What are we allowed to scare people about anymore ?

[Dreamliner]

I mean, we can't scare people about being fat. They live longer than skinny people do.

We can't scare people about having high cholesterol. They appear to live longer than people who have low cholesterol.

We can't scare people about eating too much sugar. Sugar consumption is down since 1980.

We can't scare people about eating too many processed foods. Turns out that the more we eat, the longer we live!

We can't scare people about not doing cardio. Do the French do cardio ?

Anything left ? Help me out here. How the hell am I going to get any customers ?!?!

[orangeblueorangeblue]

The good news is nobody pays attention to that. Just keep feeding them bs and sending the bill.

[Dreamliner]

Why not ? it works not only for fitness trainers and nutritionists in general, but also for doctors and registered dieticians too.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Because people are lazy. That's the unifying principle of the fitness industry.

[fbgator27]

Good thing people don't care about any of these things. People are more worried about their appearance than their actual health anyway. It's easy to ignore health risks. No one believes they are going to die or hurt themselves from their bad habits. On the other hand its not easy to ignore looking in the mirror every day.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by fbgator27

Good thing people don't care about any of these things. People are more worried about their appearance than their actual health anyway. It's easy to ignore health risks. No one believes they are going to die or hurt themselves from their bad habits. On the other hand its not easy to ignore looking in the mirror every day.

I see it all the time. Arguably, it keeps my business afloat. The presenting concern is health. The REAL issue is vanity.

Ex: a recent client of mine expressed the fear that if he didn't lose weight he'd end up like his father and mother. Father had heart disease. Mother had diabetes.

Father died at 82. Mother died at 81. Both exceeded the national average *notwithstanding their 'health risks.' I asked my client if he envisioned living forever.

Somewhat chastened, we turned to the real issue. And eventually he even asked me if he could get six-pack abs. I told him, sure, all he needed to do was lose about a foot off his waist and endure untold misery.

[fbgator27]

Of course I think it would be kind of hard to die from being fat alone. What people don't take into account is its not obesity that kills you. Its the congestive heart failure from the enlarged heart that puts them in the hospital where they get pneumonia and die or the leg amputation they have because they are diabetic that becomes septic.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by fbgator27

Of course I think it would be kind of hard to die from being fat alone. What people don't take into account is its not obesity that kills you. Its the congestive heart failure from the enlarged heart that puts them in the hospital where they get pneumonia and die or the leg amputation they have because they are diabetic that becomes septic.

Aside from the extreme upper-ranges of obesity, this doesn't actually appear to be the case. Study after study shows that obesity actually confers protection against diseases and episodes that kill leaner people sooner.

Let's be honest: we believe "Obesity kills!" because we've had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In a sense, we've become fat on bromides, slogans, scares and scams.

[fbgator27]

Thats what I am saying. It is not obesity that is causing death. It is the unhealthy habits that people have that cause this. When you control for all of these variables obesity alone does not equal higher mortality. I think we try to wrap all the blame into a nice package and call it obesity. Like you say it is a good scare tactic because people can see obesity and relate to that. Problem is it doesent fit. The sentiment is good. You tell someone they are overweight and need to take these steps to lose weight. Which is much easier than trying to convince someone to be more active to reduce their A1C. It sticks better because we have reminders everywhere we look that fat is not desirable.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by fbgator27

Thats what I am saying. It is not obesity that is causing death. It is the unhealthy habits that people have that cause this. When you control for all of these variables obesity alone does not equal higher mortality. I think we try to wrap all the blame into a nice package and call it obesity. Like you say it is a good scare tactic because people can see obesity and relate to that. Problem is it doesent fit. The sentiment is good. You tell someone they are overweight and need to take these steps to lose weight. Which is much easier than trying to convince someone to be more active to reduce their A1C. It sticks better because we have reminders everywhere we look that fat is not desirable.

"It is unhealthy habits that people have that cause this." What is 'this' ? Various diseases ? I'm not clear on what you're saying.

[fbgator27]

Sorry. "This" is the topic. Death..shorter life expectancy..morbidity.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by fbgator27

Sorry. "This" is the topic. Death..shorter life expectancy..morbidity.

Okay, thanks. I'm just observing that we're living longer than ever. We're even living longer actively than ever. So, it just seems odd to me that we're convinced that everything is killing us. I suspect the number one thing that's killing us is being human beings.

[fbgator27]

Is longer better? What about quality of life? Everyone wants to live to be 100 but I don't think many would want to spend the last 50 years with chronic disease. You can't necessarily argue "you can live longer" if you exercise but you can argue "you can live better".

[ovillegator]

Nothig to scare people?

How 'bout taxes?

And according to the prez, guns.

And the debt ceiling.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by fbgator27

Is longer better? What about quality of life? Everyone wants to live to be 100 but I don't think many would want to spend the last 50 years with chronic disease. You can't necessarily argue "you can live longer" if you exercise but you can argue "you can live better".

But that's a misconception too. Not only are we living longer than ever, we're living longer actively than ever. Many diseases are down. And one reason that some diseases are up is because we're living long enough to get them! If life expectancy were more in line with our Paleolithic ancestors many health fanatics lionize, we'd never live long enough to get heart disease and cancer.

Ex: a former client of mine wanted to lose about fifty pounds. His mom lived to be 94. His dad lived well into his 80's. But because of his weight, his physician prescribed statins, presumably for the hell of it.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by ovillegator

Nothig to scare people?

How 'bout taxes?

And according to the prez, guns.

And the debt ceiling.

Well, yes. And Piers Morgan still looms large.

[TheRaid]

Your premises are wrong. Look around. There are not that many fat old people. They die.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by TheRaid

Your premises are wrong. Look around. There are not that many fat old people. They die.

You're muddling the issue. It is always and everywhere the case that the extreme ranges of the curve, the morbidly obese and the underweight, die early.

But now that I think about it, since there are roughly twice as many Americans who are underweight than morbidly obese, why aren't we scaring skinny folks into gaining weight ? I mean, it's not clear that losing weight is helping the morbidly obese live longer, but maybe it won't kill the underweight to eat a sandwich or two.

[fbgator27]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner

But that's a misconception too. Not only are we living longer than ever, we're living longer actively than ever. Many diseases are down. And one reason that some diseases are up is because we're living long enough to get them! If life expectancy were more in line with our Paleolithic ancestors many health fanatics lionize, we'd never live long enough to get heart disease and cancer.

Ex: a former client of mine wanted to lose about fifty pounds. His mom lived to be 94. His dad lived well into his 80's. But because of his weight, his physician prescribed statins, presumably for the hell of it.

Yes, rates for many diseases are down and we live longer because medicine, living conditions, and better knowledge have solved a lot of the problems that kill us. Now, like you say we are dealing with new diseases. Many of these chronic diseases can be reduced by exercise/life style changes. In some cases better than medicine can. For instance in the US we perform more back surgeries than any industrialized nation by a huge amount. Do we have better outcomes? Not at all. We also love to prescribe blood thinners. What works better. Walking 15-30 minutes/day.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by fbgator27

Yes, rates for many diseases are down and we live longer because medicine, living conditions, and better knowledge have solved a lot of the problems that kill us. Now, like you say we are dealing with new diseases. Many of these chronic diseases can be reduced by exercise/life style changes. In some cases better than medicine can. For instance in the US we perform more back surgeries than any industrialized nation by a huge amount. Do we have better outcomes? Not at all. We also love to prescribe blood thinners. What works better. Walking 15-30 minutes/day.

I'm certainly with you on the activity side of the ledger. And I can tell you that I do barbell deadlifts for my herniated discs.