Joe American, 35 years old, wakes up one morning stretching and moaning, belching and farting. He firmly places both his hands on the bathroom sink for support and stares into the mirror. Just prior to smearing shaving cream all over his face, he pushes himself away from the sink so as to expose more of himself in the mirror. He says to himself, “Man, am I fat!” Upon drawing this conclusion he decides to watch his diet closer and maybe start walking twice around the block every day. This is probably the extent of his current physical ability. This lasts for all of about two days because of a trip Joe makes to the local shopping mall. Upon arriving at the mall, Joe looks around and sees that he fits in just fine! He sees that almost everyone is in as bad or even worse shape than he’s in! Joe finds comfort in this realization and goes back to his old eating habits and sedentary lifestyle. Until one morning, Joe views himself in the mirror, in even worse shape than before, and the same thing happens again! The cycle of truth that keeps America fat.
The only thing coming from the government on the issue of health is medical insurance and news on ever-rising health care costs! Little to NOTHING about prevention through fitness education. A nationwide effort on the part of our government to educate the masses could impact the health care issue significantly.
Through education there would be healthier Americans resulting in fewer illnesses of all kinds. Fewer medical needs would result in reduced health care costs! There must be a lot more money to be made in treating otherwise controllable health problems than there is in preventing them.
How many regular television programs are there that teach America about health and fitness? How many syndicated columns appear regularly in any newspaper that are geared to teaching health and fitness to all America? Instead, bogus fitness products that never quite seem to live up to their claims. Americans are desperate, which is why these mostly worthless devices sell!
It is up to us as personal fitness trainers to educate people on how to keep themselves fit. I honestly don’t see a lot of other options for hope, using encouragement and accountability, for the ever-growing number of overweight Americans. All I see are people trying to make money from other people’s misery.
I encourage all of my fellow NFPT trainers to work hard and carry the torch of education. I challenge all of you to work as hard as you can in your businesses. Reach as many people as you can. Motivate and, most importantly, educate your clients. You may very well be their only hope. Don’t let them down. With an organization like NFPT behind me, I can’t fail and neither should you!
_____________________________________________
Ron Clark is the Founder of National Federation of Professional Trainers, NFPT. From U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant to Competitive BodyBuilder, then Firefighter and Certified Personal Trainer - he founded NFPT in 1988 with a mission to make fitness training careers accessible to every day fitness enthusiasts who want to turn their passion into their livelihood. Ron has always led with a heart of service, and, in that spirit, he helps people to achieve real and practical career goals that serve a greater good in changing people's lives. He lives and leads by example, being a personal trainer himself for more than 10 years before setting out to develop a certification program that is real-world and foundational to the goals of personal trainers and their clients. Click Here to learn more about Ron's story and NFPT's inception.
