HOT: WELLNESS AT WORK — An overweight employee costs his company $5,000 more a year in medical care than a healthy-weight person. That's one of many reasons why more and more employers are giving financial incentives to workers to motivate them to lose pounds, boost fitness, quit smoking.

It's an enlightened trend, but it arrives with a darker side: increasing numbers of companies are requiring workers who smoke, are overweight or have high cholesterol to pay higher premiums for their insurance. So I ask you: If penalizing employees with unhealthy lifestyles makes business sense, why don't we, who pay for health care with our tax dollars, ask our government to start penalizing businesses that make unhealthy food? We can start in 2012 with a tax on soft drinks, including diet colas.

HOTTER: MORE SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR BETTER HEALTH. Web-based wellness is exploding, with thousands of apps to support every kind of healthy behavior you can think of — from counting calories to calculating biorhythms, from tai chi and Pilates routines to apps that track your weight, body mass and cholesterol. If you can dream it, you can download it. So here's a question for Siri: Will an app a day really keep the doctor away? I have my doubts.

NOT: Negativity is anti-fitness, but as part of this year-end review, I couldn't resist coming up with three habits you do not want to take with you into the new year:

— Do NOT skip breakfast. A healthy morning meal jump starts your day, levels your metabolism, and helps prevent overeating later on.

— Do NOT grunt through an exercise plan that is no fun. It won't last.

— Do NOT ignore your stress. 2011 was tough, and 2012 looks hair-raising. Develop and execute a plan for letting go of daily tension — Meditation? Breathing? Yoga? — to keep your energy flowing and your immune system strong.

2011'S SILLIEST TV INFOMERCIAL: It's called the Tummy Tuck system, and if you believe this foolishness will help you lose weight, I've got a piece of land on the bottom of my shoe I'd like to sell you. The Tummy Tuck infomercial — I saw it myself! Is this actually legal? — details a two-step process that promises to melt your fat away while you do absolutely nothing.

Isn't that amazing? You just rub on the Tummy Tuck Accelerator Cream, and put the Tummy Tuck belt around your middle, and sit there for 8 minutes while all your unwanted pounds dissolve into the void. That's right: no exercise, no dieting, no change in your lifestyle whatsoever. In fact, the woman in the infomercial was shown wearing the TT belt and eating cookies between sessions, and it still worked. It's a miracle ... that they allow this insanity on TV.

MOST STARTLING HEALTH NEWS OF 2011: What's it going to be, I wondered, poking through a pile of health studies I've collected over the past year: "Long-term endurance training linked to heart damage." "Eating baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis reduces your risk of Alzheimer's Disease." "The low-salt diet the U.S. government advocates for all Americans puts many people into a danger zone where stroke, heart attack and death are more likely."

All those stories tickled my serious bone, but the one that stands out is the 2011 research on the hazards of sitting. Sitting too much, without moving around, causes cancer. Bummer. According to an analysis presented this year at the American Institute for Cancer Research, more than 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer are due to physical inactivity and prolonged periods of sitting. "Sitting disease" also increases your risk of endometrial and ovarian cancers.

How much sitting is too much? Even an hour increases your risk, according to Mayo Clinic's Dr. James Levin, who adds that many people sit an average of seven to nine hours a day. Arise, dear reader ... here and now!

ENERGY EXPRESS-O! COUNTING THE DAYS

"If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one." — Cavett Robert

Marilynn Preston — fitness expert, personal trainer and speaker on healthy lifestyle issues — is the creator of Energy Express, the longest-running syndicated fitness column in the country. She has a website, http://marilynnpreston.com and welcomes reader questions, which can be sent to MyEnergyExpress@aol.com.