Do you think you’d be healthier if you were rich?
I know, it’s random. But I’ve actually given this question some thought. I suppose there are many things that we think we might do better if we had the money, but I’ll try to stay within my ballywick here and just talk about health and fitness.
I have this dream house built in my mind. It’s bright and airy, has a nice kitchen and big bathrooms. But most of these other details are fuzzy and unimportant, because the best part of the house is the home gym.
You guys. This gym is beautiful. There’s a power rack in one corner with an assorted line-up of barbells. Next to this is a wonderful rainbow of a weight stack, complete with both bumper and iron plates. I have an Astroturf field, a whole wall of just dumbbells and kettlebells, a cable machine, and every little piece of functional gym accessory a girl could want. Oh and while we’re at it, I also have an indoor/outdoor pool, an infrared sauna and a hot tub. Whew, it’s gorgeous.
I’m salivating just typing this. Do you know how freakin’ fit I’d be with this gym (I think)? I’d be in there for hours at a time. This is assuming I wouldn’t need to work a regular 9-5 job, so I could afford to work out whenever I wanted to my heart’s content. I would live in that gym.
I won’t get into the cost/benefit analysis of actually working out all day (high likelihood for someone like me to overtrain and get injured fairly quickly), but I am convinced that I’d be fitter. The convenience factor alone would be a game-changer.
That’s fitness. What about health?
If I had the money, I’d probably hire a nutritionist to run tests and design an “optimal” diet tailored to my unique body and activity level. Then I’d get a chef to prepare it for me, using only the freshest and cleanest ingredients available.
I would buy all the cool gadgets that my man Ben Greenfield recommends, like the ChiliPad (only $1,000!) and an EarthPulse (pulsed electromagnetic therapy device) to hack your sleep, a heart rate variability tracker and other body quantifying devices, and rapid recovery gadgets like Normatec recovery boots. I’d live in the best climate with the cleanest air, close to oceans and mountains and Amazon Prime (so I can order said cool gadgets and healthy supplements).
So that’s me and my nerdy, weird little dreams pretty much in a nutshell. Win the lottery, buy a home gym and requisite related equipment. Get super fit and healthy. Live happily ever after.
What’s the point of all this, though? A person can daydream, but should money really be a factor in how healthy we actually are?
Socio-economically speaking, this brings up some interesting theories. Numerous studies have suggested that lower income can be linked to increased risk of obesity and other chronic diseases, as well as poor sleep patterns (also linked to development of health issues). It’s not so simple, though. Read this fascinating paper called Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Behaviors that examines the possible explanations for why low-income status groups more often act in ways that harm their health than high-income status groups. Some of these include factors like education, social support, class distinctions and perceived stress. To simplify – the aspects that make up your life in general have an impact on your health.
Okay…duh.
What are we to do with this?
For me, someone who is in the financially-secure-but-can’t-afford-a-private-chef category, knowledge is money where money might be lacking. I recently learned the importance of just walking, for example. If you think of working out as a set time where you’re in the gym and that’s it, you may be missing out or even negating that workout by deciding to sit on your behind the rest of the day. Taking a walk is, generally speaking, free and accessible almost anywhere. This is part of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT), which is basically every movement we make that isn’t sleeping, eating or working out. My typing this blog post counts as NEAT, for example. Cumulatively, you’re burning more calories through NEAT than anything else. Don’t discount it and its impact on your overall fitness. Add in an hour or two of resistance training a week and boom…you’re already there to being more fit than the average American. Go one extra step and get a stand-up desk at work, and you’re like, crazy fit.
Diet is also where knowledge is important. Calorie restriction can work in the short-term for a goal of weight loss, for example, but it’s more about the quality of the food you’re eating for your overall health. Our bodies are endlessly adaptable, even to severe caloric deficit. Which means at some point, your body will no longer respond differently to the way you eat, or worse, will respond in a way that isn’t what you intended (wacky hormonal responses, poor sleep, even weight gain). In the long term, don’t focus on the numbers – look at your choices. Not everyone can afford or even care to buy all organic produce, but if you replace the processed stuff with whole foods, you’re getting more nutrient density for your dollar.
The general population, of course, understands these concepts, whether you’re rich or somewhere below that. Move more, eat healthier – maybe it’s not always matter of wealth, then. So why don’t we do it?
Cop-opt answer is that I don’t know. I want to be fit and healthy, so I try hard most days to reach that goal. I know plenty of others who could care less, or at least place fitness and health at a much lower priority. Would those people be healthier if they were richer? Some, maybe – but certainly not all.
The truth is, I could be healthier than I am, without more money. In the case of eating out, maybe even less money. I could be walking instead of driving, sleeping instead of watching TV, even working on mobility instead of lifting. What does this really tell me? It comes down to choices. No one says I have to do all these things, and certainly not all the time. No one says I need more money to strive for self-improvement, either.
Maybe we can think of it like Virgil the poet did: "The greatest wealth is health."
I still want that home gym though.