Fitness and Sustainability, Part 1 – Nutrition Lessons

This is part 1 of a multi-part series.

Fitness, the economy, and the environment are linked. In other words, fitness and sustainability are linked! In this article, let’s look at how nutrition illustrates the connection.

When we talk about nutrition in health and fitness we traditionally focus on its role in losing and gaining weight and improving cardiovascular health. More recently though the power of nutrition in popular culture has expanded. We now look to nutrition to cleanse and detoxify, suppress inflammation, improve cognition, raise energy and libido, and more. This has become a major market and begs the questions, what is it all about and will it help us achieve greater health and wellness? The answer may be a resounding no. The direction that we are taking in nutrition is more likely just a further symptom of an underlying dysfunction in our economic and social systems. To illustrate, let’s begin by comparing two current pressing issues and see how they are similar to one another: obesity and climate change.

According to the CDC, obesity really began rising at an alarming rate during the 1990’s and has continued unabated up until now. Dismally, the CDC reports that “no state met the nation’s Healthy People 2010 goal to lower obesity prevalence to 15%. Rather, in 2010, there were 12 states with an obesity prevalence of 30% or more.” (CDC reference) In other words, we set a target for lowering our obesity and not only did we not achieve it, we did not even manage to hold the line. Now compare that with our success at dealing with climate change. Limiting the carbon concentration in the atmosphere has been accepted as an urgent necessity in dealing with this problem. One widely publicized proposal is to set the atmospheric limits of CO2 to 350 parts per million (www.350.org, www.co2now.org, Washington Post, The Wire). Just like with obesity, a target has been set and not only have we not achieved it, we have not even managed to hold the line. We are currently over 400 parts per million in the atmosphere and climbing. We seem to be recognizing two major threats to our society and then failing miserably to do anything about them.

A big part of the reason is attributable to our economic system. Our economy is based on growth, designed to continually expand with no intention of reaching a point of equilibrium and this creates an inherent difficulty. It incentivizes us to continually push against built in limitations. While this has produced great prosperity it is now also a bit like a run-away freight train.((Jackson, Tim. Prosperity Without Growth. London: Earthscan, 2009))

This is readily recognizable in the case of the food industry. Agriculture should be restricted by the fact that the maximum food requirement of an individual is limited. There is a certain amount of calories that a person needs to take in per day and not more. This means that there should be a point at which the total caloric needs of a population have been met and further nourishment is not required. With growth the focus of our economics, companies are incentivized to create a way around this limitation. One way to do that is to rely on population growth, which is certainly a help but also not exactly in the companies’ control. The other more hands on approach is to increase the amount of calories that individuals consume by altering the delivery mechanisms. Industrial agriculture has achieved this by creating a process that is built off of a single building block. Corn is used as the base raw material for our food and is delivered largely in the form of sugary, processed foods that can be transported over long distances without perishing.((Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: The Penguin Press, 2006))((Lustig, Robert H. Fat Chance. New York:  Hudson Street Press, 2012)) These food products are more calorically, but less nutritionally dense as well as engineered to be eaten in mass quantities and are capable of being shipped long distances. This works very well for industry growth and is easier to control than population expansion. Fortunately for the industrial food complex, both are successfully playing out. Americans are both more numerous and consuming more calories!

It is important to recognize though that this does not necessarily mean food industry executives are sitting in board rooms plotting schemes to lace their pockets at the expense of our health. Rather, we are all to a large degree following the currents of an economic system that is beginning to fail us. We consumers play into and support this system daily and now, even those of us who are health and fitness fanatics are on the same path. Fitness products like supplements, nutrition bars, health drinks, etc. are a part of this industrialized system aimed not solely at fixing our poor health, but at producing more products for us to consume, which we readily do. We went fat free for decades without truly understanding fat. Now we seek to detoxify without understanding toxins. We go gluten free without having gluten allergies. Our behavior is linked to the pushes in the market. In an attempt to achieve health and fitness goals we end up engaging in behavior that reinforces the root issues. This unyielding allegiance to growth strains our bodies on a micro scale and the earth’s ecosystems on a macro scale – they go together.

If you are thinking that this sounds like a bit of a stretch think back to the carbon emissions figures I mentioned above. I would like to highlight the fact that over the last decade the United States has managed to lower its carbon emissions. That success however is not thanks to our politics but rather to the recession (Washington Post). This is really not surprising. As growth has slowed, so has our pollution.

We need to think differently about our way of life. Our bodies seem to be as sick as our environment and these two phenomena are not independent of one another, they share common roots. Luckily in fitness, there is tremendous enthusiasm towards making positive change. What we need though, is to understand more fully what we are actually dealing with. In part 2 I’ll talk more about how feeding growth, both on an individual and societal scale, leads to ever increasing stresses on the systems we live with.

Next: Part 2 – Growing Muscles, Growing Economies

Further Reading:

Kirschenmann, Frederick L. Cultivating an Ecological Conscience

Sandmo, Agnar. Economics Evolving

Daly, Herman E. & Cobb, John B. Jr. For the Common Good