure, I think it's important to note, obviously, that no two people age the same and there's a difference between your chronological age, your number of years, and your biological age, which is your physical and your functional ability, because, like you said, you can take two 83-year-olds and they can look vastly different. So a 41-year-old who might be eating well and exercising and doing all the right things might have a biological age of 35. 

On the other hand, a 60-year-old who's not sleeping, smoking, overweight, may have a biological age of 78. So there's that. There's there's that difference there, and there's many factors that influence longevity, some of which we can control, some of which we can't. So things we can't control are our genetics, our gender, some things in our environment. But there's a lot that we can control, such as our lifestyle habits, maintaining a healthy weight, eating right most of the time, getting movement throughout the day. All of those are within our control. So there's a lot that goes into a person's longevity and how healthy they may be at whatever age they may be. 

Andy Keeler Host

07:56

It's no secret that Dublin aspires to be the most sustainable, connected and resilient global city of choice. I can see a gazillion ways that you play a role in that. Help me connect the dots. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

08:06

Sure, I think the first goal is to understand what the specific needs of our community are, because the community of Dublin looks vastly different than another community, even within central Ohio, just based on our demographics. So we need to better understand what our needs are in order to address those, and it's really not something that can be done by one person or the city alone. It involves our community partners, it involves our organizations within our community, and how can we best all work together to achieve those goals? So I feel like my role is to lead the effort from a city perspective, which is what we're currently doing, but then to be able to find out who I can connect with within the city to help address whatever needs we're looking to address. So I feel like once we can manage what we're measuring, then we can work together to develop what those action steps and strategies might be. 

Andy Keeler Host

09:03

Is one way to measure that through this community health needs assessment. That was launched last year? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

09:10

Correct. So we've been working with a consultant for about a year and a half on this community health needs assessment project and we are doing just that. We are measuring what the specific needs in our community look like. We knew that we could pull county data from a lot of different sources, but Dublin might look very different than another community in Franklin County, so that makes sense for us to be able to really drill down and find out what our specific needs are. We felt that we needed to do our own community health needs assessment, which is what we're undergoing. 

Andy Keeler Host

09:42

So you're undergoing that now. Have you learned anything yet? Have you had any big surprises? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

09:47

So we have learned a lot. We have gathered all of our data to this point. So we have done focus groups and we have done stakeholder interviews and we've done community surveys. So we have gathered all of that data and we're now working on how we will address those issues. But one of the things that we did learn and I was pleasantly surprised to see is that the physical health of our residents is actually very strong. We're doing really well physically. Our obesity rate is well below the Ohio obesity rate, so we're at 16%. The state of Ohio is at 38%. We're also really doing well on managing our chronic illnesses. So our high blood pressure, our cholesterol, our diabetes, et cetera all of those are lower than what the state averages are? 

Andy Keeler Host

10:39

Is there an income, maybe component that influences those things a little bit. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

10:43

Yeah, research has shown that not only income can have an effect on that, but we also think it's due to the fact that Dublin provides so much opportunity for recreation in terms of our infrastructure and our bike path system and our park system, and there's so much opportunity for people to be outside and to be moving and to be physically active. 

Andy Keeler Host

11:07

So that stuff really works. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

11:09

It really does. 

Andy Keeler Host

11:11

When I think about wellness, I think about longevity. 

I'm not an expert I don't have a master's degree like you do, but it would seem to me that there are maybe three factors that play a role in that, and I see that every day when I'm talking with my clients. 

The ones that you said, for example, have a chronological age that is maybe lower than you might think because of the way they live their lives, or the opposite is also true. But there's also a social component and, for example, my mom wasn't super social. They raised eight kids and didn't have a lot of time for friends and as she got older, retired, the kids moved out of the house. She never really made a ton of social connections and I think that played a large role in her passing at 89. Not that 89 isn't a ripe old age, but I think that had she had a bigger social network, maybe she could have lived a little longer. What are you finding when you're looking at this community health assessment and it's looking at not only obesity rates and things like that, but also mental health how big a role does that social connection play? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

12:22

I think it plays a huge role. Humans are meant to be social creatures. We need social connection. It fulfills a fundamental psychological need for us and when we don't have those social connections we can see a decline in mental health, we can see a decline in, you know, emotional health, a decline in physical activity. 

