SCIENCE IS RUINING THE COMMERCIAL FITNESS INDUSTRY

[defrog]

In my capacty as an editor for a magazine that covers the telephones industry, I end up on the goddamnedest mailing lists sometimes. Like Commercial Fitness Today, the e-newsletter for a blog covering the fitness industry – which, of course, has nothing to do with telephones.

Technically it’s spam, but I haven’t blocked it yet, because it occasionally veers into entertainingly paranoid directions. For example, it recently linked to a couple of stories having to do with obesity:

Researchers Examine a Possible Link Between Bacteria
Found in the Human Digestive System and Obesity

In the April issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers from Mayo Clinic Arizona and Arizona State University examine the role that bacteria in the human gastrointestinal tract play in regulating weight and the development of obesity ... Several animal studies suggest that gut microbiota are involved in regulating weight and that modifying these bacteria could one day be a treatment option for obesity.

Industry Giants Push Obesity Surgery

Medical-device makers, venture capitalists and surgeons are racing to turn gastric banding – a weight-loss procedure in which a silicone band is wrapped around the upper stomach to restrict food intake – into the next big thing in elective surgery. Johnson & Johnson, Allergan, VC-backed outpatient centers and surgeons see a vast market in a country where diet and exercise programs have failed to slow an obesity epidemic.

Things like this, apparently, make the commercial fitness industry very nervous. Or at least Marc Onigman (the guy who edits the blog), who says that only about 8% of the US pop is enrolled in fitness centers. If scientists and surgeons keep discovering ways to keep people from getting fat, then that’s it for the fitness business – fitness centers will collapse and fitness equipment makers will have to file for Chapter 11.

Then, on his nutrition blog, Onigman complains that the Corporate Chocolate Industry is conspiring to keep the obesity epidemic rolling by pushing chocolate bars that supposedly lower yr cholesterol level. You know it’s a conspiracy, see, because (1) the scientific study backing up this claim was funded by Mars Inc (which makes the chocolate in question), and (2) the mainstream media refuses to report it.

To be fair, he’s right on one point – you shouldn’t take any study seriously when it’s funded by the company that stands to gain from positive results (see: the tobacco industry).

Also, gastric banding sounded like a hideous idea the first time – it doesn’t sound any more appealing now that it’s becoming big business. Still, from a sci-fi/cyborg POV, I do find it morbidly fascinating that we’re resorting to biomedical technology to deal with obesity instead of, say, eating less and exercising more.

DISCLAIMER: For the new readers, I am 50 pounds over my ideal weight, so I’m in no position to criticize obese people. That said, I used to be 110 pounds over my ideal weight and I feel a hell of a lot better for it.

Which is why I’m going to spend this afternoon starting physiotherapy to get my spine readjusted. Again.

Corporate chocolate sucks,

This is dF

Comments

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

The 'fitness industry' my arse. What they mean is the 'weight loss industry'. 'Weight loss', of course, being a euphemism for 'fat loss' (weight is a measure of mass in gravity, not body composition).

Being unfit and being obese are not at all the same thing. If the fitness industry was really about fitness they would be rejoicing--lean people have an easier time getting fit.

-- JF

[loissanborn.livejournal.com]

true. when i'm at my supposed 'ideal weight' i look really unhealthy. a while ago i was put on a special diet to pin point exactly what i was allergic to. i couldn't eat ANYTHING. i baisically starved myself. i lost 30 lbs in a month and was 2lbs below my 'ideal weight'.
i've always been fluffy, but being so much lighter, it didn't look right! at all!! you could see all the bones in my hands and feet, my face looked drawn, it was sick!!
i got really pissed when my doctor at the time made the comment "you are looking good". i stuck my hands out at him and yelled "THIS looks healthy to you?!". i was furious. needless to say i got a different doctor.

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

Well, I have the opposite problem. At 5'10" and 145lbs I'm right at the bottom end of normal weight for my height. It's really difficult for me to put on weight and keep it on. Not that I'm complaining, but yeah--that ideal weight think is bollocks.

I have a really narrow frame; there just isn't space to hang extra bodymass. The only BMI-type tests that are more than a ballpark figure are the displacement tests, where they actually look at your physical volume (based on water displacement, Archimedes-style) to your weight.

-- JF

[loissanborn.livejournal.com]

all those scientific 'quick fixes' like stomach stapling and gastric bypass etc. don't work. in fact they make the problem worse.

i worked at a mens big and tall shop for years. every so often we would have a customer come in and say they got their stomach stapled or something and my boss and i would make bets on how quickly thay would gain all the weight back. we were always making money off of each other because they ALWAYS gained the weight back.
the problem with surgeries like these is you can staple the shit out of your stomach, but that wont do any good if your eating habits don't change because your stomach will eventually stretch back out.
the only people who actually lost the weight and KEPT it off was the people who changed their lifestyle.
i don't think the fitness industry will ever go out of business. will they suffer a bit because of these quick fixes? of coarse, but that's because people are too lazy to work for and maintain their health.

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

Right.

It should be about making people healthier, as opposed to... 'lighter' or whatever. Getting your stomache stapled does not make you healthier, nor does it make you 'less unhealthy'.

-- JF