Health and Fitness are poorly defined terms and can only really make sense when you apply your own personal definition. With that said there are general definitions that most people will accept as having at least something to do with both health and fitness.
Health seems to have something to do with reducing risk of premature death and disease, namely having favorable blood markers for disease such as total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, HDL/LDL ratio, Triglycerides, glucose, insulin, blood pressure and heart rate.
Beyond that, reduced stress and how you feel in general are probably the most important indicators of health.
Fitness on the other hand seems to refer to movement and capacity to be active.
So far there isn’t one measurement that indicates health AND fitness, until now.
I think the Adonis Index ratio might the one measurement that indicates both health and fitness.
In recent years height to waist ratio has gained favor over BMI as a better indicator of health and disease risk for lifestyle disorders such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes.
But height to waist ratio doesn’t say much about fitness. I think the addition of the shoulder measurement and thus the Adonis Index ratio is a more complete measurement of both health and fitness.
Having and healthy and fit body is synonymous with having a body that other people will admire.
In todays podcast we discuss:
1. What health means and how we measure it
2. What fitness means and how we measure it
3. What the look of a healthy body is
4. BMI vs Height to Waist Ratio vs Adonis Index Ratio as markers of health and fitness
5. A personal health perspective vs a global health perspective
6. What to do when you’ve made a big time change in your health and fitness
John
p.s. Here is the awesome thread in the forum that we talk about in the podcast (there are multiple pages, click through to the 2nd or 3rd page for the cool before and after’s).
p.p.s. (Brad edit) Something’s up with the comments, I’ll get them fixed today hopefully)
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About Allen Elliott