Overweight and Obese as Victims?

Two-thirds of adults in the U.S. are either obese or overweight. This is according to the fourth annual report from Trust for America’s Health, titled “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America.” Just last month, the report was featured in an online article on CNN, calling for a national strategy to combat the obesity crisis. Why? Because, people can’t be expected to handle this problem on their own. It’s not their fault!

Looking at the numbers, maybe we’ve come to a point where federal intervention is necessary. In 1991, only four states had obesity rates above 15 percent. Today, 32 states have obesity rates above 60 percent. The question is, what will federal intervention be, and what would it mean for the health/fitness industry and for society as a whole?

In the CNN article, Jeffrey Levi, who is co-author of the F as in Fat report, says that a national plan needs to be put in place, much like the federal government’s plan in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. “People can’t exercise personal responsibility in a vacuum,” he says. Levi cites such examples as government being responsible for ensuring that schools have physical education programs and nutritious meals for children, and local zoning boards providing things like sidewalks to ensure that people have a “place” to exercise.

I agree that physical education should never have been pulled from schools, and we’ve all seen what’s being served in cafeterias. But, giving kids a healthy start is one thing; bailing out obese adults is quite another. If the federal government is left to take charge of the obesity epidemic, we need to ensure that a national plan is aimed at changing lifestyles while instilling personal responsibility at the same time. Overweight and obese adults aren’t victims here, as could be interpreted by Levi’s statement that our society has “created an environment that doesn't make it possible for people to exercise that personal responsibility.” I don’t buy that at all. In fact, I think even if offered free workout facilities and a personal nutritionist, the majority of adults still wouldn’t work out or stop eating junk.

So, what are we really talking about if the government is to be responsible for implementing a national plan? Is it going to come down to subsidized fitness facilities and fitness facility memberships? Because we’ve all seen how well other government subsidized programs have helped to fix problems! That’s just scary.

The dialog has started, so fitness facility operators and professionals, to be sure, should have a pivotal voice. In my opinion, the government’s role should merely be to put national objectives in place, and provide healthy lifestyle incentives, such as tax and insurance rebates. The foremost national objective should be to publicize how much of a detriment obesity is to our society. The CNN article cites a Duke University study that found “184 lost work days per 100 obese full-time employees, versus 14 lost work days per 100 normal-weight full-time employees.” And, it says, the average obese worker has up to 21 percent higher healthcare costs.

Our industry’s role, on the other hand, should be to coordinate efforts with local governments and other organizations, and to make it clear that options are available to individuals in their efforts to be fit and to maintain a healthy weight. Trust me, if being obese felt as awful as having the flu, I’d bet overweight and obese individuals would be exercising their butts off and making a lot healthier food choices to get well.

Let’s not be fooled here. It will always come down to personal responsibility. The effects of a national anti-obesity effort, if approached responsibly by our government, could be good for our industry and all of society, provided we keep personal responsibility at the forefront.

What Fitness Professors Should Know

There’s a mess over at Mesa Community College, Mesa, Ariz., and it’s all about certification. Fifteen part-time fitness professors were fired because they lacked any sort of fitness certification, according to Mesa administration — though the professors claim it’s their age that’s the problem, not their education.

The article says Ann Stine, chairwoman of the school's exercise science department, said, “the department is improving exercise science instruction by making sure fitness teachers have kept up with medicine’s ever-changing body of knowledge. [We] also want them to be trained to help students with complex diseases, such as diabetes.” Sounds good to me. So, what’s the problem?

To bring about this change, a policy requiring professors to earn a personal training certification from one of three companies accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies was implemented. None of the fired professors earned a certification, and were subsequently fired.

It seems cut-and-dry, but college officials aren’t exactly backing Stine. One of the fired professors, 80-year-old Theo Heap, claimed he didn’t pursue certification because Stine didn’t make clear which certifications they should obtain, and the college agreed with him.

But, in my opinion, a professor of fitness ought to know which certifications are accredited and widely respected — no matter how old he is. Heap shouldn’t need anyone to hold his hand and lead him to the best certifying bodies. He should have been doing that for his students. If he was so uncertain about the lay of the fitness certification land, he has no place teaching budding fitness professionals.

