“How
to protect yourself against soon coming health Armageddon”
JR Smith, MES, NBFE Board Registered Trainer
Founder and Medical Exercise Program Director – BioFit Exercise Technologies
It’s coming. It is projected to fully arrive by 2030. And it could be sooner. Do
you know what it is? It is a health catastrophe and it’s heading our way and
the COVID-19 hasn’t helped things in anyway. If anything, it has magnified the
problem in ways we simply could not have imagined.
That’s what our government is telling
us. In addition, we may see even greater challenges to our health if the
COVID-19 isn’t contained by then. But then again, we may see more infections
from new viruses than ever before. This is why we must protect our health now.
By the year 2030, it is projected that
60.1% of Kentucky’s population will be obese. For the medical community, that
means anyone with a BMI (body mass index) over 30 or more. For fitness
professionals it is a body fat percent level of over 25%. Currently 34% of
Kentuckians are considered obese.
But that’s not the whole story. It
gets more frightening than that.
Here is an overview of what
Kentuckian’s health is now and what it is projected to be in just 7 short
years.
Disease:.....................Now Population and Cases.....................…..2030 Cases
Diabetes...................13.1% or 394,029 cases...….........................594,058 cases
Cardiovascular disease.......264,958 cases.....................................1,278,342 cases
Obesity related cancers.......68,075 cases......................................176,342 cases
Hypertension......................39% or 881,343 cases........................1,175,750 cases
Kentucky Department of Health and Human Services· These are staggering numbers!
Now here is the frightening thing
about this.
The government does not have a clear path
forward. They only have programs.
That’s right. The government has
absolutely no idea on a clear path forward. I know. I met with the Kentucky Governor’s cabinet for Health and Human Services back in January
2018. After a one hour meeting discussing these issues, I found out that their
approach is superficial, to add and maintain biking and hiking trails, educate
about breast feeding programs, supporting Farmers Markets, and having a place
in which to play basketball. In addition to promoting the US government “Healthy Food Pyramid” there is little
else other than making sure your physician is involved if you have developed
the disease.
Granted, all of these steps are
important but they don’t address the real problems and they aren’t solutions.
It’s a confusing band aid approach and nothing more.
I literally sat there dumbfounded. Here
I am surrounded by some very smart individuals with Masters Degrees, Ph.D.’s,
and physicians and this is all they could come up with? I felt like they were
looking at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears when I offered
suggestions that have worked for decades, nearly a century of keeping people
healthy, fit and strong. I was completely brushed off.
But that’s okay because we all learn.
I believe there is no failure, only opportunities to learn and this was one big
learning experience. It also proved to me that just because these highly
educated individuals have advanced degrees and are highly paid government employees,
they aren’t experts and they don’t have the answers to the problems we are
facing (just like the COVID pandemic we are dealing with). Unfortunately these
highly educated individuals are totally oblivious to real solutions. They were
quite happy to go to their meetings to maintain their government jobs and keep
the money coming in for their programs, just don’t upset their apple cart. Of
which I guess I must have looked like I was attempting to do.
So how do I know their programs aren’t
going to work? How do I know their programs are total failures? Just go back
and read the health and disease projections for 2030 on the first page. Does
that sound to you like the government has a clear path forward to you? No they
don’t. They are saying THIS IS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN – they are predicting
it, despite their suggestions.
But there is hope.
For nearly a century, at least in “our
current modern time”, since the early 1900’s, America was healthy, strong and
fit. We were beginning to make great strides in medicine and people were living
healthier even in the midst of worldwide pandemics such as the Spanish Flu. While
medicine had been around for long time, the supplemental vitamin wasn’t even
developed until 1913. The world had yet been given its first vitamin
supplement. Can you imagine if Vitamin D3 had existed then? Chances are good
that 50 million people may not have lost their lives to the Spanish Flu.
Granted, there was still a lot of
disease to deal with but what you didn’t hear about back then was heart
disease, hypertension, cancer, and obesity. According to a vast many physicians
today, those types of diseases are considered lifestyle diseases. You
aren’t typically born with them but you develop them over the course of your
life based on your lifestyle choices. And we see those disease increasing more
and more every day because of how sedentary our society has become.
COVID-19 is especially harmful to
individuals that suffer with multiple comorbidities. But do you know of all the
comorbidities, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and COPD, which one of these put
most of the people at risk?
