Keep Fitness Legal

In 2015, Anahad O’Connor at the New York Times exposed Coca-Cola’s Global Energy Balance Network, a propaganda effort that used Coke-funded scientists to deny the link between nutrition and obesity. In the wake of that public relations disaster, Coca-Cola promised to be more transparent about the money it sends scientists to “health and well-being scientific research or partnerships.” But Coca-Cola has not kept that promise. Coca-Cola’s “Transparency” website alleges, “in early 2016, we continue to disclose, at six month intervals, […]

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Editor’s Note: We’re pleased to present this guest post by Jason Cooper, RN, co-owner of CrossFit Enoch. Republicans and Democrats alike talk about saving us. They talk about providing “affordable health care.” Recently, President Trump stated, “Obamacare has broken our health-care system. It’s broken. It’s collapsing.” Shortly afterwards, Republicans drafted their grand plan of salvation, The American Health Care Act.  And it wasn’t long ago we heard President Obama proclaim, “If you like your doctor, you will be able to […]

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Last week we examined Malaysia’s Type 2 diabetes epidemic and how the junk food industry has captured the nation’s nutritional and public health institutions. As in China, South Africa, and the United States, the junk food industry appears to have influenced Malaysia’s government through a malignant non-profit called the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). Malaysian public health official Dr. Tee Siong has also served as ILSI Southeast Asia’s science director for over 20 years. Siong has leveraged his industry and […]

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17.5 percent of adult Malaysians suffer from diabetes. That rate vastly exceeds the U.S.’s 11.5 percent diabetes prevalence. And Malaysia’s diabetes rate has more than doubled since 1996. How did diabetes in Malaysia become such an epidemic? It may help to start by asking what Malaysia has in common with other countries with runaway diabetes problems. Like the cases of China, South Africa and the United States, Malaysia’s public health has been heavily influenced by food and beverage interests. This […]

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Rapidly increasing numbers of Army recruits have failed to meet entry-level fitness standards. This trend occurred even as fewer and fewer Americans met the standards required to become recruits. Last October, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Malcolm Frost warned, “the next existential threat that we have, maybe a generation down the line is … the inability to provide qualified people, volunteers to serve in our military.” Maj. Gen. Frost had good reason for concern: “71 percent of Americans aged 17 to […]

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Much has transpired in the conflict between Tim Noakes and South Africa’s nutrition establishment since we first covered it in January 2017. If you’re new to the Noakes case, we recommend reading that article for the early history. The short version is that Noakes tweeted in favor of low-carbohydrate diets, and South Africa’s nutrition establishment reported him to the nation’s medical professional council for unprofessional conduct. This complaint forced Noakes to defend his statement throughout 18 months of legal inquiry. […]

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A new complaint alleges that the American Council on Exercise (ACE) “rolled over” its NCCA accreditation from an old certification to a new one. Certifying companies simply are not allowed to do that. If true, this means ACE advertised a new certification as NCCA-accredited without actually bothering to get it accredited. This sounds esoteric, we admit. Yet it has vast implications for the fitness industry. ACE lobbied for licensure laws that required National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) accreditation. (If […]

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Last week three U.S. Army generals called attention to the “next existential threat” facing the United States. No, it’s not global warming, ISIS, or North Korea. The next existential threat facing the United States is the inability to recruit enough able-bodied volunteers to fight a war. The Heritage Foundation hosted the talk, entitled “A Looming National Security Crisis: Young Americans Unable to Join the Military.” You can watch the full video above, but the briefing alone is alarming: “The U.S. […]

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Part of the science publishing community seems to have developed a casual relationship with fraud and false information. Take the case of Orthopedic Reviews, an online-only, peer-reviewed journal. Orthopedic Reviews has refused to correct or retract a false paper it published on CrossFit trainers last year. We contacted their editorial board by email and through certified mail. Our letter informed them of the many problems with their study. They did not respond. The false Orthopedic Reviews paper is “CrossFit® Instructor […]

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The opioid epidemic has received a lot of media and political attention recently, much more than food-related diseases such as diabetes. Axios recently reported that “U.S. life expectancy was steadily rising since 1970 but stopped in 2014, mostly because of drug-related deaths.” They based this on a new CDC letter in JAMA. Similarly, the Washington Post alleged last year that the “Drug crisis is pushing up death rates for almost all groups of Americans.” The media’s focus on opioid deaths […]

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UC San Francisco Professor and pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Robert Lustig is best known for taking on sugar and fructose. Dr. Lustig’s new book takes on a deeper topic: the distinction between pleasure and happiness. “The Hacking of the American Mind” tells how corporate interests “hacked” our brains and conflated pleasure with happiness. Coca-Cola’s “Open Happiness” campaign is the most recent example. Can any amount of sugar make someone genuinely happy? Pleasure is a short-term feeling that leaves you wanting more; happiness […]

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Below is our comment on the Medicare expansion of the Diabetes Prevention Program. It is also published in the US federal government’s website here. September 8, 2017   Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases kill nearly 1.9 million Americans yearly[i]. Each one of those deaths is a preventable tragedy, resulting largely from repeated lifestyle decisions imbedded in a culture corrupted by the soda and junk food industries. The chronic disease epidemic is both the simplest and most pressing health problem […]

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Amazon, the Clinton Foundation, and the American Heart Association have partnered to sell high-sugar food to children. And they’re marketing this junk food as if it’s healthy. The Amazon-Clinton-AHA initiative is called the Healthier Generation Store. It introduces itself as “your one stop shop for Healthier Generation-vetted Smart Snacks and products for students in and out of school.” The Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s website says its “products…comply with the USDA’s Smart Snacks in School nutrition standards and the National […]

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Nutrition has become one of the internet’s most controversial topics, up there with race, gender and kipping pull-ups. Recently, the pro-vegan Netflix documentary called “What the Health” has denied that sugar causes Type 2 diabetes, drawing criticism even from vegans such as dietitian Andy Bellatti (Bellatti’s work on corporate influence in nutrition is essential reading). Meanwhile, The Lancet recently published a series of papers that questioned the basis of 40-years’ worth of dietary guidelines. The Lancet series found that carbohydrate intake, […]

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Editor’s Note: We are pleased to present this guest post by Vik Khanna. If the fitness industry in America were a single commercial product, there’s a very good chance it would get hammered by the Federal Trade Commission and state consumer protection departments as something sold to the general public under false pretenses, that is, as a fraud. Specifically, the FTC Act and state consumer protection laws require that companies not engage in false and deceptive trade practices when selling […]

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