L.I.F.T.

I was in the Administration building on campus at SF State today, going up to turn in my protocol packet for my final research, and got locked in the stairwell.

I’m a stair guy most of the time. I like taking the stairs. The protocol office is up on the fourth floor, which seemed like a nice walk to me.

And it turned out to be a nice walk, up and down. And a nice stand in the elevator afterward.

Given that there is an “obesity epidemic” in this country, and that it is directly connected to people’s (low) levels of physical activity, and that the best type of physical activity seems to be those done as “activities of daily living,” it seems odd that we’d lock off stairwells.

It’s very discouraging to people who might want to try taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It sends a message – Thou shalt not…

So why the locked stairwells people?

What’s the difference?

“Physical activity” is anything you do with your body. It’s a very vague, broad term.

“Exercise” is more specific. Here let’s define it as the use of the body for a specific result. But let’s be even more specific, let’s talk about “working out.”

“Working out” is exercise to achieve greater strength or endurance, some health benefit, or aesthetic qualities.

We Indigenes
Indigenous means you’re born of a certain area. Literally “produced” (gen) “within” (in-).

Normally we think of “indians” with this term…or “aborigines” (a similar type of meaning to this word – “from” (ab), “the beginning” (origine, origin)).

While I’ll use the typically understood meaning of those words in this post, I think it’s worth pointing out that we all are “indigenous” to our habitat, whatever that may be at the moment. We are continually produced within and crafted by the environment (in every sense of the word – buildings, nature, people, weather) that we are within.

We also all are “aboriginal” – coming from our own origin. You can track your heritage back all the way to the “origin” if you have the time and gumption.

Source of the Physically Active
If you read my previous post, you know that I disagree with a lot of the arguments made these days in attempts to explain overweight/obesity, lack of physical activity, and associated diseases.

In sum – I think the built/man-made environment has very little real effect on what physical activities people choose to participate in, but that participation in physical activities and use of ones environment is largely a matter of imagination supported by a like-minded community – and examples of this can be found in many places today or throughout history. I think that agriculture is not the downfall of mankind, and that there are many examples of extremely healthy populations that practice agriculture. I think that over-abundance of cheap calories is not the cause of obesity or overweight, but that over-indulgence is.

Most importantly, I think that most of these arguments involve the removal (or subjugation) of self-responsibility from the individual and their free choice to engage or not engage in whatever they choose. Discussions supporting the built environment approach imply that people have no free will to engage in whatever they want, but are determined to behave in certain ways by their surroundings. Parkour would be a counter to this idea. Discussions of agriculture imply that people cannot choose what to plant in what manner. Masanobu Fukuoka would be a counterpoint. Discussions of over-abundant, cheap, and “empty” calories say that a person cannot choose to eat other things. Granted, this one is trickier, as some areas literally have no alternatives within easy grasp. But there still are alternatives – get out of those areas.

Any system, as I’ve mentioned before, is self-sustaining, by definition. Every system must seek to maintain, sustain, and maybe even to further, itself, in order to continue to survive in the presence of/cooperation/competition with other systems. Society is no different. The discussions mentioned above are part of society, so they reflect the values of that society. Mine is as well, so take it with a grain of salt.

How, Kemosabe
So what is it then, Josh? What’s the difference between working out and physical activity, and how does it relate to health?

Indigenous cultures are “physically active” throughout the day/week/month. Usually, in small discrete increments, but sometimes for extended periods of time at a stretch. Usually at relatively low intensities, but sometimes at very high intensities. And almost never at very high intensities for extended periods of time.

Indigenous cultures (except for ours here in the US) largely don’t “work out” to get their physical activity. Even in many places in Europe today the concept of going to a gym and working out is still seen as a secondary and inferior mode of exercise.

Rather, physical activity in indigenous cultures (and in many places in “civilized” Europe) comes from and in daily living. They walk to work. They walk to the store. They push or pull or carry their food, instead of driving it in a car. They may have to do physical activity to get their food. Their days have physical activity “built-in.”

I don’t want you to think that this is true only of “indians” and “aborigines” (as we typically think of those terms). I mentioned that there are places in “civilized” Europe where physical activity comes as part of daily living.

There are also a few agricultural communities that still behave this way, nestled within our own (US) culture.

An example of this is found in this paper: Physical Activity of Canadian and American Children: A Focus on Youth in Amish, Mennonite, and Modern Cultures, by David R. Bassett, Jr.

From the abstract:
“Amish and Mennonite children have higher levels of physical activity than modern-living children, despite less participation in competitive sports. As a result, Amish and Mennonite children tend to be leaner than their counterparts in contemporary society.”

