I am venturing into this column with the intentions to further the general populations knowledge about what “health” is.
My credentials lie in three main areas: general interest, experience and certification. Having a passion for health and its applications for the past three years, I have learned and unlearned numerous things through various sources such as books, personal interaction and individual experimentation. This is the heart of my ongoing drive for the subject itself.
Secondly, I have eight months experience in the area of nutrition sales and floor training. I was employed at Lifestyles Fitness Center for a period of eight months. In that time, I took advantage of the gym’s resources in the form of personal trainers, nutrition specialists, and members themselves.
Lastly, I am a certified personal trainer through AAAI. Although I only practiced for a short period of time, the majority of my gains were obtained through shadowing experienced trainers up to the point of my leave.
So getting myself out of the way, I would like to clarify my general topics for this series of articles.
My feelings are that health is a three-way street consisting of nutrition, exercise, and emotional well-being. Several programs and marketed diets will try to isolate one or two of these regions for “health” purposes, but they rarely accomplish their promises.
For the semester, I will primarily be focusing on the subject of nutrition. It is this region of “health” that I believe is most construed in the mass-media’s attempt to educate.
From celebrities to fitness magazines, lies are promoted everyday to the general public as the truth when the reality of the human body lies in another spectrum of their perception. The truth is that health is not difficult at its basis.
Nevertheless, the individual and the masses like to complicate several matters to compensate laziness, ignorance and boredom.
The real question I am dancing around is simply this: What is health? Health is not a certain weight, size or proportion. Health is not benching twice its body weight and walking around like a brick wall. Health is not running an iron-man or slouched over jogging down the street.
Health is the optimal well-being of an individual. It lies not on the external (even though sometimes that is an outcome) but rather on the internal.
One fact that you will see repeat itself in almost every topic I speak of will be the idea of balance and moderation. Throughout life, we learn through stories, insight, and experience that extremes are never good; thus, why should health be any different?
In the end, my goal for this column is to provide a solid foundation for an interested audience to understand what health truly is. I will make a promise to inform you with my best knowledge and experience up to this point. Nevertheless, I do not claim to be an expert; I only claim to be well-informed. My goal would be for you, the reader, to truly research discussed topics on your own and reassure my information with credible resources. Please know that mass media rarely has the true concept in comprehension when they make public suggestions. If anything, read everything once, research it again, and then re-check it with experience and logic. Life is simple and interconnected if you only find the right facts.

Author