The following is an excerpt from Sifu Slim's book--"Sedentary Nation, The Answers Are Not Found in the New Millennium, They're in 1910"

Timeline of Decreasing Physical Movement

The Timeline emphasizes selected key points in ancient, as well as more recent, European and American history. This historical list is not intended to reflect completeness or to weigh in on the existence of a higher power. The remarks do not intend to categorize all modern conveniences as blights, blots, or banes. The abuses of modern conveniences directly contribute to vast portions of society’s ills, including sedentary and dysfunctional lifestyles.

Some of the years cited are approximations. Most of the dates are commonly accepted by scholars, while some are disputed. Anthropology, history, and science are evolving fields of study.

Readers who conclude that I am guilty of “preaching in a timeline” are quite accurate. If I am able to assist you in cutting the cords of sedentism[1] by opening your mind and heart to our common human history of daily practices of wellness, eventually I will be preaching to the choir.

The Timeline

6 Million B.C. - Oldest known hominine fossil (Toumai) discovered in Central Africa (sources claim a date closer to 7 million B.C. than 6). These early, upright walkers are considered gatherers. Scavenging is another mode of how early, upright walkers acquired food. That means they found animals that were killed by others (or simply expired) and then grabbed what they could. Does that mean we have a hyena or vulture streak in our lineage? Undoubtedly, that may be why some of us “go ape” about garage sale deals and free stuff on clean-up days.

What this book refers to as movement (physical movement) is programmed into our DNA. (Some experts contend so is addiction and so is laziness.) Unlike some hibernators, most branches of the animal kingdom (humans have long been listed as part of this) lack built-in mechanisms that can keep them healthy and well without physical movement. The human tendency is to wither away (or become bloated with fat) and die without movement. For people who live off the land, days without active physical movement means there is no food — without which hunger sets in. Enough weeks without food means death. Sustenance has always been the main reason for movement. Even today we generally don’t work for fun; we work to be able to afford our expenses, including groceries.

1.8 Million B.C. - The remains of Homo erectus hominids from this era indicate pursuits of hunting and gathering.

200,000 B.C. - Approximate appearance of Homo sapiens, hunter-gatherers.

100,000 B.C. - DNA evidence suggests that dogs, through breeding controlled by humans, were separated from wolves around this time. They were used as hunters’ helpers and are considered the first domesticated animal.

40,000 B.C. - We share the same DNA as the Homo sapiens from this era, yet we treat our bodies completely differently. Part of the human quest has been to make life easier, to minimize suffering and toil. History reveals that this hasn’t always been the end result. “Sedentary Nation” makes the claim that lack of physical movement — including the avoidance of activities that produce huffing and puffing, increased circulation, and endorphin-type highs — directly equates to unnatural living and the breakdown of mind and body.

9,000 B.C. - Sedentary villages appear. Inhabitants domesticate plants and animals concurrently with continued hunting and gathering. This immediately initiated social classes and long (sometimes endless) hours of work for the field workers. Scientists and sociologists readily make clear that Homo sapiens have two major traits about which we should all be aware:

1. Evolution has programmed us to hold onto calories, storing them as fat, for long winters or other periods of food scarcity.

2. As a group and as individuals, we tend to focus on the immediate. We have rarely been adept long-term planners, and for that reason we have frequently not acted ecologically. Our choices have regularly destroyed our planet’s systems and each other instead of working within natural, holistic living paradigms — and planning for the future.

            Today, much of this has to do with the shortsightedness of greedy people at the top who are sponsored by hungry, greedy, and ignorant constituents.

7,000 B.C. - One of the first cities grows from a small village in Jericho, Palestine. Not counting certain empires that built large cities (for example, the Roman Empire), widespread (meaning across the planet) urbanization did not exist until the 19th century A.D. Up to that point, there was typically no way to feed large populations of city dwellers. Urbanization grew vigorously when civilizations were able to feed people who served in administrative, clerical, and ruling hierarchies, as well as those who worked in sales and production — initially workers like builders, artisans, and merchants. Eventually, factories, mills, and plants created more areas of dense population.

4,000 B.C. - Oxen are used as draft animals. At times, people were panting and sweating during daily chores, as well as travel by foot. At other times they remained still, or moved quietly, breathing softly, when they needed to sneak up on game … or while playing hide-and-seek.

500–400 B.C. - For Greeks, creating beautiful human bodies meant people were more godlike. This is perhaps the first popular example of pumping iron and posing for the purpose of looking good.

General Trend of Food and Movement (not date-specific)

Ready-to-eat food, including ready-cooked, is frequently connected with urbanization, but hunter-gatherers and farmer-cultivators also needed food to go — fast food. Humans are more able to perform their tasks when supplied with continual nourishment. People often think of vitamins and minerals when they think of food, and both are important. But food’s most important and immediate role is to provide calories. Without calories in the system, the human engine is less able to generate movement. Lack of movement leads to starvation. Thin people starve relatively quickly. From the time of the original sedentary villages, cultivators and hunter-gatherers continue to populate the globe. Vast populations die off while others prosper. Most everyone has a physical job they are required to perform, and most jobs revolve around the acquisition, production, and delivery of food.

            In the Eastern Roman Empire, children and military recruits are sent to schools to learn. Eventually, this practice leads to masses of young people being forced into remaining seated (a sedentary position often taken up on the ground) or standing in one general area for long periods of time. This ultimately led to providing chairs and desks to students.

            Sitting at school desks inherently sets us up to believe spending long durations of time seated in constricting apparatuses is normal. Some would argue an easy way to control a population is to get it sitting down and listening to repeated messages from the controlling forces. School teaching is generally based upon an approved and required curriculum (including sponsored textbooks), funded by tax dollars and overseen by government entities. School also teaches obedience to the system. By design, today’s system is, as a rule, production and consumption oriented, not liberation and discovery oriented. Intrinsically, nations are organized under unity, defense, obedience, propaganda, and control. All of this needs directors and enforcers, who, just like the masses, need to be fed, clothed, and housed. The more a hierarchy is top heavy, the more the food workers become resentful of those who are not toiling in the fields but instead hire people (enforcers, thugs, bad hombres) to wield whips (or withhold pay) and impose authority.

            In Asia, many followed teachings inspired by Confucius, aka Master Kong, a Chinese philosopher who is said to have lived around 500 B.C. Physical movement — including tai chi, martial arts, sword practice, and holding positions — with a spiritual motivation leads the practitioner to health, focus, and moral character.

