Getting Our Priorities Straight

Recently one of my Twitter friends wrote a blog post about body image, diet and health. I totally understand her frustration and I agree with her to a point but I have some frustrations of my own, and I tried to comment on her post. Unfortunately, it's one of those sites that don't believe in paragraphs which makes for tough reading, plus it cut off much of my post (without telling me there was a word limit).

Anyway, you can read Brenda's article here Pretty in or Pretty Out?, then come back and read my response below.

Great post, Brenda! Now if you could get the rest of the country thinking that way. Regular exercisers who are overweight have lower risk factors for disease than sedentary stick people.

I totally agree about the bombardment of media images and their detrimental effect on us. That said, it's frustrating that so many people focus only on appearance when it comes to exercise.

I've been fighting this battle for 15 years now. The brochure for my gym says, "At Body & Soul Fitness Studio, the emphasis is on exercise as a means to improve the quality of your life." But which of my blog posts do you think get more attention- something on fat loss or something about the health benefits of physical activity?

Unfortunately, that mentality often continues even after someone sees tangible benefits from exercise. I've had women tell me they feel better since starting to work out, they're stronger, they don't get as winded, they're less stressed, their blood pressure is down, their energy is up, they sleep better, their back hurts less or not at all, they’re more patient with their kids, etc., etc., etc. and then too often comes the but. But "I haven’t lost any / much weight."

I don’t think most people in this country appreciate their health until they lose it. Sadly, too many Americans would rather take pills for diabetes or high blood pressure than make the effort to clean up their nutrition and exercise. Of course, we all know stories of someone who never smoked getting lung cancer or some healthy, active person having heart problems but most of the leading causes of death are at least partially related to our lifestyle choices. In fact, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the nine leading causes of death were strongly related to lifestyle choices: “what we put into our bodies and what we do with our bodies.”

Let me just end by saying that I’m certainly not opposed to anyone deciding to drop excess body fat, it’s a smart and healthy thing to do. I simply wish that people would start focusing on living a healthy lifestyle rather than obsessing over a number on the scale. As Jack Dixon says, "If you focus on results, you will never change. But if you focus on change, you'll get results."

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Tanning Beds Moved To Top Cancer Risk Category

I've never been shy about my feelings regarding fitness centers who promote tanning beds. I'm all for people making a buck but to me it's hypocritical to be promoting health/fitness/wellness on one hand while offering a service that puts people at higher risk for cancer on the other.

I can't imagine these same gym owners renting space in their fitness center to a McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts. And yet, someone could at least choose a healthier option from those menus.

Not so with tanning beds.

Cancer experts from around the world have recently placed tanning beds and other types of ultraviolet radiation into the top cancer risk category; researchers now consider them as deadly as arsenic and mustard gas.

A recent analysis of earlier studies has found that the risk of skin cancer rockets to 75% when people start using tanning beds before the age of 30. Researchers now also conclude that all types of ultraviolet radiation are carcinogenic; previously, scientists thought that only one type of ultraviolet radiation was lethal.

Stay out of tanning beds, folks; it's not worth it. If you really feel the need to look tan, try the sprays or lotions out there; they've really improved over the years.

Tomorrow I'll post the story of Body & Soul member, Andrea, a gold medal tanner. Her story begins with sun tanning but tanning beds play a major role. Come back and check it out.



P.S. Be prepared to find comments from those who make a living off of tanning beds trying to demean me or the above research. It's happened before.

Unethical and Uniformed Fitness Pros Tick Me Off

I'm all for people making lots of money. I don't care if they just got lucky or had rich benefactors who invested in them or whatever. As long as their product or service is legal and ethical, more power to them.

My problem is with people making money through services or products that cheat or harm people, regardless of the legality. For example, I have a problem with ill-informed fitness trainers who still promote hours of cardio for fat loss or tell women to use light weights or they'll bulk up.

I proudly get hung up on the ethics of business. I refuse to offer or promote worthless or harmful merchandise or services to members, clients or readers of my newsletter or blog.

Yes, people want to lose weight but that doesn't justify preying on them by selling worthless fat burning drinks or pills. I realize that a tan is still prized by many over the pasty look but I'm not going to lie about the safety of tanning beds just to make a few bucks.

I have never understood fitness centers equipped with tanning beds. If we're supposedly promoting health and wellness, how does increasing someone's risk of skin cancer fit in?

Just for the record, if you believe the tanning industry line that tanning beds are safe, you're misinformed. They are not. As dermatologist Jeffrey Dover, M.D. writes in his book The Youth Equation: Take 10 Years Off Your Face, "If there's enough light in that box to tan you, there's enough to cause skin cancer and wrinkling."

People are getting skin cancer from the use of tanning beds. Anyone who tells you differently is either lying or terribly misinformed.

In 2002, researchers at Dartmouth Medical School found that people who participated in indoor tanning were 2 1/2 times as likely to get squamous cell carcinoma and 1 1/2 times as likely to develop basal cell carcinoma than people who didn't tan. A study from Norway and Sweden of regular (as infrequently as once a month) indoor tanners found that they had a 55% greater chance of developing melanoma than non-tanners.

Obviously, some people will do things regardless of the risks and that is absolutely their right. It's also the right of health club owners to promote tanning even though it's an unhealthy and potentially disfiguring (not to mention potentially fatal) behavior. That doesn't make it right.