Consult your Physician Fri, 15 Mar 2024 Opinion ====================== I keep occasionally running into disclaimers that profess something along these lines: > Before partaking in this exercise, please consult a physician > ... It requires both mental and physical strength ... Ensure > you are in good health ... Know your limits ... You are at > risk of personal injury ... COMPANY NAME is not liable for any > damages ... etcetera Pretty intense right? The above is paraphrased from a 142 word disclaimer at the start of an exercise video on YouTube. What exercise was the video instructing on? Was it skydiving? Free solo rock climbing? Perhaps it wasn't exercise in a traditional sense, but activities such as skin-hooking. Or maybe this was some insane strongman routine, including deadlifts, atlas stones, and other high-risk motions. The truth is much more mundane. This video described a 10 minute stretching routine designed to be performed while laying down in bed. Excuse me? This required such a scary build up? Another example: > Before making any dietary changes consult your doctor ... > Unintended side effects ... Potential miscarriage ... > Permanent health damage ... Is not liable for any damages ... > Continue at your own risk ... and so forth What warning was this for you might ask? Steroids? Super restrictive diets such as veganism or ketogentic diets? Foods aimed at diabetics? Pregnant people? No, this was a article overviewing some herbal teas, notably nettle tea. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I see these disclaimers relatively often, especially on incredibly mediocre things. Whereas extreme exercise and diets are promoted without medical backing. I feel as though these disclaimers have lost track of reality, and in this post; I will complain about them. Now, let me start with a disclaimer of my own: I understand why these walls of warning text are included in videos and articles. They simply wish to void any liabilities for damage because human stupidity knows no bounds, and because the United States legal system knows fewer bounds still. But come on... Ten minutes of stretching? Herbal tea? Meanwhile there are no health labels on sodas or super processed foods which are proven to have health aversive effects. A sedentary lifestyle is *almost* guaranteed to be more damaging than one which includes light exercise or stretching. Now, if this was just independent bloggers and small companies being overly cautious, that would be one thing, but unfortunately this all goes much deeper. I do a lot of rock climbing, mostly indoors. At all but one of the gyms I have been to throughout Europe, I needed to sign a waiver stating that the gym would not be responsible for injuries. Fair enough. In Italy however, I needed a certificate signed by a doctor that I was fit enough to exercise. When I was asked to present this certificate I was baffled at first. I was later assured by many people that this is common for nearly all gyms in Italy, both climbing gyms and otherwise. How backwards is this? ``You are not fir enough to exercise''? Meanwhile you can try your best at merging with your sofa without any form of medical assessment as to the risk you are exposing yourself to. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I feel as though this is a worrying symptom of a much wider problem which can roughly be characterized as: ``people can no longer take care of themselves''. Simple, rather mediocre decisions, such as what tea to drink, must be made for you. You should never be within two meters of a body of water without a trained professional nearby. Careful with those stretches, you might just rip off your limbs altogether. At the same time, everyone is self-medicating with actually harmful medication such as melatonin and painkillers, knowing nothing about how to actually use these drugs. When people grow sedentary and fat, that is within their freedom to do, but if you wish to live alternatively, you better ask the government official nicely first. I am reminded of Aldous Huxley's wonderful work ``A brave new world''. Where the totalitarian government aims to keep its citizens in a perpetually immature state. No one makes their own choices, and everyone drugs themselves up before any discomfort can reach them. I hope that we can change our social-, and legal- structures in such a way that we can assume that those around us are responsible human beings capable of looking after themselves. So that we can share simple things such as recipes and exercises without needing to be afraid that someone manages to drown themselves in the soup we instructed them to make, or get horribly injured by following our closed-eye meditation instructions while driving. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the direction we are heading in... so in that light: ========================== DISCLAIMER ========================== I am not a lawyer, I am not a doctor, I am not a politician. This is not legal/medical/social advice. In the worst case scenario, my writings may even induce some semblance of independent thought which has been shown to lead to: - Social extrication - Political radicalization - Migraines - Death - An aversion to pine cones - A substantial drop in birth-rates - Self-harm - General life improvement and/or psychosis I am not to be held accountable for these -- or any other -- effects my writings inspire. ================================================================