If you can get your hands on it, you should read this paper. It’s very interesting. It says something that seems terribly obvious when you read it – that people who do physical work as part of their daily lives are leaner than those who do not.

But if you look deeper, you’ll see that the “agriculture” argument breaks down here as well. Amish and Mennonite groups participate in agriculture. It doesn’t make them fat or stupid.

They also have an abundance of available calories most of the time. But that doesn’t make them fat either.

They construct a built-environment very similar to any you or I might live in. There are buildings with rooms. But they don’t just sit in those rooms all day.

Opposite-Land
Where “traditional” human activity is intermittent, as I stated above (btw, this paper is a fantastic overview of “intermittent” exercise in the animal world), physical activity in our US culture has become limited to “workouts” – half-hour or hour-long blocks of relatively continuous, relatively intense exercise.

Problems of overtraining and burnout in physical activity arise because our exercise has no tempo, other than a factory-based one, a vestige of the early-industrial foundations of our “work culture.” That is, “work” in the United States is based mostly on ideas of labor that came about during the industrial revolution – still. Things like “shift work,” where the employee works a certain shift every day, set daily/weekly schedules, set meeting times every week, etc. – the artificial, machine-based (i.e., machine-rhythm) division of time into measurable increments, with the aim of “maximum production” – where the ability to produce never fades, never waxes and wanes, but is always set at the maximum.

This is even more apparent in the term we use to describe exercise – it’s a “work out.”

This industrial idea of work has little to do with what happens in “natural” living, where work, though it is intense, and regular, happens in waves of exertion and rest, happens with a rhythm that matches the ability of the body to produce energy, and in rhythm with the seasons, the weather, and the habitat.

Our ideas about what constitutes “exercise” have been shaped by this. Just go into any gym and look at all of the machines in there. To use a machine, you must become one. Using one, you are used by it.

The Big But
But, Josh, you might say, we don’t live in a culture where physical activity is demanded of us in our work, throughout the day. So we have to go to the gym to exercise. We have to “work out.”

Here’s where that old argument comes in again – that we are without option. That we have no free will. No choice. We “must” because “that’s how things are.”

I disagree.

In fact, I have to thank one of my clients for proving this point to me. He is a very successful corporate executive. He travels about two weeks out of every month. He’s in fantastic physical shape.

Yes, he does go to the gym to work out, but he also has a stability ball at his desk, that he sits on intermittently throughout the day instead of sitting on his office chair. When he is using the ball, he’ll do crunches, and other exercises whenever he feels like it. He’ll get some intermittent physical activity.

A more extreme version of getting intermittent physical activity in our daily lives, one that I really highly respect, and think that we all could take a cue from, is Herschel Walker.

When he was a boy, according to one article I read, he would do pushups and situps while watching TV and studying (which usually were happening at the same time).

Can you do that as well?

If you feel resistance to doing pushups and situps during commercial breaks while you’re watching TV, why is that? Let’s do some physiology tracking – Where does that resistance come from within you (I mean, physically – your gut, your heart, your mind, your limbs – where do you feel the “pressure”?) and where does it come from outside of you (peer pressure?)?

Why can’t we do pushups and situps at work? Or walk or run up and down the stairs a couple of times? Why can’t we get up from our desks to take walks around the office park whenever we’re feeling stagnant or burnt out?

Physical activity for us, has become a choice, not a necessity. We choose not to.

The answer to the question above is – we can, but we don’t. We choose not to.

Why don’t we? Why don’t you?

Another great post from JR prompts a follow-up piece by me.

This one is about food subsidies by the Federal government, the Farm Bill. It comes from The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Hopefully, I’m not violating anything in reproducing this chart they created:

These Pyramids Weren't Built By Aliens!!!!

As PCRM’s post points out, the Farm Bill not only provides food subsidies, but also decides much of what will constitute school lunches.

With a Food Pyramid like that, who needs enemies?!

The most recent post on the Neuroanthropology Blog discusses Obesity and family medicine – and the fact that some family physicians are starting to recognize family and environmental factors as decisive in treating childhood obesity.

I point this out in my comment on their site, but the author (and the physicians) forgot to include governmental subsidization of different food products (and governmental leadership, generally) in their factor-analysis.

As I’ve said before, the body follows the head. This is true in organisms, cultures, and governments.

In cultural/organizational terms, the Federal government is often the “head” of the social-body. It leads via policy (such as subsidies, land-usage policies, etc.), and also by example (accruing massive amounts of debt, etc.).