            In India, a daily practice first concentrated on the spiritual side comes into use. Yoga, which means “union,” was developed by Hindu priests because they saw the benefits of moving their bodies during parts of their meditation. They knew that sitting around and just attempting to move the mind and spirit generally produced immediate and chronic threats to wellbeing. Of some adept gurus, it is said they are able to move the energy through their body without physical movement.

Rome: 60 A.D. - Nero builds a public gymnasium: Greek word for “place to be naked.” These were places men could go to train, be social, and experience intellectual stimulation. The heart, the mind, and the body were kept invigorated. Much of this took place without roofs — sunlight during the day, fresh air after sunset. Remember that ventilation and sunshine are important factors in sanitary cleanliness.

            Roman citizens had long maintained their physical fitness for battle readiness. But over time, fitness subsided. Gluttony, complacency, and laziness (and even lead poisoning from pipes and utensils, among other things) increased during periods of excess, plagues, and overpopulation. The population eventually grew more unfit and the physical infrastructure (roads, buildings, aqueducts) fell into varying states of disrepair. Invaders vandalized aqueducts, cutting off water supplies. (The same technique, turning off the water, was employed by the Nazis in 1943 in the final battle in the ghetto of Warsaw.)

            The Western Roman Empire eventually declined to the point of being unable to get food from the farms into the urban areas to feed the populations. The capital city of Ancient Rome once boasted 40,000 apartment units and almost 2,000 palaces. Barbaric tribes conquered Rome partly because of the physical strength and unity of the tribes, who lived mainly as hunter-gatherers while also raising domesticated cattle. Well-to-do Romans found it inconvenient to die for the Empire. And the poor, increasingly turning to Christianity and its promise of a paradise after death, preferred martyrdom to serving the Caesar. The result: hiring of mercenaries to take the place of the legendary Roman Legions. Alaric, the Christian barbarian king, was reportedly met at the gates of Rome by mercenaries. The rest of the story can be summed up: “Money talked, mercenaries walked.”

            After the gluttonous Roman civilization crumbled (476 A.D.), the lives of many returned to a survival mode where only the fittest and best cooperators survived. Former city dwellers took to the fields and worked the land. If they didn’t do well in working the land or stealing from those who did, they perished.

            The end of the Eastern Roman Empire was not until 1453 A.D. with the conquering of Constantinople by the Seljuk Turks, or as we know them, another dark horde from the Siberian Steppes.

The Middle Ages, 6th–15th century - The early period had some populations moving away from cities. Subsistence farming eventually gave way to feudalism. The lives of the masses revolved around food. The field workers — serfs — toiled away, protected by the landowners — lords. History has shown how the wealthy would keep the workers down so that the workers would have substantial challenges in organizing into a fighting force against their masters. The ruling class did, however, need fit soldiers who generally came from farm-worker stock. This was a period noted for backbreaking work and wars. Conditions of harshness and endless repetition seemingly provide an indication of why humans would someday gravitate to living indoors and flipping channels.

Renaissance, 14th–17th century – It was common for the royals, the king and queen included, to recreate via dancing balls, walking, riding horses, hunting, fencing, and sex. Over the course of history, sex (not just in long-term partnership) was at times used recreationally … and still is. See your own sources or refer to the cultural phenomenon called the “hook up” and refer to the 2010 best-selling book “Sex at Dawn.” Also see how the bonobos, our closest DNA relative, use sex for stress relief and to squelch communal disturbances. One 17-year-old prep school boy thought it a bit strange when he was asked if he was going out on dates in 2013. “Dates are out. Today it’s the hook-up. You meet them at parties or wherever. You make out and that’s it. Done. You don’t even exchange phone numbers. Who needs the aggravation and who has the time for all of the dinners and movies.”

1519 - The horse is reintroduced to the Americas by Cortés, Spanish conquistador.

United States Modern Period, 1600s - Forced sedentism of Native Americans. The settlers and the governing bodies removed Indians from their traditional tribal homelands and hunting grounds and tried to force them to be sedentary farmers. Depression, alcoholism, obesity, poverty, and drug addiction became prevalent on reservations.

U.S. Late-Modern Period, 1800s–2000s - In 1800, 95 percent of Americans lived in rural areas. By 1920, due to immigration and the Industrial Revolution, some 60 percent lived in cities. In the early 1800s, 95 percent of people worked in some capacity related to growing food. Today the number is reportedly less than 5 percent.

            How aerobic is the life of a cowboy? If the work of a cowboy or cowgirl has them huffing and puffing over long durations, that’s an indication of aerobics. If a cowpoke is just slowly riding the property line watching the stock, his activity is deficient in significant physical exertion.

            Neck and spine pain plague sedentary humans. Holding the head-down position — evidenced when some incorrectly posture themselves for reading, writing, laptop, and beadwork — puts tremendous stress on the body. Many four-legged animals have a strong nuchal ligament (aka paddywhack as in …”With a knick-knack, paddywhack, give a dog a bone. This old man came rolling home”) and musculature to support the weight of their heads for the horizontal-leaning head position; human necks (and the integrity of our upright anatomy) aren’t built for grazing … or surfing on low-angled digitized screens all day — and evening.

The African-American slaves are freed. At first, some of the freed slaves are given land, often referred to by the phrase “40 acres and a mule.” When this practice ended, a great deal of land was given back to whites, forcing countless African Americans to work as sharecroppers, which spelled more poverty and subservience for them. From 1890 to 1970, in what is known as the Great Migration, more than 6 million African-Americans left the South and settled in the North. For African-Americans, urban populations grew, as did sedentary lifestyles. (A recent report said that African-Americans spent more time with TV and digital devices than any other ethnicity.[i] Latinos were listed in second place. In the U.S., these two groups suffer the highest per capita percentages of obesity, asthma, heart problems, and poverty.)

1828 - The iron horse (steam locomotive) is developed. Tracks laid at Baltimore Harbor and, in 1830, in New York. The train is arguably one of the most comfortable of all modes of transportation when interiors are spacious and tracks are kept smooth. Sedentism is reduced since passengers can move about with relative safety. On longer trips, passengers can even step off the train at periodic stops for stretch breaks. As witnessed recently, some actively stretch their legs; others stand around and smoke.