There's a whole list of things that show in the research what a lack of social connectedness leads to, and it's interesting going back to the community health needs assessment, one of the surprising factors that we found was that we do have a large number of residents who feel as though they don't belong in Dublin, that they are experiencing loneliness or they don't feel connected to the community and that if you had asked me before we saw the data, I would have guessed it might be that older population, like you mentioned you know, maybe your mom or somebody who you know is past raising a family and maybe they're living in the community at an older age. But ironically we found that the highest statistics of that were in the younger age groups, so the ages of 18 to 34, those were the population that was, from the data that we received, showing the higher levels of loneliness, not a sense of belonging and not a sense of connection. So that was very interesting. 

Andy Keeler Host

13:51

What drives that? Is it electronics? It would seem to me those are the kids. They're right out of college, right? They're living in the arena district. I'm thinking they're in Bridge Park and there after work. They're going out for a drink with their friends. They're maybe playing volleyball at Flanagan's. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

14:08

Yeah, I don't know exactly. I don't know if it's the you know, the technology, I don't know if it's a result of the pandemic and people working from home and not being connected at that young age to make those relationships. So our age group went from 18 to 34. So it was a pretty wide range, but that was definitely an interesting finding. 

Andy Keeler Host

14:27

I've read a bit about blue zones, and there are these areas around the world. I find the phenomenon that they have higher longevity rates than other parts of the world. Can you explain what a blue zone is? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

14:41

Sure. So a blue zone is a region in the world that has been shown to have people that live longer and have maybe the why are people living so much longer than they might be in other cities or communities? And they found that these blue zones all had nine things in common, and they call them the power nine.

Yep, and they range from moving naturally, having a sense of purpose, being able to downshift or having some stress relief outlet diet. 80% of their diets were vegan or plant-based. Social connectedness was a big one, so being connected to family and friends, having a sense of community where your community is supporting your behaviors. There has been research that shows that your health can be kind of reflective of the people that you associate with and that you hang out with. 

So they developed these power nine concepts and and the blue zones originally were in five areas of the world. They were in an area in Sardinia, in Greece, Costa Rica, Chile, California and Japan. Those were the original five. 

Andy Keeler Host

16:17

And three of those five are islands, which I found interesting and I thought maybe they're eating more seafood, but it's not necessarily that it could be fresh air, could it be maybe those areas are tight knit social groups, because they might be, you know, they're landlocked or they're isolated in that geographic way. So interesting yeah. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

16:41

And a lot of it was just, you know they, they move more. They lived on, you know, sloped communities. The the social connectedness and the family. A lot of the parents or older generation lived with the children or the younger generation, so there's that, that family aspect of being connected, so very interesting. And now Blue Zones has kind of tried to expand to other parts in the world. 

So there are Blue Zones communities that outside of these five, outside of these five these were the five original so now other entities can, if they would like to try to follow the principles of Blue Zones, to try to emulate what was found in these five. 

Andy Keeler Host

17:27

And it would seem like every community should try to emulate those. But is there like a certification? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

17:33

There's a cost involved. So if you want to become a Blue Zones community, there's a cost involved, okay, so if you want to become a Blue Zones community, it's a pretty lengthy process in terms of working with the Blue Zones organization and it's a pretty expensive endeavor, so it usually requires some sort of funding source. 

Andy Keeler Host

17:51

And I guess it's important for me to make it clear that the city of Dublin is not a Blue Zone, that the city of Dublin is not a blue zone, but is it true that the city looked at maybe becoming a blue zone, but decided instead to pursue the community health needs assessment instead? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

18:04

That is correct. We did look into becoming a blue zone and, like I said, it wasn't something from a funding standpoint at the time that we were able to pursue. So we decided to pursue our own community health needs assessment to determine what our specific needs are knowing that a lot of the fundamentals from the blue zones we can try to incorporate into our objectives for improving the health of the community. 

Andy Keeler Host

18:30

That makes sense. So today's title is Women's Health Month from Burpees to Blue Zones. So I guess I'd be remiss in asking for our listeners what exactly is a burpee and what's the big deal with it. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

18:45

So a burpee is a popular full body exercise. Full body exercise it combines strength training and it combines cardiovascular training, and the original burpee involved four basic moves. It was a squat into a plank, into a pushup, into a jump up. So there are many variations and modifications for a burpee, but the original one was kind of that four part movement and I did a little research because I honestly did not know how the name burpee came to be. So it was actually invented in the 1930s by a physiologist named Royal H Burpee and it was developed as a way to test a person's fitness and then it was later adapted by the US Army to evaluate recruits' fitness levels. 