So let’s take a look at how obesity is going to affect Kentucky which now, can create greater susceptibility to being hospitalized with COVID if contracted and obese.
According to The Lane Report, in the 1990’s, no state in the US had a population
obesity level above 15%. And currently Kentucky high schoolers have the worst
obesity levels in the nation at 18%. And kids that are heavy tend to be heavy
adults. This not only creates more health issues but the cost to our health
care system is heavily taxed (no pun intended). In other words, it is going to
cost each of us more money in taxes and we will pay more for health insurance
and co-pays will increase. Although you and I might be healthy, we will pay
more because we live in a state where more people are unhealthy than healthy.
It costs us all dearly.
Again, according to The Lane Report, by the year 2030, there
will be a 51% increase of people with diabetes, hypertension will increase by
34%, there will be a whopping 382% increase in heart disease (no, that’s not a
typo), and a 158% increase in obesity related disease. These statistics come
from Trust for America’s Health and the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The Scramble
Our government knows that each state
is in trouble and they are scrambling for solutions. Every state is becoming
increasingly unhealthy and it is costing billions and billions of dollars in
combined health costs and placing greater financial and medical burdens on
society and industry attempting to deal with this health epidemic. What the
government is doing in seeking solutions and pouring money into programs which
is the equivalent to losing a quarter in a dark room but looking for it in
another room because the other room has more light. Yes, it’s like that! And
now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health in the United States is
in even greater peril.
Unfortunately, instead of relying on
those who have trusted and proven practices and methods to help combat this
obesity epidemic the government politicizes the situation.
As I mentioned earlier in this report,
I personally met with the Governor’s
officials of the Health and Human Services Department back in January 2018.
They are a distinguished group of individuals that have worked hard to obtain
their degrees and get to where they are. And I applaud them for their
achievements. But with all that knowledge and education sitting in that room,
not a single one of them had a solution to Kentucky’s obesity and related
health issues problem. And Kentucky’s obesity problem is also my problem and
yours because it is going to affect us in more ways than you can imagine.
The programs that the department was
supporting had absolutely nothing to do with the population as a whole. Hiking
trails won’t work for people with orthopedic problems and the elderly; breast
feeding doesn’t work for men; Farmers Markets aren’t year round and in many
communities they simply don’t have them or they don’t have enough food to
supply the entire community; and, indoor gym activity for shooting hoops is
limited for the working population and those that don’t have access to a local
gymnasium or for a community that doesn’t participate in a government program.
The entire approach isn’t just fragmented –
IT’S BROKEN…PERIOD.
The Solution – It’s not for everyone
Dr. Len Kravitz, a professor at the University of New Mexico has said that the entire underlying cause
of obesity is not enough movement and eating too many calories. In a nutshell,
he is absolutely right. Dr. John Berardi, founder of Science Link, inc. and
Precision Nutrition, along with Dr. Todd Miller, associate professor at the
George Washington School of Public Health both pretty much agree that weight
loss is mathematical. But looking at the solution requires a bit more than
that. But thankfully, Dr. Kravitz has expounded upon that as well with his
research.
In addition, slowing the advancement
of poor health and skyrocketing obesity and its related diseases requires
knowledge and a deep desire to change. For many it will require an “Aha”
moment, an “epiphany”. And when that occurs, long term, positive change can
occur.
We know we need to change. The average
individual knows if he or she is unhealthy and obese. Unfortunately, due to
social media and the culture of change, when we do attempt to address these
issues, many cry out they are being bullied or body shamed. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Much like telling a speeding driver that the bridge
around the next turn is out and they should turn around, we must warn our
neighbors how important it is to have good health and positive body image. We
aren’t attempting to shame anyone or make anyone feel bullied. We simply want
them to be their best and of course, if they choose not to follow that advice,
that is their choice and we hope the best for them.
Psychology Today, reported in 2013 that 92% of those
individuals that attempted a lifestyle change failed in the first 4-5 weeks. We
in the wellness industry understand why they failed. PT went on to say that
most of those that failed attempted to change too much at one time. The human
mind can generally handle one big change at a time. Imagine someone wanting to
lose 30 pounds in 6 weeks, to stop smoking, go on a diet, change their entire
lifestyle, join a gym and go to every class offered, all within the first few
weeks of making the decision to change. And this is a typical representation of
New Year’s resolutions. That is a prescription to total failure. There is no
common sense thinking in making decisions like this. Nearly every time those
are New Year’s Resolutions, which are made based on emotion and not a firm
understanding of what needs to take place. As the astronauts so famously said
on Apollo 13, “Houston, we have a
problem”.