1845 - The Police Gazette is founded in New York City. One of the first American tabloids, it enjoyed tremendous success based on creating a readership ripe for stories and illustrations of scandal, obscenity, and gossip. Long published on pink newspaper stock, it created a following of readers intrigued to read about the lives of actresses, chorus girls, and prize fighters, as well as other stories deemed of potential interest to the curious masses. It used sensationalism and yellow journalism better than most of the papers of its time and was instrumental in creating a pop culture that had readers spending increasing stretches of time preoccupied with the lives of others. Degradation and decrepitude normally follow when citizens spend more time following the lives of the famous and infamous than they do taking care of themselves, their families, and their community.

1854 - The Otis elevator is installed at the World’s Fair in New York City. The construction of tall buildings necessitates new modes of conveyance for humans and supplies.

1896 - The escalator debuts at Old Iron Pier at Coney Island, New York. It was developed, in part, to move people through congested areas.

1890s–1960 - Dance halls could be found in towns small and large across the United States and Western Europe. Dance halls were a place for people to congregate, dance to live music, and meet new friends. The Savoy in Harlem during the 1930s has been called the first truly integrated building in the United States … for both dancers and musicians. Dancing is an unwinding celebration creating, on its positive side, an opportunity to bring out the best in people. As a regular activity starting from youth, large numbers of people developed their skills and became proficient. It was cool to get in on the fun.

1900s - An exodus from farms continued to satisfy the worker needs of the Industrial Revolution and war efforts. Untold numbers left farms with hopes of a better life. They already knew that farming was extremely difficult work and in no way promised land ownership.

            (The following is one of the most startling facts uncovered while writing “Sedentary Nation.” This encapsulates the overriding theme of man’s complacency with the paradigm of profit and control in trumping wellness and doing the right thing.) Because of the almost inconceivable reason that six to nine months of storage life for milled flour wasn’t long enough for bread industrialists, wheat flour is bleached with potentially harmful chemicals (including chlorine dioxide) in order to keep it from going rancid. The modern era preserving process removes or depletes many of the good things that wheat bread originally provided, including unsaturated fatty acids, proteins, vitamins, and trace minerals (especially magnesium, selenium, and chromium). These things may not matter to consumers once they are easily convinced that “it’s all about taste.” The current health food movement veers away from low-cost, nutrient deficient food in favor of better nutrition. The experts all agree the end result is improved overall health and wellbeing — ultimately the lower cost way to live.

1899–1900 - The first American truck was developed by a team headed by engineer Louis Semple Clarke and released for sale by the Pittsburgh Motor Vehicle Company. Trucks, trains, and ships allow for distance shipping of nearly everything, including food. Truck driving is one of the classic sedentary jobs and has long caused its share of pronounced physical disabilities. The restaurants at truck stops have traditionally provided heavy, greasy fare, and the chance to use the cigarette machine.

1906 - Upton Sinclair writes the new century’s most famous American work of muckraking. It was censored and only its softer rewrite — which toned down the harshness of the work conditions — was permitted to be published. “The Jungle,” a work of historically accurate fiction, exposes abuses of human labor, examples of horrible treatment of animals during slaughtering, and atrocious health hazards related to meat processing. Its popular success provoked immediate reform. Once again, reforms are drastically needed in the new millennium. According to the 2009 documentary “Food Inc.,” in 1972, there were roughly 50,000 FDA inspections of meat and poultry processing plants versus 9,200 inspections in 2006. Part of this is due to consolidation by corporate giants — there are far fewer plants.

1913–1918 - WWI is the first major war to institute a petroleum-powered, mechanized military. Still, it could be considered an old-school war. Reports claim that 6 to 8 million horses died in the conflict. The muddy trenches (and virtual lack of sanitation), and dead humans and horses, made for a toxic and sometimes sedentary field of war. One 4-month stretch of the war resulted in more than 1 million casualties, with only six miles of land changing hands between the opposing warriors. Some records show that British soldiers were sometimes fed rations of beef for breakfast; Americans in the trenches were known to take a morning meal of coffee, donuts, and cigarettes. The pancreas, teeth and gums, and our other markers of wellness (including the bowels) certainly don’t respond well to the American trench breakfast diet. In this case, meat provided a more stable blood sugar level than carbohydrates, poison, and junk.

1915 - The beginning of what obesity researcher Dr. Richard Lustig, M.D., calls “The Coca-Cola Conspiracy.” The expanding container sizes of soft drinks parallels the supersizing of Westerners. Sugar, he emphatically states, is causing obesity: 1916, 6.5-oz. glass contour bottle; 1955, 10-oz. bottle; 1960, 12-oz. cans; 1988, 44-oz. huge cups; 1992, 20-oz. plastic bottle; 2011, smaller plastic bottles introduced because, “Americans are counting both their calories and their pennies.”[ii] Caffeine is a diuretic, which makes you urinate good water. That plus the sodium (salt) in cola makes you thirsty and makes you drink more. The more salt in cola, the more sugar is needed to mask the salt. Dr. Lustig says, “They [Coca-Cola and other soft drink companies who follow this model] knew exactly what they were doing.”

            Ask yourselves if PepsiCo knows what it’s doing when it sponsors playgrounds around the world that feature product logos and images.

1916 - White Castle opens its first location in Wichita, Kansas, and becomes known as the first hamburger chain. When it opened its doors, it only charged 5¢ per burger. Cheap and convenient fast food is a significant part of our sedentary world.

1919 - The gasoline-powered lawnmower is first manufactured in the United States, but homeowners continue to use push-reel lawnmowers and scythes because they work well and burn calories rather than hard-earned wages.

If you were regular folk, your lawn didn’t have to be perfect. You didn’t normally have to keep up with the Joneses. You just needed a place for your kids to play and perhaps for you to invite some friends and family over for a Sunday afternoon outdoor meal.

1920s - Radio networks begin broadcasting. Listeners are not required to sit idly. They can still move their bodies and accomplish things while being entertained or informed, though some just stared at the box. Terrific scripts, directors, actors, and sound effects permitted listeners’ imaginations to come up with their own images for the popular radio shows. Some argue that the mind was experiencing richer engagement without the use of any visual screens. Instead of fancy photographic visual effects — and the viewer’s amazement at what they [the photographic producers] can do — radio permits the brain to do one thing it does superbly, create its own images. Look what it can do.

1930s - Howard Johnson’s pioneers franchised restaurants with standardized menus and marketing. Since the food is the same in any of their restaurants, you get what you pay for whether you’re in downtown Queens or on the outskirts of Alameda. Food becomes as standardized as toilet paper. Fast forward to today’s typical supermarkets where your purchasing is limited to three main apple types — all uniform, none with any marks, stamped with a label, coated in wax — that were all sprayed with various chemicals while on the tree. One spray causes them to ripen and another to drop to the ground. Everyone knows about the long-term use of pest spray.

