Obesity Figures will NEVER drop!!!

I remember when I first started out in the fitness industry and began to learn about training and nutrition.

Everything seemed so simple. The facts about losing and gaining weight were easy to understand and simple to implement.

Surely it’s just a matter of getting this information to the masses and society will start to get to grips with its health and weight issues, I pondered……

This was 5 years ago and I was naive. In those 5 years there has been a huge switch in the fitness industry towards a more scientific and fact driven approach to helping people control their weight as I assumed.

However, obesity figures have continued to grow. I’ll make a bold but confident prediction right now as well.

These figures will continue to rise for the rest of my career in the fitness industry; in fact from this day until the day I die I honestly believe obesity and inactivity will only increase and increase.

I can’t see it ever going the other way.

This isn’t a dig at the fitness industry either.

I know I’ve stuck the boot in in the past but, whilst there is a lot I disagree with and even more things I think can be done better, the right intention in generally there.

Even if people followed bad advice they’d probably still be in a better position than they currently are.

Something is better than nothing, even if that something isn’t necessarily the best way. Not that a ‘best’ way exists.

I’m also not going to go off on the general public.

Whilst it is ultimately your own choice and responsibility to keep yourself in shape and whilst plenty people do in fact manage to do so, that’s always going to be a minority.

The truth is most people will always be fighting a losing battle.

Society is constantly ‘progressing’ and has been since the dawn of time and that ‘progression’ is only getting quicker and quicker.

The problem is, when was the last time progress aided weight loss rather than weight gain?

Cars made it easier to move less, processed and fast food made it easier to consume higher amounts of calories quicker and easier than ever before, jobs became less physical… technology, put simply, is there to make our lives easier and the measure of making something easier is that we get the same result by doing less.

Nobody in the history of mankind invented something to make a given task more difficult.

Why would you bother?

Think about it…. as society continues to progress and we come up with new and more innovative ways to make things quicker and easier at which point would we start to reduce obesity.

I’ve got no solution to this problem. Nobody has! it’s just a harsh truth; unfortunately until some whiz comes up with an invention that makes it easier to lose weight than it is to gain weight then people are going to get fatter and fatter.

This is simply because as humans we instinctively follow the path of least resistance.

Unfortunately as it doesn’t seem that such an invention is looking likely or indeed possible then I honestly don’t see any way to reverse this trend.

Earlier I mentioned that I expected to see big changes in the general health and fitness of society when I entered the industry I no longer strive or even ponder this ideal.

I have come to terms with the above statement.

That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on the industry or my ability to coach people.

I still love coaching and getting great results from the clients I do work with but I accept that the impact I can make is limited to the minority rather than the majority.

There’ll always be a minority of motivated individuals who do enjoy training and do enjoy improving their body and as a coach I will always do my upmost to help those people in that endeavour.

However it will always be a minority, and whilst I can help these people achieve their goals, society as a whole will continue down the slippery slope it’s currently on for the forseeable future.

As I said earlier I have no answers here just a few bleak truths and the reasons for them…….

Dan