Fitness Friends, I know school is out, but I’ve got my teacher hat on for this one today. It is time to address something that quite frankly, needs to be addressed. Something that might, and hopefully will, change the way you think about your own fitness journey. And, boy, I hope I didn’t just oversell this.
Fitness and wellness land is awash with influencer types who want us to believe a couple of things. First, that our health is completely under our own control. And secondly, if you aren’t doing every single thing possible to optimize your diet and exercise you lack motivation and willpower. I actually feel gross having typed both of those things out.
Health, as I’ve talked about many times, is simply a lack of illness or injury. It is an in this moment assessment of what’s going on. But the dynamics of what goes into any given moment of health is huge. And a vast majority of those dynamics are not, in fact, under our control.
Social Determinants of Health
Factors called the social determinants of health are key in each of our individual circumstances. What are social determinants of health? I’m glad you asked. And I’ll preface my answer by warning you that I am about the climb on a very tall soapbox.
Social determinants of health are non-medical factors that influence health outcomes. Communities we live in. Social support systems. Neighborhoods and environments we interact with on the regular. Access to and quality of education. Economic stability. And access to quality health care.
These are things that we are led to believe we have control over or choice in, but that control and choice is an illusion more times than not. Because if you really look at that list, you’ll notice a lot of it is based on access. What do we actually have the ability to reach for.
The access to quality health care is directly linked to exercise. Studies have shown time and time again that exercise is one of the best preventative measures when it comes to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, and most cancers. But most struggle with starting and maintaining a workout routine.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
And it’s because most struggle with the bottom two rungs of the Exercise Hierarchy Pyramid. If you don’t know what that is, that’s okay. It came mostly from my brain, but it is based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow says that for an individual to reach their potential (self-actualization as he calls it), they first need to meet physiological (clean air, water, food, shelter), safety (economic stability, lack of war or violence, etc), belonging (friendship, romantic partners), and esteem (how we view ourselves) needs. And he presents all of this in a handy to understand pyramid graphic.
Exercise Hierarchy
Which I am about to shamelessly borrow to present the Exercise Hierarchy. The bottom level is access. You can’t exercise on the regular if you don’t have access to places to do so. And I don’t mean a gym. Many of us (at least in the US) don’t live in communities with parks or green spaces. Or at least safe ones. In a walkable distance or with disability access. Many individuals are uncomfortable in a gym setting based on previous experiences or due to trauma. And those influencers we talked about in the beginning will be sure to tell you that home workouts aren’t as effective. Why bother if it has to be so difficult?
Moving up the Exercise Hierarchy is time. There is a reason trainers hear that time is a struggle for so many clients. It is not an excuse. Read that sentence again. Whether you want to admit it or not, exercise takes time. On the daily for whatever workout you have planned. Over the course of weeks to get into a routine. And even longer sometimes to see actual results.
Time is a hugely important commodity that most of us simply do not have enough of. Learning to manage time presupposes that you have extra time to manage. And the resources to do so, which leads to….
Money. Exercise costs money. At the very least, you’ve gotta buy sneakers. But in reality, that is the least of most people’s worries. Especially in this economy. Paying for groceries is going to take priority (as it should). And childcare so that you maybe have an extra hour of precious time to be able to manage. But as with time, you have to have the job and employment stability to make any of this work. Or a community to help you.
And if you make it through that gauntlet, you finally get to the Need level of the Exercise Hierarchy. This is the spot where you finally get to look at the situation you are in and figure out what might benefit you long term. This is where you can start thinking about how exercise might affect your longevity and health twenty years from now. You can think about how to heal a nagging injury or focus on getting your steps in. Starting a habit.
Just like Maslow, at the top of the pyramid is Choice or Want. Where you can finally focus on what you would like at this moment in time. Don’t get too comfy here, though. As I covered in my last post, any number of outside factors can change the season you are in and as soon as that happens you’re back down at the Need level. Or lower, depending.
But instead of working from the bottom up, the fitness influencers want to work top down. Because it is easier to shame people for not wanting what they want. Thing is, most people are communicating with us about those lower level challenges and have been for awhile. Telling a trainer that time and money are difficult to manage aren’t excuses. It is real people identifying symptoms of much bigger issues without having the correct words to describe them.
It’s our job, whether you are an exerciser or a trainer, to be honest about what level you are sitting at and what your challenges and barriers are. The only way to move up the pyramid is to acknowledge the individual steps and potential places the system tries to trip us up.
Until next time, be well friends!
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