1940s and beyond - World War II brings an extraordinary mechanized war effort. The desire and need for automation and mechanization begins to permeate all areas of life, including lawn mowing, which, more and more, is handled with power mowers. The countdown to microwave ovens begins. Four decades later, they will become standard issue appliances in mid-range new construction. Homes increasingly become electronics warehouses that have residents being bombarded by hazardous EMFs.

1951 - TV networks broadcast from coast to coast and the visual medium replaces radio as the dominant home entertainment medium. TV increases sedentary living and almost instantly becomes the major addiction that leads to a sedentary lifestyle. Nearly every family with a parking spot owns or has access to one automobile. Urban and suburban grandmothers may still walk to the market and church, but it becomes increasingly unlikely that their adult children will.

Up until the time that TV became a preferred pastime, kids who weren’t working a job would play games, frequently outdoors, even in inclement weather. Some games were competitive; some were just for kicks. A senior citizen had tears in his eyes in 1987 when he told me, “Kids today are missing out. We used to play football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring. I don’t get them with this TV flipping.” What he didn’t get was the term “addiction” — addiction to an indoor, sedentary lifestyle.

20th century - Couches, previously reserved for those of privileged wealth, are now within financial reach of the masses. With more disposable income than their predecessors, the working class can afford couches for the first time in history. Couch potatoes (of all classes) are, in part, formed when people become excessively and unproductively sedentary. In most cases, the TV is the main couch-centric pastime. Since it’s hard to pull away from the boob tube — for some, impossible — it clearly has become a powerful addiction.

Positive pursuits like resting and relaxing after work or school, reading and improving education, and communing with family and friends, are placed on the back burner. Instead of actively recreating or getting some needed rest, a group some have termed lemmings tune in for more stimulation (not just quality programming, but the mind-numbing news, flashy imagery, and invasive sound) from the TV. In the 1970s, comedian George Carlin imitated a home-based woman who had to cut her phone conversation short, “… because my stories [soap operas] are coming on.”

Without having time to quiet their minds, many remain worn out — wired by unhealthful options and choices. Some writers criticize the 20th century, whose worship of pop culture creates a dumbing down of society. An entire population, many of whom witnessed the backbreaking work of their family’s elders, is cajoled into further sedentism and hyper consumerism. This trend is led by TV, whose language is often based on a less than ninth-grade education. Media writers, once taught to cater to eighth-grade levels, eventually have to stoop even lower to reach their average audience.[2] Instead of creating a wiser electorate, the Age of Information creates a dearth of common sense.

It could be argued that the more TV you watch, the less engaged you are in true contemplation, critical thinking, and problem solving. (Watching a program for enjoyment, learning, or both, and discussing it or reflecting on it before flipping to another one seems of higher intellectual and interactive gain than mere channel surfing.) Devoid of knowledge about how to live off the land, subjected to mass campaigns of idiocy in TV programming and commercials, people become subject to extreme behavior. Living a simple life away from malls, bars, and hair salons doesn’t correlate to ignorance — just the opposite. Keeping up with the Joneses and never being satisfied is an offshoot of mass consumerism. The 20th century’s extreme capitalism in a growing economy was made possible by extreme consumerism. The spread of this image — keeping up with the Joneses and the families Westerners got to know via TV programming — contributes to and benefits from extreme sedentism.

            To promote literacy, Margaret McNamara, former teacher and the wife of Robert McNamara — JFK’s secretary of defense and one of the brightest minds (but not most altruistic) in Big Power at the time — gathers a team of volunteers. In 1966, Mrs. McNamara and her volunteers began the program of donating new and used books to young school children. Reading Is Fundamental has suffered due to budget cuts. The dumbing down of society gains strength.

            The 20th century Western Fitness Pioneers, Bernarr McFadden, Paige Palmer, Dr. Kenneth Cooper, Bonnie Prudden, Jack LaLanne, George Leonard, Jim Fixx, Covert Bailey, and others, lay the groundwork for the modern fitness movement. They all were concerned with the same issue — getting their adherents moving and exercising. 

1950s - America is home to a growing beer culture. Beer companies sponsor football games, and countless viewers sit idly while packing in the calories from beer, soft drinks, and greasy foods like pizza. (Mentioning this here is not to categorically suggest that fermented alcohol is bad or that good quality pizza doesn’t have its place.) Over time, sports TV becomes a powerful addiction. It will become more common for citizens to watch others doing movement activities than to be enjoying outdoor recreation themselves. Some may call this laziness, but it’s more correctly termed an addiction that increases over time.

1953 - Swanson’s TV Dinner is introduced. Americans welcome the faithful meal of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cherry tart patterned after an original New England Thanksgiving meal. The notion of frozen dinners is not a bad one, but an overreliance on prefabricated, processed food means fewer nutrients, more preservatives, and less pride in preparing food from scratch.

Juicing (using steroids) helps make some athletes superstars. In 1954, after watching his team break world records, the Soviet weightlifting coach tells American team physician, Dr. John Ziegler, that the Soviet team uses steroids and other concoctions to boost performance. This reportedly led to the introduction of performance-enhancing substances in American sports and other forms of cheating with drugs and blood doping. The prevalence of doping had gained momentum among cyclists in the Tour de France, which has had allegations of doping since the Tour began in 1903. The need to perform almost impossible feats of strength and endurance was predominantly induced by sponsors of the Tour who wanted winners coupled with racers desiring to earn a living and eventually achieve fame and fortune.[iii]

1956 - During Eisenhower’s presidency, the President’s Council on Physical Fitness is organized as a response to unfit American children (as compared to European children).

1957 - Scientists develop a way to turn corn’s sucrose into high fructose. It will take corporations 20 years to drop that bomb on society. By the 1990s, high fructose corn syrup is a leading ingredient in a wide range of products including juices and cereals marketed to children. A number of scientists also consider high fructose corn syrup a gateway drug (one that leads to other drugs).

1960s - Public dance halls are replaced by private discothèques.

            Counting their early appearances in Europe, the Beatles only tour for a handful of years before deciding to stay in the studio to record. Plenty of rock musicians binge and party, yet generally stay slim.[3] Most of their maintained slimness may have been because this was an era before severe sedentism, corn syrup, large portions, and high-calorie mushy food.