Further, much of what constitutes “popular” media takes its cue from the Federal government. “Truth in advertising” relies on governmental moderation. The nullification of the Radio Fairness Doctrine in 1987 had serious repercussions as to what type of messaging has dominated radio advertising since (see my post on the anti-smoking campaign of the early ’70’s and how the Fairness Doctrine was a decisive part of that movement).

I’m happy that MD’s are not as “isolationist” in their thinking as they may have been in the past, but the issue needs to be sussed out in its full depths – which includes holding governmental bodies, and the bodies (i.e., people) who make up those “bodies,” responsible for the way food is produced and marketed in our country.

The Palm Beach Post did a great piece on some new literature about the frequency of junk food product placements in films.

A new study by Lisa Sutherland, assistant professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, reveals the incredible amount of product placement occurring in popular movies.

138 of 200 films analyzed had some kind of product placement – food or beverage – most of it, what we could consider “junk food.”

How many products can we fit into one "placement?"

The problem with this is that the more we are exposed to a stimulus, the more likely we are to accept that stimulus as normal.

A lot of studies have shown dishabituation in people after being presented to stimuli a certain number of times.  That is, they cease to notice the stimulus as being novel.  Most of those studies have stopped there.  Yes, you cease to notice the thing.  But what does that mean with regard to how you treat it?

How do you treat something you don’t notice?

The fact is, we treat things we don’t notice as being non-threatening…as being “normal.”  When we notice something, we say it is “unusual” or “out of the ordinary.”  It is not “normal.”

Advertising achieves a few things at once.  First, it exposes you to a novel stimulus, and presents that stimulus as something desirable (for good or bad reasons) and as being socially acceptable or creating a certain social status.

Then, it continues to pummel you with the messaging, till you aren’t even aware of it.  For instance, if you watched TV last night, try to name ten commercials that you saw.  Specifically – what were they about, what were they selling, how were they trying to convince you to buy?

It’s a hard game to play.

Finally, every now and then the advertiser tweaks the message.  You receive a new stimulus.  Your “desire-reaction” grows.

Tweak the message

Children may be more susceptible to this type of messaging than adults, having not fully developed their “executive control” functions (though whether or not many adults have fully developed this is questionable as well…).

I was prompted to write this post, finally, after avoiding and/or forgetting about it the past seven or eight times.

DOH

People Watcher

Whenever I’m out in public, I watch people.  I love to watch the way they move, and to try to imagine what’s happening in their bones and muscles.

Do they favor one leg over another?  Why?  Is it the foot, ankle, knee, or hip on one side or another?  Or is it something else?  Sometimes, people look like they’re “favoring” a leg because they’re carrying a heavy bag on one shoulder.

But I also see people whom I think might be in for some serious musculoskeletal difficulties in their future.  Women wearing high heels, clonking like Clydesdales, slamming their already out-of-place feet into the ground, with their pelvis tilted forward…I don’t know.  Maybe they’ll have issues, maybe not.

She might have other issues...

And that’s what I thought today.  I was driving down the street, and saw a distinguished-looking older gentleman walking along.  His feet toed-out a little as he walked…a slight “duck walk.”  This type of walking position typically means there are some dysfunctions up the kinetic chain, which can lead to more serious issues over time – as the unbalanced wear and tear on the joints destroys or malforms them.

Then I realized something.

This guy most likely won’t ever experience any issues from this style of walking.  In fact, he’d probably been walking exactly that way for most of his life.  And here he was, walking just fine, looking happy as can be.

Yes. Just this happy!

Leave Me Alone!

We have a tendency in this country…at least, I know that I have it – to think that people should be doing something better.  That things need to be different in order to be good.  When that may not be the case.

In the same token as the man I saw, many people will never experience disability from not being physically active or following a good diet.  They’ll never notice.  It doesn’t matter to them.

It doesn’t matter.  It’s not important.  In fact, it seems silly.

I’ve gotten that reaction from people a lot over the years – “you’re crazy,”

Craig Weller’s recent post on the Elevating Fitness blog had the type of message I usually give – do something, pay attention, change, live, appreciate what you have!

But, while I personally agree with Craig 100%, I don’t think that’s as meaningful as I used to.  You have to meet people where they are.  And many of them don’t care if they’re fit or active.

So if that’s the case, how do you convince them?  Or should you even try?

For anyone who has ever wondered, “What the heck is Exuberant Animal?”

Or, “Do I have to be as crazy as Josh?”

Frank Forencich has posted a great video blog with a nice synopsis of his mission and the goals of EA:

http://blog.exuberantanimal.com/laughing-sweating-and-inspired/

Ask me anything!

Smokey the Bear once said “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.”

In fact, here he is now!

