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In his 20s, Randy Hall, a service engineer with Welch Allyn, a leading manufacturer of frontline medical diagnostic equipment, was a track athlete and looked it. "I was skinny during my teens and 20s - I had a 29-inch waist, was about 140 pounds and I'm six feet tall," he recalls.

The Principal has announced its 10 Best Companies for Employee Financial Security, an annual honor for employers that maintained or enhanced financial supports that overall have dwindled in the past few years as health care costs increased and budgets tightened.

Experts agree that taking a 401(k) loan rarely is a good idea. Still, research suggests the number of plan participants doing just that is on the rise, particularly since 2008, when layoffs and financial turmoil left many American workers with nowhere else to turn for funds.

Acquisitions often occur for different reasons: Sometimes a company is looking to expand within its market sector; other times, a company is looking to expand outside of its traditional business operations for future growth and expansion.

Cost-shifting to employees, consolidating plan choices, emphasizing account-based plans and requiring employees to do more to receive incentives are key themes outlined in the 2011 Towers Watson Health Care Trend Survey.

When Peter Mongeau, vice president of human resources at financial services company John Hancock, was offered the opportunity to have his employees participate in a pilot wellness program focused on nutrition, he jumped at the chance.

Many people - and benefits professionals are no different - tend to skirt around issues rather than tell people directly and in no uncertain terms, "Here's what I want!"

Since their introduction over 30 years ago, 401(k) plans have evolved into one of the leading retirement savings vehicles for American workers. Skepticism about Social Security is widespread, with 70% of workers surveyed by the Employee Benefits Research Institute for its annual retirement confidence survey saying they are "not too" or "not at all" confident that Social Security will continue to provide benefits of at least equal value to the benefits retirees receive today.

As flexible work options become more commonplace - research from WorldatWork shows that flexibility programs including part-time schedules, flextime and telework are offered to some or all employees in more than 80% of companies, with more than two-thirds of organizations, and 68% offer all three - it can be difficult to remember that not every employee has the option to work at home when her child is sick, or flex his hours to go to a mid-day doctor's appointment.

We all say we want to live a healthy life. So why is it so hard to do what we say? It's the central question that every wellness program tries to address.