Authors Al Lewis (left), Andre Spicer, and Carl Cederstrom have been getting lots of mileage tearing down the notion of corporate wellness. Having not heard enough in reply to balance their broadsides, I’m writing one.

Let’s start here: What is wrong with wanting more wellness for yourself and for those around you? Remove the ideology, the hyperbole, and the snark, and what remains is not only defensible, it’s almost admirable: I wish you to be well!

No, I’m not naive. No way do I think that when corporations want their employees to be well, they are motivated by the same emotion that one might extend to family or other loved ones — or any emotion, for that matter. But still: If someone truly wants me to be more well, that’s more important to me than their motivation, slimy or not.

For discussion sake, let’s say corporations only want workers’ wellness to help their bottom line. (The critics don’t grant that wellness efforts will do that, but just say, for now.) In a wholistic view, which to me is the only proper prism for anything, companies **should** want employees to be well. The obvious question is why they ever wanted less!

Does anyone doubt that happy, appreciated, cared-for people function better in every phase of life? Let me ask you: Are you more productive or less, when your needs count for as much as the needs of the other party — regardless of the relationship?

I was a corporate employee for 30 years, and experienced too many instances of callous corporate perfidy to ever fully trust that my employer wants anything other than its own goals. But what I allow is that, increasingly, companies understand that employee wellbeing should be one of their goals.

Next and next: Two looks at those who claim that corporate wellness is actually harmful.

Lewis has written several books, including Why Nobody Believes the Numbers: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction in Population Health Management. Spicer and Cederstrom are the authors of “The Wellness Syndrome.” Under the circumstances, I think it's generous to include links to their Amazon pages.