While it’s not entirely true, it is entirely true.  Only YOU can make any kind of change in your world.  Only you.

I was inspired to write this post by Aaron Schwenzfeiers recent blog-link to Scott Berkun’s blog.  The question Aaron posed was whether or not Americans should receive more time off – if that might help to get people more physically active.

I’m not convinced.

Personal Responsibility

This brings up a huge issue that I’m writing a totally separate entry about – around the concept of “personal responsibility.”

I won’t go into that entire subject in depth here, but only comment on part of it.  Change, and doing what you can, with what you have, right now.

Just Do It

My main question to Aaron was – What do people use their free time for now?

When life is stressful, and seems out of your control, you’re more likely to view free time as an excuse to “take it easy,” to relax, or to indulge in the things you don’t get to when you’re busy working (perhaps at something you do not actually derive any satisfaction or fulfillment from).

It’s very similar to what dieters experience, who deprive themselves of foods, and have one cheat day.  The cheat day ends up negating the effects of the rest of the diet.

Better, I think, to focus on changing your individual situation.

The Serenity Prayer

The Serenity Prayer is typically associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, though it was created well before AA came into existence.

It says:

God, grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change

To change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference.

I really like this prayer.  I think it does a good job of reflecting the attitude we need to have in life.  Because, while “personal responsibility” is not the end-all be-all of existence (there are things that are truly outside of our control), we do have an incredible amount of power, especially nowadays, to make positive change in our lives.

Enculturation

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you say this coming.  Culture trains us to think certain ways.  That also holds true for the ways we think about our own personal freedom, and our responsibilities.

Most pertinent to this post, it holds true for our conceptions of what is possible.  I still encounter situations, on almost a daily basis, where I realize that the only thing that had ever stopped me from doing a particular thing was the belief that it was actually possible, a plan to accomplish it, and the action to make the plan happen.

That is, I wasn’t given either the self-confidence to believe in such a possibility, or, equally as important, the framework for making change in my life once I had a belief or goal.

In our culture, we seem to foster a constant desire to “have/make things change.”  While that’s not entirely bad, it’s not accurate, either.

“Things” never change.  “Things” always are just as they are.  You, you can change.  Your life situation, you can change.  Your actions (most importantly) you can change.

You can take control of what’s within your grasp to control.

The Panacea

If there is a “cultural panacea” it will have something to do with giving people self-confidence, and the tools to turn that confidence into positive action for their lives and well-being.

That being said, a lot of the folks whom we think should change, don’t think they need to change at all.  We talk about creating change a lot – for instance, in the need to decrease obesity in the United States, or increase physical activity.  But the people who are living in an “obese” state, or who are not physically active, often don’t feel the need to change either of those situations.

Do you think you need to change?

Another goodie from the NYT, that’s too good not to comment on: “One Bowl = 2 Servings. F.D.A. May Fix That.”

Finally, it seems, things are starting to make sense.

Or are they?

Unfair Trade, with my GI Tract

Ben & Jerry’s
When I was in college, we’d all get together now and then, have some food, drink a few bottles of wine, and then each polish off our own pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Didn’t seem like a lot of ice cream, but I knew what was in it. I worked for Fresh Fields (now Whole Foods), and was keen on dietary information.

A pint of Ben & Jerry’s had something around 1300 calories in it. I think there were 30+ grams of fat per serving. And it tasted delicious!

It didn’t bother any of us. I think we were all young and active enough to be able to burn that stuff off. I don’t know. We’ll find out in another fifteen years or so, when one of us keels over.

Wherefore Art Thou, Nutrition?
Until then, I want to ask the same question I always ask – what does this mean?

Seriously, folks. Do food labels lead to any change? The NYT did another piece in October of last year, showing that the posting of caloric value of foods in restaurants’ windows didn’t lead to any change.

So what is the meaning of this? More regulation? More change?

One of the things that we do know about human (or animal) behavior, is that animals are less likely to be concerned when something appears immediately obvious or transparent.

In that same October NYT article, in fact, the people going into the restaurants with posted nutrition values had actually consumed more calories on average than customers had before the posting took place.

I know you want some.

Something to Gain, Something to Lose
Who is gaining from these new rules? Not Americans. Not “the common man.” At least, the common person isn’t gaining anything but extra girth, and a new risk-factor on their health insurance application.

Someone else is gaining something, too. Who is that?

Change is happening, but to what end? And on whose terms?

Another great article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, this one by Bryan McCullick, called Obesity won’t improve without reforming PE, sums up the thoughts of a lot of my classmates (and professors) from one class this past semester.

