A couple weeks ago, I sent out an article about fixing osteoarthritis that was based on a customer asking me about the topic.
In case you missed it, you can find it on the blog here.
Overall, there was great feedback on it.
But I also got one guy that had BIG problems with it.
I share his comments here, and my responses, because it shows some of the typical beliefs around health, and how I think differently.
“Firstly being a young personal trainer without a medical degree, you have massive credibility problems addressing medical issues such as osteoarthritis on your email lists. It’s like when 18 year girls try to sell weight loss products, because they haven’t had any life experience to understand the issues surrounding weight loss and the standard response is wait until you’ve had three kids.”
First off, thinking that a medical degree is the only way to know about health is incorrect.
This abdication of any responsibility to medical professionals in regards to health is a large part of the problem many people are facing today.
Besides, the fact that you don’t know about my health background, thinking I’m just a young personal trainer, doesn’t mean you are correct about it.
“Further your advice is the standard condescending alternative medicine formula – diet, vitamins, and exercise, which since you are familiar with NLP all implicitly blame the person for their condition. This is understandable given that alternative health practitioners don’t have medical degrees and don’t understand the complexities that underlie disease so it’s natural to blame the person or the devil or candida or whatever.”
It is not condescending. It is not blaming. Instead, it is empowering.
What is better? A doctor that tells you there is nothing you can do about it, or the only thing that can help you is drugs. That’s the conventional medical formula. Is it better to blame genetics or old age, to say that you can’t do anything about it?
I choose to look at things as being correctable, which is an empowering mindset.
Once again, thinking that only those with medical degrees can understand complex things like health is simply incorrect. THAT is condescending. I’m not saying there are not bad or ignorant alternative health practitioners, there are. But the same could be said of doctors. Just look at the statistics at how many people doctors kill even with properly prescribed medication.
“Finally it’s rather emotionally jarring to read medical advice from a fitness blog and I’d much prefer to read about strength and fitness. I don’t see any connection between strength and fitness and arthritis. I could see maybe if you were doing health and wellness, but your website doesn’t indicate this, it’s a fitness blog.”
Have you not noticed the whole section on my website devoted to health mastery?
Have you not seen my all my other work on health at Lost Empire Herbs. Once again, your ignorance of what I do is not my fault.
Health and fitness are intimately related.
How do you not see any connection between fitness and arthritis? Even among conventional medical practitioners, various movements absolutely play a role in arthritis.
“Also how many of your clients have arthritis, I wouldn’t suspect many at all?”
Currently, I only work with a few coaching clients. In that way, none of them have arthritis. But if you’re talking about the thousands of people that read my emails and blogs, then undoubtedly it would be lots.
The fact is that this whole article came about because I was asked about the question (meaning he valued my opinion on the topic despite my lack of medical degrees) by one of these readers and a customer.
The conversation continued and I may share some of that later.
The main takeaway points I’d like to reiterate here are:
- You are responsible for your own health. You can’t leave it up to doctors. You can’t leave it up to alternative practitioners either. While others can help, ultimately, it is up to you.
- There are very few things that are completely irreversible. You can do something about it, and hopefully that empowers you to take action.
- If you want to be strong and fit, it starts with a foundation of health. While you can be fit without being healthy when you’re young, as you grow older these things become much more intimately tied together.
That’s why I’ve written about health before, and why I will continue too. If you’d like to go deeper, you can check out the Upgrade Your Health Series.