Bad Health Assurance

My friend receives health insurance through his job.  The slogan of the insurance company is "Live Well, Work Well."  Yesterday, his health insurance company sent him a self-test with the intentions of helping him "live well."  Unfortunately, the factors in which they judge health in the "Self-Care" section are far from the truth.  I included that portion of the test below and my analysis follows (feel free to take the test for yourself.  I scored a 23 due to zeros in a few categories).

4. Activities Promoting Self-Care

For each of the following self-care practices, circle how often you have engaged in them in the last month:

Always-3, Frequently-2, Rarely-1, Never-0

Eat breakfast in the morning  3  2  1  0

Maintain a healthy weight  3  2  1  0

Do not eat sugary foods  3  2  1  0

Do not eat fatty foods  3  2  1  0

Do not eat salty foods  3  2  1  0

Engage in aerobic exercise  3  2  1  0

Stretch and do yoga  3  2  1  0

Appreciate your body  3  2  1  0

Identify tensions in your body  3  2  1  0

Have good dental care  3  2  1  0

Wear your seat belt  3  2  1  0

Visit a professional for emotional health assistance  3  2  1  0

Take time off when you need it  3  2  1  0
Do not smoke  3  2  1  0

Drink alcohol in moderation  3  2  1  0
Visit a physician that you know and trust  3  2  1  0 

TOTAL SCORE: _______ Ideal: 37 or more . Balanced: 31-36 . Stressed: 22-30 . Exhausted: 0-21

(The bolded emphasis is mine). 

In a nutshell, here are my critiques:

1. Breakfast: as I have talked about previously, eating 2-3 meals and fasting 14-16 hours per day seems to provide more health benefit than frequent eating.  Keeping that in mind, I see nothing wrong with fasting through the morning and starting off with a meal in the afternoon.
2. Maintaining a healthy weight seems like good advice, but who is to say what a healthy weight is, and if you use body mass index (BMI) to measure, you might be considered overweight despite being muscular.  Pay attention to your body fat percentage.  It is much more black and white than weight.
3. Fat is a major building block for cells and exponentially increases the absorbtion of vitamins and minerals.  Fatty foods are not the killer that mainstream organizations have made them out to be either.  In fact, saturated fat has no connection to increased heart disease.  If they mean trans fat and omega-6 fatty acid-heavy foods by inferring that "fatty foods" are negative, then yes, I agree. 
4. I can only guess that the reason this insurance company recommends staying away from salty foods is to avoid hypertension.  However, salt has minimal effect on blood pressure, if any.
5. I don't think it's wrong to say, "Engage in Aerobic Exercise," as long as you add "if you enjoy it."  What's the objective here though?  Feel good, improve cardiovascular health, lose weight?  Strength training is a more effective way to improve fitness and cardiovascular health.  Weight loss is mostly a matter of proper nutrition. 
6. "Stretch and do yoga"...I have nothing against yoga, but I also don't think it's a necessary component for health.  As far as stretching goes, it doesn't improve flexiblity/joint range of motion, have an effect on potential soreness, and it doesn't decrease the risk of injury...it may actually increase the risk of long term injury!
7. How does one "appreciate" his or her body, and how does it add to the improvement of that person's health?
8. "Drink alcohol in moderation."  Why not avoid alchohol altogether?  I think that avoiding lectins altogether is better than taking in some on occasion.
9. You may know and trust your physician...in fact, he may come to your house for a barbecue on occasion, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to push cholesterol medication on you when he gets the chance.   
10. Why isn't strength training on here?  How is a person going to stop or prevent muscle atrophy, loss of bone density, or the decrease in basal metabolic rate?  Aerobic exercise isn't going to address those problems.

Like this insurance company, I want you to "live well" too.  However, I also want you to be smart.  Figure out what the research is truly saying.

The author closes with this advice.  Again, I bolded the text worth noticing. 

To promote self-care, eat a healthy breakfast of whole grains and fruits. Also take a vitamin with at least 500 milligrams (mg) of calcium and 250 mg of magnesium. Opt for a healthy snack of sliced veggies. Chopping on hard-to-bite carrots will release the tension in your jaw. Plus, they are extremely nutritious. Before you lay your head to rest, enjoy a light snack that is rich in carbohydrates such as toast.