Andy Keeler Host

19:38

Very interesting tidbit there. And you said it's a full body exercise. So if there was one exercise that you recommended somebody do to kind of stay fit and exercise, what would that be? Would it be the burpee? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

19:52

I mean, I think a burpee is a good choice. It can be modified to many levels. You don't have to jump, you don't have to do the pushup, you can do a modified pushup. So I think it's a good exercise. It's not something that you could go out and do for 45 minutes to an hour, so it definitely is taxing and you would want to do that in just low sets and low reps, but it's a good exercise for sure. 

Andy Keeler Host

20:13

All right, as we round third and head towards home, we can't let you go without asking about your daughter, Abby. For those of you that don't know, Abby is a Puma athlete world champion in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, the indoor American record holder in the 200m and 300m and I'm not done yet and the NCAA record holder in the indoor 300m, the outdoor 200 meter and the 4 by 400 meter relay. She was also the winner of the prestigious Bowerman Award in 2022, which is basically the Heisman Trophy of track and field. She also happens to be an inspiration, not only for every girl making their way through Dublin Coffman High School, but she also inspires young women around the world. Did you know you were raising a role model and phenom? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

21:03

I would say we had no idea where this journey was going to lead. So it's kind of a funny story. Abby was always a soccer player from a young age and played soccer all through high school and into college Travel soccer. We were heavily involved. And all of a sudden in eighth grade it's a standing joke in our family she came and said -- 'hey, mom and dad, I want to run track.' She knew she was fast on the soccer field, but she wanted to do it from a social perspective. She wanted to be with her friends. I think she just needed a little outlet from soccer. And so in eighth grade she ran track and at her first meet she ran the 100 meters and she didn't know what a starting block was, she didn't know what a pair of spikes was, and she had a lot of success and it all kind of blossomed from there. So she made the decision after her freshman year in college, where she played soccer and ran track that year, to just focus on track and I think it ended up being the right decision for her. 

Andy Keeler Host

21:58

So wait, she played soccer in college. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

22:06

Correct. Her freshman year she got recruited for soccer first and foremost, and then also ran track. At the same, she went to the University of Kentucky. They were a school that was going to allow her to do both, which was a big deciding factor in why she chose to go there. But she knew after that soccer season that she wanted to focus 100% on track. 

Andy Keeler Host

22:20

That's impressive. Did you ever dream your daughter would have her own Wikipedia page? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

22:25

I did not and, to be honest with you, I know what a Wikipedia page is, but I didn't know what it takes to get a Wikipedia page. So, again, I had to do a little bit of research. My curiosity is coming back here to find out how do you get a Wikipedia page? And from what I found, yes, you get a published page If you are presumed notable, you have received significant coverage in multiple published sources that are reliable and they are independent of the subject. So that was the definition for how somebody can get a Wikipedia page. 

Andy Keeler Host

23:02

I have something to shoot for. Good to have goals. So I also understand that Abby's sister, Riley, is a champion in her own right. How is Riley these days, and how did her bout with cancer strengthen your family? 

Mollie Steiner Guest

23:16

Yeah, she's doing phenomenally, thank you. She is now 27 years old. And she has been cancer free for seven years now. So she was diagnosed when she was 17, the summer going into her senior year at Dublin Coffman High School. So it was a very long journey. Her treatment plan was two and a half years. She missed the majority of her senior year of high school because she had to stay home because of everything she was dealing with. So it did take a toll on our family. Obviously, nobody wants to see their child go through something like that. But it made us stronger. It made Abby stronger. It made her want to work even harder, which I think is part of why she's so successful. She was running for a sister that couldn't run. 

Andy Keeler Host

24:06

Riley has a twin brother. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

24:08

So her twin brother, Jack, had to be at school all day while his sister wasn't there and had to deal with that in his own way. So definitely brought our family closer together going through an experience like that. 

Andy Keeler Host

24:18

I was going to ask if Abby and Riley feed off each other, but it sounds like the whole family feeds off each other. 

Mollie Steiner Guest

24:27

Thank you. Yeah, you know, everyone has to deal with things in their their own lives and their own families, and everybody's journey is different and you never know what somebody is going through at any particular time. So we tried to just use this as a you know, a way to bring us closer and, thankfully and luckily, you know, she'll be cancer free for the rest of her life. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed. 

Andy Keeler Host

24:53

So, Molly, thanks for joining us and, as always, we thank our listeners. I'm Andy Keeler and this is Financial Opportunities Uncovered brought to you by Keeler and Nadler Family Wealth. If you have questions on anything you heard in this episode, find more on our website, keelernadlercom.