In their younger days, music icons like the Big Bopper (210 lbs; d. 1959) and Fats Domino were neither big nor fat in comparison with heavy singers of more recent decades. Vast numbers of the late 20th-century and early 21st-century rock stars have trouble with excessive pounds, even as young people — some examples being Bobby Brown, Brittany Spears, and Christina Aguilera. The 1960’s performers in the group The Temptations were just as good at moving to the beat as they were at singing — all members of this Motown group were relatively lean in the 1960s. (Some will argue that youthful age is the reason and that metabolism slows with age. If your metabolism slows, do you think it sensible to become less active and more gluttonous?)

The 1960s show a sharp rise in inflammation-related diseases. Some scientists include arthritis, asthma, cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and chronic pain in this list and consider the rise in EMFs combined with ungrounded lifestyles as direct causes.

Because of lots of walking barefoot or in leather-soled shoes, people were grounded to the Earth in prior generations. (Outdoor animals still are.) Some scientists suggest this played a role in neutralizing free radicals and instantaneously reset our voltage to the same level as the Earth’s. The 1960s ushered in rubber-soled shoes and wall-to-wall-carpeted homes, which substantially reduced human grounding.[iv]

1970s - In the modern era, the 1970s mark a big line in the sand for the downward spiral of socioeconomic trends in the West. Sociologist Ira Goldstein points out that the early 1970s ring in the beginning of the decline in the U.S. standard of living largely based on a decline in domestic productivity. Production goes overseas and across borders leading to less of a demand for skilled and unskilled laborers at home. This also leads to more geographical and income distance between the classes, including a decline in real income for middle income levels. Depression and anxiety lead to further couch potato syndrome, addiction (including endless caloric intake), and sedentism.

1973 - The first Miller Lite beer TV commercial featuring football players is produced, a sign that accumulation of excess fat had begun to take hold in Western society, especially in the lives of the sedentary viewers.

1977 - Some 20 years after its initial development, high fructose corn syrup is produced and marketed by large corporations with deep pockets and strong influence. Is their influence the reason the U.S. government imposed tariffs and quotas on sugar imports (which made their corn product the much cheaper option) in the same year? You bet it is! Greedy, bleepin’, shortsighted, controlling corporate and political buffoons.

1977 - A big year for huge Federal government snafus. Here’s another one: the U.S. government sets its policy to adopt the low-fat diet. The adopted philosophy is called the diet-heart hypothesis and, according to one body of research, incorrectly correlates heart disease predominantly with LDL levels (think “L” for Lethal, though these levels may not be as vital a concern as we have been told).

            The argument against the flawed government policy favors diets higher in percentages of protein and fat and lower in carbs. The high-protein diet (the optimum version of this would be termed “low-carb balanced diet”) suggests eating some foods that contain saturated fatty acids (including coconut oil, avocados, animal fat, and butter — not transfats like margarine) that were deemed harmful, since they increase total lipids. Scientific experiments have shown these diets raise HDL (think “H” for “Healthy,” aka the good transporters of cholesterol) even more. Studies have come to conclusions on both sides of the higher fat / lower fat argument.

            Some consider the low-fat diet the really big coup and turning point, and arguably the big hinge toward pancreatic malfeasance, obesity, and other downturns in wellness. The studies available in 1977, including pre-World War II German research, might just as easily have caused the U.S. government to adopt a diet of low-sugar (low simple carbs), low-sodium foods with limited processing and low contamination. Instead, the dietary practices of Americans were filled with all of these banes. Waxing revisionist, look what these choices, together with the pandemic of sedentism, have done. (Ask an older, fitness-oriented physician — one who is a senior citizen — how she feels about the change in her patients’ physiques over her years in practice in the late 20th century.)

1970s - Higher percentages of people begin to show the unhealthful signs of sedentary lifestyles coupled with high-calorie diets. Kids who still actively play through their high school years don’t show much roundness but inactive adults do — their belt sizes grow a few notches. The term “health nut” is at times used pejoratively in criticizing people who take care of their bodies. As a health push emerges, health food stores and vitamins (better termed supplements) gain popularity.

1980s - Increased prevalence of both desk and couch potatoes. Desk potatoes are known to sit in cubicles, private offices, open floor plans, or behind counters. A better option would be to have them doing some work standing at a high desk or counter and some sitting on a high, adjustable-position stool with an attached footrest. These people, as well as the rest of Americans, use fast food and junk food on a regular basis; some slug it down daily.

            The Age of Video and Information helps make short attention spans even shorter, which makes people more subject to deception and addiction. The Baby Boomers are known to prize youthfulness and money, while resenting their immobile, sedentary lifestyles — and ultimately, themselves. Unlike the nuclear family units of the 1950s, fragmented families became the norm. Especially noticeable in the cultures of white and black American families is that the grandparents are recurrently no longer part of the family unit — unless they are called upon to be parents again. “Everyone wants their space,” is an oft-used adage.

            The nuclear family detonates in divorce, and 30-year careers are cut short due to changes in economics and human resource strategies. For example, at-will employees can and are hired and fired at will; pension plans are increasingly reduced, pillaged by predators, or eliminated. This runs concurrently with the notion of everyone having a personal psychological counselor. The hardy souls from rural America and the Great Depression — both of whose ranks were physically and mentally pooped out at the end of an average day — are replaced by droves of wired people who stay up late. Cable TV provides an incredible number of options, 24 hours a day.

            Large fitness centers populate America. With fluorescent lights; central ventilation; black rubber floor coverings; chemical, germ-fighting, cleansing sprays; Velcro and vinyl; and tinted windows or no windows; there is a total disconnect from nature and the outdoors. From the outside, mega fitness centers might look like any other box store. Diana Ross created a hit with lyrics that went, “I want muscles …”

            “If you didn’t belong to a gym,” a friend says about this era, “there was something wrong with you.”

Over the history of the known world, people generally would rise with or before the sunrise and bed down within a few hours of sunset. Twentieth-century inventions create large numbers of people who remain awake until late at night. People are fatigued, yet they experience sleep disorders. Indoor lifestyles demand electrical lights, which produce EMF radiation and produce no vitamin D. This combined with workers holding non-physical jobs and having at-home access to entertainment boxes and high sugar foods and beverages continues to generate stress and compromises health.

            In the late 1990s, it’s not uncommon to find each adult member of a family with a personal automobile or to see each family member with a personal TV. Driveways become parking lots and bedrooms become havens of screen-time entertainment. People — especially and ironically kids — are spending significant amounts of time indoors, plugged in to noise and imagery — and canned laughter and crime updates. Video games like Grand Theft Auto, which feature violent themes, become popular.

