Newton-Based Company Unites City in Pursuing Healthy Habits

What if there was a tanglible financial reward for making healthy decisions?

With the launch of Wellcoin at the Newtonville Whole Foods Market last week, now there is.

Wellcoin was developed by Dr. Glenn Laffel, a Newton resident and former cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Wellcoin is a "healthy decisions" and "virtual currency" company that rewards participants with Wellcoins when they make healthy decisions. Wellcoins can then be redeemed at partner businesses.

Already there are 15 partner businesses in Newton including Whole Foods, Legal Sea Foods, Pure Barre, Prana Power Yoga, Rosie's Bakery and the City of Newton itself.

"First and foremost, our goal is to get Newton residents to make more healthy decisions," said Willy Clark, public relations manager for Wellcoin. "We are a social media company focused on health."

Clark explained that participants will log their healthy activities on the Wellcoin website in order to earn the rewards. Because their activities are logged, the company can track whether the number of healthy activities in the city is increasing. Wellcoin can also serve as another way for businesses to interact with and track their customers.

"We see ourselves helping to improve Newton businesses," Clark said. "We see us as a way to extend their professional relationship."

Clark emphasized that Wellcoin isn't interested in creating a strict rubric of "healthy decisions." Rather, Wellcoin wants to highlight the healthy decisions that each person makes.

“Our view of health is extremely broad and that’s done on purpose," Clark said. "We believe that every person makes some healthy diecisions every day. It’s just a question of how many. The way our system operates, it gets people to recognize that even if they don’t have a healthy image of themselves, they are still doing healthy things."

In fact, a Wellcoin-earning healthy decision could be anything from exercising to donating blood to getting enough sleep to visiting a doctor, according to a press release from the mayor's office.

Newton Mayor Setti Warren was on hand Thursday for the Wellcoin launch and said he was "proud to have Newton serve as the nation's first Wellcoin Model City."

"This is a terrific opportunity for residents, city employees and our business community to come together with Wellcoin to promote health and wellness using this innovative new program that measures results," Warren said, according to a press release.

The Wellcoin website provides additional details and information and will serve as the hub on which people track their healthy decisions.

Right now, logging in to the tracking portion of the Wellcoin website requires a special code. Those invitation codes are available on fliers throughout the city at government offices, participating businesses, MBTA stations and other locations.