A. No, The Live Well Challenge is not part of the Healthy Incentives℠ Program. Participation does not count towards your individual action plan or affect your out-of-pocket health care costs in any way. The Live Well Challenge is purely a fun, employee-driven event to support healthy lifestyles and healthy workplaces among King County employees. (If you have questions about your out-of-pocket health care costs or Individual Action Plan, please contact BROS at health matters or call (206) 684-1556.)

A. You are authorized to use County equipment to submit your points to your Team Captain and view the Live Well Challenge website. Submission of weekly points should be done during breaks or lunchtime and should take a minimal amount of time (1-2 minutes). In terms of physical activity, you are certainly encouraged to take walks with co-workers during your breaks and lunchtime. Better nutrition habits, of course, can be incorporated into your meals at home, work, and on-the-go.

A. Yes. Your participation is completely confidential. Team members’ names will never be made public. The only people with access to the members’ names and phone numbers are the team captains and the Health Matters Team.

A. The Health Matters team realizes that the end of summer is a popular time for vacations. It’s definitely possible for employees to participate even if they will be vacationing during a portion of the competition. In order to ensure their points are entered, employees who will be on vacation should project their points for the week(s) of absence in advance and submit these projected totals to their Team Captain before leaving. If, upon return, the employee realizes his/her prediction was off, he/she can adjust his/her points for the subsequent week. Unfortunately, there is no way to enter any points once team’s weekly point totals have been submitted.

A. The Live Well Challenge is one of the components of the Health Reform Initiative. Goals of the Health Reform Initiative are to encourage health among employees and their families and reduce health care costs. The Live Well Challenge fosters healthy workplaces and encourages healthy behaviors in a friendly team-based competitive event. Surveys of King County employees resulted showed that employees would like a team-based event to reward and encourage health. The Live Well Challenge is just that.

A. Unfortunately we encountered conflicting data sources regarding the county organization and heirachy. We are working with the departments to update their information so we may be more accurate in the future.

For this year's Challenge, we added an "Other" category for each department. If you registered under "Other", but would like the official database to represent your actual agency/division/office, please email us the information (livewellchallenge@kingcounty.gov) and we will manually update our records.

A. Teams can have between 3 to 10 members total, including the Team Captain. Team members must be King County employees, and all employees are eligible (part-time, STT and TLT).

A. The team score is the average for your team: add up of all individual points and divide by the number of team members for the team score.

A. At the end of registration, your team will declare a final number of members. This number is to be used when averaging the weekly scores regardless of how many members actually submitted scores or earned points.

A.If two teams tie, both teams will be awarded prizes. If more than two teams tie, one team will be randomly selected from the tied teams.

A. Very rarely; however, if you are physically unable to continue participating in the Challenge or leave King County employment you may request a substitute. It is your responsibility to locate a replacement team member for your team. The substitute team member will assume your points to date, goal and area of focus until the end of the Challenge. To request a substitution, your team captain must contact the Health Matters team.

A. If the Team Captain is unable to report points, the Captain must find a team member to report points. The Team Captain should give the team member access to the Challenge Center page by sharing the team’s unique web address with the team member. This will also give the team member access to weekly e-mails to be shared with the team.

A. At the beginning of the challenge you set a goal for the number of points you want to earn. At the end of week 3, if you reach your goal you will earn an additional 50 points. At the end of week 6 if you reach your goal, you will earn an additional 50 points.

A. Yes. If you have a breakfast, for example, of one cup of 100% fruit juice, an apple and a slice of whole grain toast, you can count 1 point for eating a healthy breakfast and 1 point for eating 2 cups of fruit. The slice of whole grain toast (1 ounce equivalent) will count towards the daily recommended 3 ounces of whole grains.

A. Yes, if you are taking the stairs for at least 10 minutes as part of your 30 minutes of daily physical activity (i.e. stair climbing). In general, points claimed for taking the stairs (e.g. from one floor to another) should be counted separately from points claimed for 30 minutes of daily physical activity. This is to encourage taking the stairs whenever possible even if you are unable to achieve 30 minutes of physical activity in a day.

A. No. Points claimed for a stretch break should be counted separate from points claimed for a 15 minute stress relief activity. This is to encourage taking a stretch break at work whenever possible even if you are unable to engage in 15 minutes of a stress relief activity.

A. Worksite Health Promotion points can be earned in a variety of ways. To see which activities qualify How to Earn Points.

A. Report Worksite Health Promotion points weekly along with your points for other Live Well Challenge activities.

A. Special Activity/Event points can be earned in a variety of ways. To see which activities qualify How to Earn Points.

A. Report Special Activity/Event points at the end of week 6 of the Challenge along with your points for other week 6 Live Well Challenge points.