            Sleep-related problems are largely sourced in the lack of physical work and play, the lack of vitamin D, abnormal melatonin levels, the stress of daily living, the stress medications that disrupt sleep patterns, and atrocious diets, which, among other things, create highly unstable blood sugar levels. This leave adults thinking there is something wrong with them. Elder generations are not spending time side by side, working and recreating with the younger generations, besides the occasional visit or phone call. When you need wisdom, help, or someone to listen, “who you gonna call?” Or talk to … the counselor, the bartender, the palm reader, the psychiatrist, the spiritual leader or, in the new millennium, the life coach? “Somebody’s got to listen to me!”

1990s - Vast numbers of people of all ages in America become supersized. At home, dinner plates and glassware become increasingly larger. Still, plenty of people get seconds and thirds just as they did with the smaller plates used in the earlier, more active decades. Motorized mobility scooters, originally invented for disabled people, now haul around the self-inflicted and junk-food-inflicted rolls of fat belonging to the dysfunctional supersized and the morbidly obese. Experts consider many of the obese to be genetically and emotionally predisposed to obesity. For both adults and children, there is an increasing prevalence of the following conditions: diabetes, obesity, and asthma. A growing number of school-age kids carry their own prescription steroidal inhalers. The field of individual and family psychological counseling gathers more steam.

            Mega churches — some as large as college campuses — flourish. Part of their growth is based on the capability to fill in for some of what used to be provided by the greater family, neighborhood, and village. Vast numbers of churches of all sizes have meetings and activities going on throughout the day and evening. Churches grow in size and scope. No longer just sanctuaries for worship with meeting halls, many have evolved as family and help centers, responding to the ever-expanding needs of people seemingly deficient in areas needed to survive these complicated times. Churches offer diverse options, including English as a Second Language (ESL) and computer classes, daycare, crisis intervention, senior yoga, job training, marriage counseling, and addiction meetings.

            The home-cooked, American meat-and-potatoes diet of old was originally patterned after a European — not Mediterranean — ancestry. Meat and potatoes is bumped aside by the popular dishes of pasta and cheese, which typically mean excessive calories. Such dishes include carbs high on the glycemic index as well as factory-farmed animal products. For convenience and taste, people purchase and serve the highly processed, junk cheeses and pre-made mac-and-cheese offerings. Before the doping and feedlot raising of cows, the original meat-and-potatoes diet may not have been perfect, but it was arguably a better choice than the boxed food that followed. Remember, the original European-American immigrants vigorously moved their bodies for their physical jobs and tasks and needed sufficient and long-lasting calories.

            Both the pasta-and-cheese and pizza diets dump lots of sugar calories and oils into the body very quickly. A diet of roughage and fiber-filled vegetables and protein and fat-rich meat takes much more human-body processing time since these ingredients need to be chewed and broken down. Even a salad with carrots and radishes takes a fair amount of chewing. Pasta and melted cheese go down with far fewer chews (as few as two or three), making meals almost swallowable. This equates to excessive calories being consumed and in the bloodstream in a much shorter period of time. Many experts consider these diets less than optimum in nutritional value. Pasta is high in carbs and cheese contains the milk sugar, lactose. Most of the harm is done when we overdo them. It’s hard not to overdo them when you start out as a child and never learn the importance of nutrition or how to prepare healthful meals.

            The Internet, home video games, and 24-hour cable TV (eventually beamed by satellite) have people clicking away on digital devices because, “Life itself has become boring ...” Attention spans grow even shorter.

            Policymakers and parents demand more academic rigor — in some schools, P.E. and recess get reduced and even eliminated. Teachers are singled out for many of the problems in education. Years later, teachers and districts will categorically be singled out in the much-criticized 2001 Act of Congress program No Child Left Behind. Kids, young adults, and their parents spend increasing spans of time in seated positions.

Years later, in the craze of smartphones and text messaging, an athletic teacher would tell me, “Young people’s dexterity is superb, as long as you are talking about their hands.”

1995 - Doritos gives an enduring Christmas present to Spain. In December, the Doritos brand is introduced there. A Spanish medical marketing consultant told me, “Before this time, we customarily ate traditional Spanish dinners, often while watching soccer games. Essentially, tapas or a main course and a salad were the meal. The goal of Doritos’ makers [and the other snack makers as well] was to convince consumers that it was the hip thing to do ... eat snacks while watching TV. It didn’t take much convincing. The foods are tasty and addicting. This meant we Spanish started with junk food and soda or beer during the games and then did our best to eat the dinner that had already been prepared. That meant we consumed lots of calories over a two- or three-hour period.”

            In the 1990s, worldwide snack food and fast food consumption climbs appreciably higher. Revenues in 2012 were listed at $300 Billion for snack foods and $500 Billion for fast foods. Some analysts expect growth to continue.

2000s - The field of wellness takes on problems of health, diet, and inactivity. But it faces challenge in the new generation of people who are accustomed to seeking instantaneous rewards in the fast-paced, image-conscious world of short attention spans and ubiquitous convenience food. Body art, including piercings and teeth grillz with bling, as well as multiple tattoos, become vogue for a wide segment of young and middle-aged people. For many in the new generation of young men, a new movement of tattoos, smoking cigarettes, trendy hairstyles, muscles (including six-pack abs and sculpted pecs), and sexiness seems to take precedence over athletics and physical recreation, the learning of craftsmanship, and general wellness. Plastic surgery and Botox aren’t just for drooping adults; young people fill out the practitioner’s schedule as well. Growing percentages of high school girls are getting breast augmentation and a growing percentage of boys are getting breast reduction. One source stated that the number of breast augmentations in the under 18-year-old crowd rose nearly six times, to 7,882 from 1,326, over a 10-year period ending in 2007.[v]

            Diet books reach record sales. The low-carb revolution causes food companies to offer low-carb products, including low-carb pizza and low-carb pasta. Sales of books by Dr. Robert Atkins (who died in 2003) reach 20 million copies. People are desperate to lose weight. Soon detractors from the low-carb craze publish reports that claim the diet is unnatural, doesn’t work, and may cause harm. According to the reports from some of the highly touted physicians and researchers who come out against the low-carb diet, people have been once again duped!

