ADV ANCING THE FITNESS INDUSTRY INTO THE FRONT LINE OF PRIMARTY HEALTH CARE
A few weeks ago the Commonwealth Government announced a Health Department budget of $60,000,000,000 confirming the greatest level of protection for any one industry in the history of the country. A lot of this money has been wasted at the expense of a bloated, expensive and increasingly ineffective medical industry.
The medical industry has salted away hundreds of billions of dollars over the last 35 years and what have we got for it? A community that is becoming unfitter and unhealthier by the week.
We are currently faced with three great personally-generated body system dysfunctions
- metabolic
- musculo-skeletal and
- psychological.
The root cause of metabolic dysfunction is a lack of aerobic fitness activity. Rarely is aerobic fitness measured by a GP. They'll measure everything but; blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose ..., but not the underlying cause of the problem.
Rarely will a GP prescribe aerobic activity in a dosage likely to make an impact on the condition. The best they can do is send their unfit and unhealthy clients to the chemist. Rarely will a GP measure how strong and flexible a person is when they present with musculo-skeletal dysfunction. Rarely will they be able to work out the underlying cause of the dysfunction.
Rarely, if ever will they prescribe a strength and flexibility routine to get the body back in alignment. Instead they send their clients to the chemist or the manipulator.
This is the second reason why fitness practitioners need to elbow their way to the front line of primary health care and the Government provide them with the sorts of inducements that encourage people to go to them.
Aerobic fitness also plays a role in psychological dysfunction, where a year's supply of regular vigorous activity trumps a year's supply of Prozac. This is just another reason why the fitness practitioner should be included in the depression case mix.
The medical industry model has had 35 years to prove itself. It's come up wanting. It's become part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The great tragedy of this budget is that the role of the fitness industry in the development and maintenance of high level wellness has, once again been ignored.
