What To Do About American and Childhood Obesity

Ogie Shaw is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with B.A. degrees in both Speech and Physical Education. He has given over 4,000 talks on Fitness Motivation. He is Executive Director of Community Fitness Leaders, which is a training program for health and fitness professionals, and he is President of Ogie Shaw Fitness in Beaverton, Oregon.

Childhood Obesity is epidemic. "Adult on-set" diabetes is being found in kids as young as four years of age. At least a dozen countries have citizens that live longer than we do in spite of the fact that we spend more money on health care than anyone in the world.

Here is what Americans think about fitness:

• We are confused about fitness and nutrition. Experts disagree constantly. The media makes a living by entertaining us with the controversy and disagreements in fitness and nutrition. Which expert do you believe?
• We don't have time. This is the number one fitness objection in the country yet fitness leaders have been trained to ignore it. Time is a legitimate objection and must be resolved.
• We don't know how to stay motivated to exercise. "Make exercise fun!," has been the main solution promoted by mainstream fitness. So now 70 percent of our heart attacks are being experienced by unfit Americans engaging in sporadic weekend bouts of "fun" exercise