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Predictions on Personal Fitness Trends for 2009

The economic collapse will have a profound impact on every aspect of our lives in 2009, including personal fitness. It's safe to say that there will more emphasis on bottom lines and less on waist lines.

While many of us will hold on to that gym membership card until they pry our dead fingers off it, lower discretionary income will affect facilities. This will be a very tough time to be a personal trainer or own a workout facility.

In spite of the doom and gloom, most fitness industry experts predict that the boom of "boot camps" will continue. This is further evidence that many fitness fanatics are also masochists.

Video Games Go Mainstream

Dude! Your mom's hogging the Playstation...again.

If you've been watching entertainment trends, you just knew this was going to happen. According to "Packaged Facts," an independent marketing research company, more than half of the U.S. adult video gaming population is made up of mom's, dad's and even grandparents.

Besides shooting a big, virtual hole in the theory that most computer gamers are skinny, pale boys with black fingernail polish, this new data suggests that video games are quickly overtaking all other forms of media. This phenomenon will have big implications for computer gaming and the entertainment industry in general.

You Want Fries With That?

Here's a hot news flash. Eating a lot of fast food will make you fat.

"Ah, but wait!" the more libertarian among us shout. If you eat a lot of ANYTHING and get no exercise, you will also lose the battle of the bulge. Of course this is true.

However, is there any scientific correlation between the consumption fast food and the health of kids? It turns out there is, and it is outlined in the December 2008 edition of "American Journal of Public Health."

Food for Thought

The cultural implications of food consumption have turned ugly. This is the result of several million unhealthy kids who have the misfortune of living in poor neighborhoods.

Even without the benefit of a graduate degree in nutrition, most of us would agree that fresh food is better for us than processed food. Unfortunately, fresh food is also more expensive than processed food. This reality is one of the root causes of an epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States.

A recent policy brief released by the Center for Health Policy Research at UCLA suggested that teenagers from low-income households are three times more likely to be obese than teens from higher-income families. Low-income households are defined as a family of four earning less than $20,000 a year or a family of two earning less than $13,000 a year.