Education is Critical
Wellness education, not program
indoctrination, is what we need today to save lives. We don’t need the
government telling us about all their wonderful programs funded by grants. We
need someone to help us develop a systematic approach that will address the
situation before we all get sick and die. Literally this is a real concern.
Many already know they have a problem, but few
know how to deal with it. The solution is available and we need to get it out
to the public at large. And with the right support, coaching and encouragement,
we can begin to turn the tide against the oncoming Health Armageddon.
Knowledge is Power!
This statement is true and we must get
people turned on to the truth that gives them knowledge and that gives them the
power to change.
Zig Ziglar
once said that “hope in the future gives
us power in the present”. That’s what knowledge does. For some, having the
knowledge will cause immediate action to change. For others, they may
contemplate change for a while before acting on it. But the information must
get out to everyone in order to empower them to make the changes necessary in their
life.
The
Obesity Report is one way that BioFit Exercise Technologies, the leader
in Fitness, Nutrition and Wellness Sciences, is attempting to help get
Kentuckians healthy and fit and slow down the 2030 projections.
Over the years, I have developed a
simple strategy that I call the BioFit System. The System is a very
simple way to catalogue the information we get on everything we need to change
and stay healthy and fit. The Core System Method is broken down into these
three categories.
·
Knowledge and Education
·
Nutritional management For the Person
·
Movement programs that strengthen and empower
the body
The Knowledge and Education category allows us to put everything
we learn into a simple and easy to use system. We must understand why we need
to change, so we must become aware. Next we need to know something about
ourselves and how our behaviors react to change. We also need to know about our
body and physiology and how to implement change.
In today’s society, well over 100
million Americans are on a diet at any one time. The weight loss industry
combined generates over 60 BILLION dollars per year and yet things are getting
worse. On any given day, you can go to the internet and type in weight loss and
come back with well over 1 million hits. So we know just “knowledge” isn’t the
answer.
Information must be simple and easy to
understand. Many believe that the more complicated the information and
implementing that program is must make it more effective. This simply is not
the truth.
The Nutrition Management for the Person category looks at individual
human nutrition and optimum performance levels. We must focus on learning how
to eat and understand energy balance and fat loss. We learn what macro and
micronutrients are and how they affect our health and longevity. We must have
an adult discussion about nutritional supplementation that is vital for
building a healthy immune system. For example, in Ireland, a study was
performed on individuals supplementing Vitamin D3. Ireland is not known for
having an abundance of sunshine and therefore, Vitamin D3, which is produced by
the sun, is in short supply. As a result, more people experienced more frequent
colds and flu. But by supplementing Vitamin D3, they began to experience less
of these. It was then determined that individuals, here in the United States
needed to supplement Vitamin D3 to help strengthen their immune system to fight
against COVID. How simple is that?
And last but not least is the Movement Program category. In
this area we learn about how our body responds to exercise – when to apply
certain types of exercise strategies, when to recover, understanding our VO2
max training heart rate and how much oxygen we use when exercise. We also put
to rest many myths as well as old school information that we once thought was
correct and has been proven wrong due to incredible research and studies being
performed throughout the world today. We also learn how exercise not only
increases our metabolic system and increased ability to burn fat but how it
also enhances our immune system as well.
While many would consider this a
simplistic approach to a problem that seems to be overwhelming, I am reminded
of a young, 15 year old shepherd boy that once placed a rock in a sling and
took down an 11 foot giant and then cut off the giant’s head.
Never underestimate the small and
simple things. Goliath was an experienced warrior and had a coat of armor, a
shield and a massive sword and an armor bearer. David, a young 14 year old
shepherd, had a sling and a promise. And David won.
We must rebuild our foundation if we
ever expect to see change. Maybe we need to return to those days in which we
knew how to work hard, eat right and enjoy life. It worked for centuries and I
believe it will work for us today.
For more information on how you can
use the BioFit System, contact JR Smith at 606-305-9362.
Stay Strong Kentucky!
References
·
The Lane Report
·
Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Human Services
·
Dr. Len Kravitz, University of New Mexico
·
Psychology Today
·
International Sports Sciences Association
·
The World Health Organization
·
Trust for America’s Health
·
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Health Coach Group