            The year before Atkins dies, journalist Gary Taubes publishes a momentous article in the New York Times Magazine, “What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” This article was a catalyst in reopening the diet debate. In Taubes’ half-decade of research, he resurrects historic studies that had been mostly forgotten by the mainstream dietary pundits and media. His work attempts to provide more evidence that high-carb diets — sugar — are instrumental in causing us to become fat and obese. The studies he cites show that hormones, including insulin, cause our fat cells to store more triglycerides and make us fatter as we continue consuming food that is easily converted to sugar. Exercise, according to Taubes and many others in this camp, is wonderful, but people aren’t getting obese because they are inherently lazy. What Taubes and others call Endocrinology 101, shows that many are predisposed to obesity by individual biology and chemistry, and then high-carb diets — soda, juices, beer, breads, rice, pastas — fill their fat cells and cause these cells to grow.

            Backing up to 1999 reveals that a good-sized (811 participants; 62 percent women, 38 percent men), two-year study found that four different diets all achieved similar results in terms of weight and waistline reduction and improved health. The participants followed strict diets based on four different groups, which were separated based on varying percentages of fat, protein, and carbohydrates. The key to the study’s good results was a 750-calorie reduction daily diet. No daily intake was below 1200 calories. Thus, in this case, it wasn’t as much what percentages of calories came from what food group, but the total number of calories. The participants also did moderate exercise and consumed calories considered more healthful. As far as weight loss, in this particular study, those who participated in counseling sessions did better.[vi]

            Increasing sales of popular books and documentaries show historical and behind-the-scenes looks at wellness, including diet, food sources, food conglomerates, and human addiction. Some notables to mention: “Food Inc.,” “Fast Food Nation,” “The Future of Food,” “Supersize Me,” “Healthy at 100,” “The China Study,” “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and “May I Be Frank.”

            Parents and educators are concerned with how to properly raise children in the age of digital, sugar, and short attention spans. Considerable numbers of books and documentaries are released in attempts to inform people of the best methods for interacting with special needs children.

            The world is also full of special needs adults. Who doesn’t have special needs? In 2001, Robert J. MacKenzie publishes his book “Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child: Eliminating Conflict by Establishing Clear, Firm, and Respectful Boundaries.” It’s not only a book that can help parents and teachers, but all of us might pay heed to establishing respectful boundaries in our own relationships and in regard to our own behavioral shortcomings, including inclinations toward digital overload, poor diet, and excessive work. Again, it’s not only young people who have trouble controlling impulses. We all need to realize how our emotions and brain chemistry are triggered by sensations, memories, and images.

            Pack your bags if you have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which has historically had a 5 percent survival rate and, as a rule, is directly related to lifestyle — especially boozing. It takes about 20 years to generate its symptoms. That means that by the time it is diagnosed, it’s normally too late. For 95 percent of those with this diagnosis, the trip leaves very soon.

            Functional training, Pilates, Zumba, CrossFit, P90X, spinning, Egoscue, cardio kickboxing, kettle bells, Body Boot Camp, Super Slow, Body By Science, qi gong, yoga and other parts of the fitness and physical activity movement are popularized in the United States.

            Doing these activities doesn’t put money in your pocket or food on your table — as in farming or hunting-gathering, nor do they get you to your next destination — as in walking or running. But they are some of the practical answers to the crisis of inactivity and lack of mind-body connection. The group classes also provide zing from what is known as the group dynamic; they also provide camaraderie.

            “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Biggest Loser” TV programs showcase movement that sedentary viewers can watch as they sit, casually enjoying how other people are burning calories. There’s hope that the show also motivates viewers to take up physical movement.

            Pay-per-view watchers reserve the evening to watch physical combat. The Ultimate Fighting Champion (UFC) and other no-rules fighting competitions replace boxing as the big draw on cable TV, and martial arts enrollment soars. One of the most popular is the grappling arts, which hearken back to ancient human practices as well as those of animals like tigers and bears. Tigers and bears grapple from an early age and do so their entire lives to settle disputes without fatality and to keep up their physical skills. Cable TV programmers note the viewers want to see more devastation and mayhem than the grappling arts provide. The answer is found in the sometimes bloody and gory mixed martial arts fighting programs (like the UFC), which satisfy the bloodlust in the same way that the gladiatorial fights did during the Roman Empire. At times, the ancient gladiatorial bouts got the bloodlust ramped up so high that men would leave the arena and terrorize the town and each other (a la European soccer hooligans). This bloody bedlam was eased by lining the areas near the arena’s exits with prostitutes — in some cases, thousands of them.

2005 - Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a 50-year government researcher and insider, publishes “The China Study.” He boldly points out, “most nutrition and health information is very misleading. It is no coincidence that we now have a medical care crisis which is very expensive and which compromises the quality of life for millions of Americans and others living on a Western-style diet.” Dr. Campbell is also a long-time recreational runner. “The China Study,” especially its vegetarian claims, is later criticized by some practicing physicians who claim that it’s not even a study, just a collection of untested observations. (Can you see a pie fight in the making?) A detractor to vegetarian philosophy is Dr. Loren Cordain, author of “The Paleo Diet,” who states, “When I initially became involved in evolutionary nutrition, I knew that common diseases of civilization like hypertension, high cholesterol, and cardiovascular diseases could be reduced or totally prevented by maintaining a contemporary Paleo diet,” which in part means getting some of our dietary protein and fat from safe, unprocessed meat.

2008 - The movie “WALL-E” grosses $23 million on its opening day. Walk-in theatres grossing billions of dollars are filled by increasing numbers of supersized people who have atrocious eating and exercise habits and spend money — not only on tickets but also on the junk-food offerings at the cinema.

2009 - President Obama signs healthcare reform bills into law. The original bills only earmark $1 billion for Wellness and Prevention out of a total health budget predicted to exceed $1 trillion.

2010 - Revenues of fast food providers approach $200 billion on U.S. sales alone, which is not even close to the gross needs of the U.S. health budget. Revenues of pharmaceutical companies (which also own supplementation companies) may exceed $1 trillion in worldwide sales.

2011 - Jack LaLanne, a gifted motivator, beloved pioneer of fitness, gyms, juicing, and a healthy lifestyle, dies at age 96. He is the answer to the question posed earlier regarding the famous chin-up champ who is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles. He remained positive in his approach to wellness and never gave up on us. Fitness and wellness pioneer Bonnie Prudden outlives Jack by a few months, also dying at age 96.

Tony Horton’s P90X (top-selling fitness DVDs) infomercial manager, Carl Daikeler proclaims, “Whoever succeeds at making the living room an effective place to get fit is going to be a billionaire.”