The article points out that PE is a wonderful method for preventing obesity, for informing young minds, and for creating healthy lifestyles. It also points out that PE is conspicuously missing from President Obama’s healthcare reform package.

“PE is at the core of promoting healthy choices. A comprehensive school program includes PE, health education, healthy food options, recess for elementary school students, intramural sport programs and physical activity clubs, and interscholastic sports for high school students. Ideally, schools would also include physical activity breaks, walk/bike to school programs, appropriate physical activity in after-school child care programs, and staff wellness programs.”

The above is, in fact, the definition of “physical educator” that my classmates and I arrived at this semester. And is the definition the physicians had in mind who created the field of kinesiology back in the early 1900’s.

Bryan gives us some good financial data:
“A 2009 report from the California Center for Public Health Advocacy on the annual economic costs of physical inactivity, obesity and being overweight in California estimated that in 2006 physical inactivity cost $20.19 billion, being overweight and obesity $20.98 billion. That’s more than $41 billion in economic costs for Californians alone.”

I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts the costs of “Non-Communicable Diseases.” When you consider that NCD’s include obesity, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, you have to wonder why more attention isn’t being given to physical activity on a national level.

Then Bryan gets to the point that really stuck with me this past semester…the one that I think is the major hurdle to all of this:
“The quality [my italics] of PE students’ need is glaringly omitted in anyone’s talking points in the health care debate. Overcrowded gymnasiums, insufficient or outdated resources, and sometimes inhumane working conditions (no air conditioning in gyms when school begins in August) are archetypal for many PE programs…Further, 33 percent of states reacting, again, to federal mandates for “highly qualified” teachers have relaxed licensure requirements for PE teachers. To help young people develop into physically educated individuals, a specialist with a body of knowledge and skills is needed in every school. The days of the ball-rolling, coffee-swilling, game-prepping PE “coach” have contributed to the current obesity rate increase.”

One of the things that happened to the field of kinesiology, the field of physical education, in the 1970’s, was that the academic began to split from the professional. That is, the people doing research and teaching academic classes were no longer the same people providing exercise advice, or dealing with human beings’ physical state as their daily work.

Soon thereafter, “physical educator” was a worthless term – and the profession went with the job. Schools figured, heck, anyone can teach a PE class. It’s just having the kids play around or something.

No more tying their Biology lessons into their own biology, or their Chemistry lessons into their own Physiology. No more education on the proper technique for performing certain movements, and the reasons behind that technique. Nor for the ways the body responds to various types of exercise.

The fact that I can work as a personal trainer has a lot to do with the terrible state of physical education in this country. Most of my clients are more than able and happy to exercise without paying another person to show them how – they just don’t know what to do or how to do it without potentially hurting themselves!

They always say that the best employee seeks to put him/herself out of a job, by making the connections needed across the organization to make themselves unnecessary. They create efficiency.

I hope to do the same thing with my training. It’s my new goal.

Job Title: Physical Educator

Bread and butter?! Yummy!!! Ohhh....

On page 169 of his book, Gary Taubes quotes Albert Einstein, who once said that “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

Why didn’t Gary take Albert’s words to heart?!!!

This book is awesome, in every sense of the word. It is a comprehensive look at the research surrounding diet and obesity, since research in that area began.

It is also incredibly dense and difficult to read, and, I think, poorly structured. Themes, dates, studies, characters, are repeated throughout the book. I wish Gary had hired an editor!!!

That being said, the book is still incredible. It’s an amazing look into the vagaries of science – that there is essentially only conflicting evidence around the diet-heart, or cholesterol-heart hypotheses, and that those ideas have been driven mostly by fame-hungry researchers, or by the impetus of the thrust of research itself (once the general tenor is set, research tends to continue in the same direction). It is a fascinating look at human dietary physiology.

Earlier today, I was speaking with a client about this book, and saying that I had reached the point (at page 384…roughly 80 still to go, after two months of plodding) where I wished Gary had produced a Cliff Notes version of his book.

Then, lo and behold, on page 453-4 of the book, he does. I’ll quote the entire “summation” here, because I think the message is important. It goes against everything we’ve been told for the past 30-50 years. But that stuff wasn’t really backed up by anything at all. Read the following passage, and if you’re still interested, read the book!

“As I emerge from this research, though, certain conclusions seem inescapable to me, based on the existing knowledge:
1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not the cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization.
2. The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis – the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
3. Sugars – sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically – are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.
4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.
7. Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance – a disequilibrium – in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance.
8. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated – either chronically or after a meal – we accumulate fat in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel.
9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.
10. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.”

I’m going to go have a donut and some ice cream!!!