don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Recently, the National Wellness Institute (NWI) convened an expert panel to take questions from Institute members around the world about progress, nature and direction of the wellness movement over the past thirty years. I was invited to serve on the panel; in the course of doing so, we all addressed 24 questions. We were asked to be brief, to try to hold answers to a single paragraph. However, they did not say how short or long the paragraph should be.

Here are three of my favorite questions, with my responses to each:  
 
Q1: What are your views and thoughts on the history, changes over time, and future predictions in promoting physical activity?

My first thought is "Could I adequately address these questions in one book, or would a decent, interesting response require a trilogy of publications, perhaps with supplemental learning guides added to the mix?" Since we panelists have been directed to respond to each question within the space of a paragraph, answering this first query to the satisfaction of the sender is going to be a bit difficult. However, I can address the last part of the question about "future predictions for the promotion of physical activity" with confidence by quoting Yogi Berra: "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."

As to the history and changes over time in promoting physical activity, let me offer this note: There are greater numbers of professionals promoting exercise than in the past but to little or no avail. The changes in American population fitness status have NOT been for the good, especially in the last few decades. The population, on the whole, moves less and weighs more than ever before. The direction of change is akin to Aaron Wildavsky's phrase about the political pathology of health: "We are doing better (in other words, devoting more attention to and spending more money on the problem of insufficient activity) and feeling worse" (getting fatter, sicker and less fit while spending more on illnesses that need not have developed).

Q2: Please give advice on how you keep the energy and drive to stay healthy and fit?

The discipline to do what is required is fueled daily by enlightened self-interest. Sustaining fitness and overall health is simply a matter of self-indulgence. It is reinforced constantly by a conscious recognition of multiple positive and negative consequences of doing so or not doing so, respectively. The negative consequences of not becoming and staying fit and healthy are too obvious to mention here; the positive reinforcements are too little appreciated because they have rarely if ever been enjoyed, as adults, by a substantial majority of the population.

Need I be more specific on the positives? Is there anyone who does NOT know the payoffs of a wellness lifestyle? I have never tried to quantify these payoffs (in other words, ROI, pleasures, satisfactions, joys, delights, smug little chuckles and so on) but let me summarize with my trademark claims about wellness benefits, based upon imaginary double-blind, crossover trials of a longitudinal, horizontal, vertical and dignified basis: The energy and drive for staying fit and healthy is sustained by evidence, not faith-based knowledge, that wellness is fun, romantic and hip, sexy and free. That people living wellness lifestyles are warmer in winter, cooler in summer and sleep better all year-round. That they are stronger and better looking, have higher morale, superior bowel movements and more antibodies to resist disease. If YOU stay fit and healthy, you will be wildly popular, your insurance rate will go down, you'll become tax-exempt and you'll get better gas mileage.

If this advice does not do the trick for someone, then there is little hope.

Come to think of it, that is exactly what I believe is the case for most people, as I'll discuss in responding to the next question.

Q3: Question for Don:  I want to know if you're optimistic. Politicians now equate great health care reform with giving more drug benefits to seniors. Doctors continue to write goofy diet books (flavor rotation, Paleolithic eating, wine country diets) People are fatter and more de-conditioned than ever.  Has wellness become the robust national phenomenon that you wrote about and hoped for thirty years ago?

Two questions lurk in the above editorial: 1) Am I optimistic? 2) Has wellness turned out as I hoped in the beginning, when first there was light and my book High Level Wellness: An Alternative To Doctors, Drugs And Disease was cast upon the waters by Rodale Press (1976)?

No and no.

A proper response requires a summary of how I described wellness in 1976. Ever so briefly, it was depicted as a choice to assume responsibility, a conscious decision to shape a healthy lifestyle. It was expressed as a mindset for a high quality life, a predisposition to master key principles in varied skill areas (for examples, critical thinking, finding plentiful meaning and purpose) -- leading to high levels of well-being and life satisfaction. A wellness outlook or perspective would protect against temptations to blame, make excuses, shirk accountability, whine or wet your pants in the face of adversity. (I just threw that in to help you remember this explanation.) It was suggested that wellness is an alternative to dependency on doctors and drugs, to complacency, to mediocrity and to self-pity, boredom and slothfulness.

Contrast these expressions with today's common usage of the term. Nothing robust is seen in the situation thirty years down the road from what I had in mind in 1976 -- or now. However, as Parkinson observed, "the future lies ahead."

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the PHYSICAL DOMAIN under the skill area of lifestyle habits. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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