There is undoubtedly more to the story, and I’ll leave it to the Mesa officials (and, likely, more than a few lawyers) to sort out that mess. But, making high-quality education a priority is a step every school should take, and stand behind.

Michael Moore’s Personal “Sicko”

Regardless of what you think of his documentary Sicko, or of your political leanings, Michael Moore is a living, breathing example of one way to ease the burden on our nation’s healthcare system: People can take responsibility for their own health and lose weight, which would tackle many health problems at its root.

Two fitness professionals agree. Jim Labadie and Ryan Lee, health advocates in Florida, are challenging the admittedly overweight Moore to live a healthier lifestyle. They created the Michael Moore Health Challenge, and state, “This is about Michael Moore exercising regularly and improving his diet so he can become a better role model for preventative care.”

Being obese can cause a list of health problems, according to WebMD, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, sleep apnea and stroke. And, these problems cost the U.S. healthcare system billions (yes, that’s billions) of dollars each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity and its associated health problems have a “significant economic impact on the U.S. healthcare system.”

A study on the costs attributed to obesity found that medical expenses for overweight and obese people accounted for 9.1 percent of total U.S. medical expenditures in 1998, and may have reached as high as $92.6 billion in 2002 dollars.

Michael Moore may have made some good points in his documentary, but the one thing he can achieve right now is control over his own health, and set an example for others who are overweight. Says Jason C. Brown, founder of CrossFit Philly, a training program and studio in Mt. Airy, Pa., “He’s a billboard for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and all those bad things associated with obesity. He’s preaching about healthcare costs, and he’s directly affecting it.”

When the Greater Good Doesn’t Prevail

Every so often, a law put into effect for good reason ends up undermining the greater good. This was certainly the case when a court ruled that a Santa Rosa, Calif.,-based women’s-only fitness center, Body Central, violated state law by excluding men. And, when owner Shannon Hartnett failed to comply with her settlement agreement, reached in 2004 with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), to eliminate all advertising that portrayed Body Central as a women’s-only fitness center, as well as provide separate shower and locker facilities for men within two years, the DFEH filed yet another lawsuit in 2006.

To provide some background.… In 1995, the California Supreme Court ruled that private clubs operating as businesses are required to follow state laws against discrimination. California’s law (the Unruh Civil Rights Act, Civil Code section 51(b)) stipulates that businesses have to provide “full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges or services,” and cannot discriminate on the basis of “sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability or medical condition.”

The original lawsuit against Body Central occurred when a man, Phillip Kottle, filed a complaint in 2003 with the DFEH, saying that he was refused membership at the facility on the basis of his sex. California is not the only state in which this has happened. Other states, namely Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Tennessee and Wisconsin, have had similar lawsuits, and now have laws allowing same-sex fitness facilities.

In most instances, there is no question that California’s law is a good one, protecting the rights of its citizens. But in the case of Body Central, the law stands to undermine the efforts made to encourage healthy lifestyles. There are many women who would prefer to only work out with women, and many men who would prefer to only work out with men — simply because they feel more comfortable, perhaps due to a weight issue, or perhaps because they would rather leave the sexual social atmosphere out of their workouts. I’m not saying that all men are eyeing women in the gym or vice-versa. But, let’s be truthful, it does happen.

I realize that the DFEH is required to act on all complaints that it deems violate state law, but it’s hard to understand how Body Central could be so unfairly singled out. There are hundreds of women-only fitness facilities in California, not to mention the recent growth of men-only fitness facilities, that have not had suits filed against them. Yet, they are also in direct violation of California’s or, perhaps, another state’s law.

If our industry is going to help the population get fit and, in the process, reduce the burden on healthcare costs caused by obesity and sedentary lifestyles, operators of single-sex facilities might be well-advised to be proactive about this issue, rather than waiting for the DFEH to come knocking on their doors. There is certainly a greater good to be gained by allowing these facilities to exist than to ban them.