2012 and beyond - In the modern era, a significant portion of medical-center training and medical-industry schooling have historically been based on teaching sick patient care. If you count immunizations, screenings, and checkups, there is some sick patient prevention care but very little natural wellness. There is a growing trend to move to a wellness modality, including preventative medicine and healthful lifestyle training. Healthcare costs and disability costs are some of the most worrisome parts of the federal budgetary troubles. These costs can be greatly reduced by healthful lifestyles. Will this happen before the economy and an individual’s bank accounts go bust?

Easy Takeaways

1.   Once you see millions of years of history that show how humans once moved, you fully understand how the modern era has been robbed of one of the most natural of human activities.

2.   Unlike some hibernators, most branches of the animal kingdom (humans have long been listed as part of this) lack built-in mechanisms that can keep them healthy and well without physical movement.

3.   A growing trend is a prevailing avoidance of activities that produce huffing and puffing, increased circulation, and endorphin-type highs. Lack of physical movement directly equates to unnatural living and the breakdown of mind and body.

4.   Evolution has programmed us to hold onto calories, storing them as fat, for long winters or other periods of food scarcity.

5.   Although I say the 1970s equal sedentism, physically unfit citizens were a problem much earlier on. Exercising’s history goes way back. In 1956, during Eisenhower’s presidency, the President’s Council on Physical Fitness was organized as a response to unfit American children (as compared to European children).

6.   In the modern era, the 1970s mark a big line in the sand for the downward spiral of socioeconomic trends in the West. Sociologist Ira Goldstein points out that the early 1970s ring in the beginning of the decline in U.S. standard of living largely based in a decline in domestic productivity.

7.   Experts and regular folks alike are rallying for a societal move to a wellness modality, including preventative medicine and healthful lifestyle training.

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[1] U.S. physical therapists and fitness trainers have been using sedentism to convey the same meaning as sedentary lifestyle.

[2] This is an email reply I received from a scholar who has worked in a variety of fields including journalism and the military. The concept of media writing for eighth-grade level educations was not easy to find, but I had remembered being taught that in high school. “This knowledge is something you learn when working within the journalism world. As far as I know it is not “written” anywhere. But every newsroom, TV newsroom, moviemaker, etc., knows the literacy level at which to aim the product. A college professor once said to me, “Write your paper as if you are trying to educate an eighth-grade 14-year-old about a topic of which he has no knowledge.’” I had known for years about the general literacy level of the newspapers that crossed my desk while in the business. That literacy level was the occasion of much hilarity when it came to writing for college educated commanding officers with some fairly sharp critical thinking skills.”

[3] In the year before his death, Doors’ lead singer Jim Morrison looked atrocious: pudgy and sickly due to binging on alcohol and drugs. It’s not accurate to say that he looked 10 or 20 years older than his 27 years. People don’t necessarily look more atrocious as they age. In 2012, I also heard an interview with Doors’ keyboardist Ray Manzarek in which he praises his friend and lightly laments the fact that Jim Morrison wasted so much of his potential creative time by going out to bars with hangers on. “He should have spent that time writing and creating. He was too easily convinced to go out and drink and talk.”

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[i] Corey Washington, “Study Shows Black Children Consuming More Media; Mobile Tech Contributes.” June 8, 2011. <http://www.blackvoicenews.com/bvn-now/the-tech-report/46287-study-shows-black-children-consuming-more-media-mobile-technology-contributes.html>

[ii] Mike Esterl, “Coke Tailors Its Soda Sizes Backing Off of ‘Supersizing,’ Company Aims for Wider Range of Ounces, Prices.” WSJ.com. September 19, 2011. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903374004576578980270401662.html>

[iii] Plenty of helpful research and history of the Tour de France is available on the Web and in print. Of particular help to me was a book called “The Tour de France: A Cultural History” by Christopher S. Thompson. University of California Press, 2008.

[iv] Ann Louise Gittleman and her quote of telecommunications pioneer Clint Ober as included in Gittleman’s book “Zapped.” Harper One, 2010. p. 71.

[v] Camille Sweeney, “Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery.” NY Times, January 14, 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/fashion/15skin.html?_r=0>

[vi] Frank M. Sacks, M.D., George A. Bray, M.D., et al. “Comparison of Weight-Loss Diets with Different Compositions of Fat, Protein, and Carbohydrates.” N Engl J Med 2009; 360:859-873

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0804748#t=articleResults

BOOK TWO...

TheAgingAthlete.com

"The concept for this book is provocative.  It is somehow counterintuitive to think of great athletes becoming unfit in old age. Of course the recent suit brought against the NFL by former players indicates that fitness and health can erode all too quickly.  The aging pursuers of fitness featured in 'The Aging Athlete' are the exceptions and not the rule. We can all learn from their own stories of perseverance.

Tom Jones, Author of "Sports Competition for Adults Over 40"

What can we learn from former top athletes that is especially relevant for our health and lifestyles? Even though most athletes are essentially performance minded rather than maintenance and wellness minded, it’s still a compelling revelation why 90 percent of them don’t continue a program to try and retain some of their skills and conditioning. Learning from the 10 percent who do stay fit and healthy is where we can all benefit.

The Aging Athlete chronicles the fitness and mindset of a group of retired and semi-retired athletes, of what’s worked for them over the years since they stopped competing or serving in the armed forces.

Some of the top athletes include Billy Mills — 1964 10,000m race gold medalist once considered the most famous living Native American; Ken Shamrock — former UFC heavyweight champion who was named the World’s Most Dangerous Man; Sam “Bam” Cunningham who starred in the famous 1970 Civil Rights Football Game; and Allen Winder — a blue-eyed basketball player who was called upon by Meadowlark Lemon to break the color barrier … in reverse.

WHAT READERS WILL LEARN IN THIS BOOK

1. Why?

Why all of the attention on athletics and aging athletes?

What might it be like to be the caregiver/spouse of a 28-year-old athlete who was until recently one of the most physically powerful athletes on the planet?

How old is an aging athlete? Bobby Orr was injured, and partially hobbled, at the end of his first year as a pro--age 18. His kids have never participated in competitive skating or hockey.

Why did kids used to play different sports year round, all seasons, and now often only take up one sport and train for it the entire year?

2. Why isn't wellness emphasized more for all and especially for performance oriented athletes? What are the payoffs of recreation vs. performance oriented sports?

3. Why don't we learn to coach ourselves? Why do high numbers of performance athletes (inc. ex military and ex ballet performers) stop maintaining fitness soon after leaving their performance time?

4. The importance of downtime.

5. How to pursue self-mastery.