On Hiatus

I’ve decided to put the blog on hiatus for the time being to focus on work, family, and school.  It may very well return once I complete my MBA in late 2009 or early 2010.  In the meantime, feel free to peruse the archives for topics of interest.  Thanks for stopping by.

Take Five

As you’ve noticed recently, I’ve not posted since early January despite intentions.  Given my hectic schedule for the first quarter of this year, I’m going to put Fitness & Wellness in America on hiatus until the spring, when I can devote more time to it.  Thanks for reading, and hopefully we’ll meet up again soon.

Maslow in Action

If you want to see an example of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, look no further than the recent presidential election. There were several battleground states that turned blue this time around due to the economy, whereas they might otherwise be red in better times due to socially conservative views in the state. When jobs are going away and the retirement account is dwindling, issues like gay marriage and immigration don’t seem quite as important. Maslow’s hierarchy shows that there’s a “priority list” when it comes to a person’s well-being.

This is also seen in how people address their health. Right now some people are tossing aside health club memberships and pricey organic foods to save money, and reducing leisure time to spend more time making money. These folks may place personal health and wellness in one of the top two categories of esteem and self-actualization. Exceptions to these behavior changes, or at least instances of changes to a lesser extent, are those people who place their health firmly in the second level of personal safety. These people are not only concerned about their overall wellness – as most people are to some extent – but it is a core part of their identity, and is in their view, essential to their existence.

This is where the fitness industry can do itself and its customers a favor in these tough times. By delivering and branding its offerings in such a way that connotes safety, as defined by Maslow, a facility can lower wellness in the hierarchy and increase in the likelihood that people will maintain their activity. How to do that? Easier said than done, but it comes down to helping people make the connection that when they don’t engage in healthy behaviors, they don’t “feel right” (physiological need), and they’re aren’t able to properly function and take care of themselves and their family economically (safety need). These connections are typically made through a combination of personal interaction with service providers, such as personal trainers and group exercise instructors, through awareness/education of health/wellness at the facility, and through branding that reinforces healthy living as central to a person’s being.

This transition to the bottom sections of the hierarchy is going to ultimately create a win-win-win situation for the individual, those around that person, and the facility. Times like these make it a little more difficult to serve people since they have other things on their mind, but it’s also the time for the fitness industry to demonstrate how it can enhance lives.

Choose and Accept

There have been several research studies that have suggested a positive correlation between weight and time spent watching TV, and recently a study was released suggesting the same for weight and Internet surfing. The common factor of both is obvious, that being the minimal level of physical activity involved. It’s this level of activity that people should keep in mind when trying to manage their weight or their children’s weight and overall physical development, not the TV watching itself. I know, that sounds obvious also, but it doesn’t seem to be. TV has been demonized for years by health professionals for its link to higher body weight, but one could just as easily gain weight by other sedentary activities, such as reading, for example. I think we simply don’t hear warnings about “too much reading” some people perceive television watching to be a wasteful activity, whereas reading is not. The fact is that too much time with any sedentary activity, whether watching TV, surfing the Internet, or reading, can contribute to weight gain and/or poorer health.

Ultimately, a person’s choice of leisure activity comes down to priorities. There are many people who regularly watch TV, spend time online, or read for pleasure who also find time to stay active and make healthy meals. The people who don’t have simply placed a higher priority on those and other pursuits, which isn’t right or wrong, but simply is what it is. My only issue with these people is that – in my experience – they are often the same people who complain about not being able to lose weight, lower their cholesterol, etc. Sorry, pick one – either choose not to make healthy lifestyle choices and accept where you are, or choose to do something about it.

I once had to lay it out there for a patient (this happened while I worked at a hospital’s wellness center) just that way. She had quite a few things on her plate, all of which she enjoyed. She didn’t enjoy her health status though, and wanted to do something about it. But week in and week out she chose to continue the other activities and made very little time to change her lifestyle behaviors. After meeting with her only a few times, I essentially told her that she had 24 hours in a day just like everyone else and she couldn’t pack an infinite number of pursuits into each day, so she had to choose what she wanted. If that meant that a healthy lifestyle fell off the radar, then so be it – as long as she accepted it though. If she didn’t want to accept that, then fine – something else had to go in order for her to free her schedule enough that she could make the behavior change a reality.

It’s not the individual activities that we pursue that are possibly problematic, but these activities within the larger context of our daily lifestyle decisions. It’s not accurate to say that “watching TV is bad,” just as it’s not accurate to refer to eating your favorite dessert as “being bad.” It’s the aggregate of daily decisions that determine whether a particular choice was wise or unwise. That’s really what we need to pay attention to.

It’s All in Your Head

In recent months I’ve been hearing quite a bit about brain health and the mind-body connection, which appears to be the next frontier that will hit mainstream America’s consciousness (no pun intended) in terms of overall health. First, several months ago I was part of a one-meeting think tank for a professional recreation association, and one of the handful of attendees was a researcher in brain health who discussed a bit about the mind-body connection. Then I came across a special on PBS a few months ago called “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life,” which described various foods and lifestyle habits that can improve or hinder brain health, and subsequently, bodily health. Shortly after that, a colleague recommended to me the book “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.” And just last weekend I watched an episode of Larry King titled “Change Your Mind, Change Your Life,” that featured researchers of various disciplines, including neuroscience, pharmacology, para-psychology, medicine, and quantum physics, who discussed the distinct differences between and relatedness of the mind, the brain, and the body.

I have to say that these repeated recent exposures to the topic has piqued my curiosity enough that I’ll probably check out “Spark” in the near future, as well as keep my eyes open for other resources. I mentioned in a previous post my belief that there are many things, including this area of study, that we in the industrialized West simply don’t understand, yet have been considered and valued by other cultures for centuries. However, we’re increasingly recognizing the importance of mysterious things like stress, relationships, and spirituality, and we’re actually working more on understanding them. At this point there seems to be a critical mass of researchers and health providers heading in the direction of understanding the brain and the mind-body connection, so this will likely be a hot area of interest for a long time to come.