How can fitness and health junkies fight climate change?
Climate change is the problem of our time and of our generations. Each year, more and more people in the United States and worldwide are waking up to the reality of the climate crisis.
When I first started to get involved, I did so with dread. After all, reading the latest climate science like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as snazzy and smooth as their new design is, is pretty damn depressing.
But then I started reading about solutions. And the more I have, the more excited I’ve become to think about climate solutions and all of the numerous roles each and every one of us can play in it.
While this is a broader discussion, optimism and excitement have ultimately pushed me forward.
(For a lot of that excitement, I have to thank my and Jonathan’s alma mater, New York University, where I took many classes that focused on sustainability.)
On one hand it’s daunting that in order to move towards a cleaner, safer planet that’s better for everyone, we have A LOT of work to do in a lot of different areas. But it also means that we can integrate climate solutions with what we’re already good at and interested in.
The truth is, you can leverage your existing interests and expertise to support climate solutions.
You don’t have to go volunteer to help people compost or recycle (although you can if that’s your jam.)
In fact, you will help the movement more if you focus on areas where you’re uniquely suited to help.
This includes the health and fitness industry
When I was 18, just days after graduating high school, I started working as a personal trainer. Health and fitness has been a huge part of my life. It’s where I have most of my connections, much of my expertise (along with writing, which is why this is a great climate x writing x fitness colab), and where I can start to spread the word about climate solutions.
Ultimately, it’s where I can have the most impact, at least for right now.
With this in mind, if health and fitness is something you’re either good at (like a personal trainer, nutritionist, athlete, or more), then here are a few areas where we can leverage our fitness and health expertise to move our quest forward towards a cleaner planet.
Climate Change Solutions for Health and Fitness Junkies
These are solutions that are healthy for the person and healthy for the planet.
If none of these strike a chord with you, then think of it like an initial brainstorm. Use these ideas as jumping off points to think about other solutions that fit within your venn diagram.
1) Encourage People to Bike Instead of Drive
Electric vehicles are great, and will get better and better as we move our electric grids further away from fossil fuels.
You know what’s better than that? Not using the car at all. Now, there are lots of logistical and infrastructure components to getting cars off the road.
But fitness undoubtedly plays a role in this. More fit people are much more likely to take a bike to work, or around town.
For example, I have logged almost 1000 Citi Bike miles throughout New York City, and I never call Ubers if I’m alone. I will literally always Citi bike instead.
This provides a bit of a chicken/egg situation. In order to bike more, people need to be more fit, but biking can also help them be more fit.
If you’re a fitness enthusiast yourself, and are in a position to trade your car for your bike on your commute, then you’ll be reaping more health benefits while reducing your carbon footprint.
As a personal trainer or fitness coach, you can explain to the people you work with all of the health benefits, such as N.E.A.T, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
You can also look at biking to work from a simple cost perspective. A bike is a fraction of the cost of a car or Uber ride, and the kale and potatoes to power your bike ride is a fraction of the price of gas.
The Sticking Point for Many Is Fitness
Remember that what keeps a lot of people from this is simply that they don’t have the fitness or confidence to do so. That’s where we can come in. Whether for ourselves or others, we can lead one component in replacing cars on the roads with human-powered bikes.
2) Promote The Outdoors
Research has shown that people who grow up with early-life outdoor experiences tend to have stronger attitudes about the environment and climate change.
Unsurprisingly, people who were raised appreciating nature, want to save it more. For those who love the outdoors, climate change is much more likely to become about much more than people, as they’re more likely to care for the mind blowing and diverse wildlife this world has to offer.
After all, since oceans absorb the bulk of the heat, the consequences of climate change are much more evident in our waters already.
As fitness coaches or health enthusiasts then, anything we can do to encourage people to spend more time outside is a win.
Luckily, to approach this, we can also talk about all of the countless health benefits the outdoors has for us. From the sun, to fresh air, to the ways the outdoors literally calms our nervous system, this is another example where what’s good for us is also good for our planet.
Ideally, you can promote ways to make the outdoors a regular part of their life, which may require coaching on how to build sustainable habits.
This isn’t just reserved for those in rural areas, either. New York City is filled with a vibrant and lively ecosystem that will astonish you if you begin to look. In fact, that’s partially what made it so perfect for a city.
For example, Governors Island is a 10 minute ferry ride from Seaport, right next to the Staten Island Ferry, and is teeming with exciting nature.
Not to mention, New York is one of the world’s great harbors which, as we’ll talk about later, was once home to world-class seafood.
3) Encourage a Transition Away From Beef
What’s our beef with beef? Well, I don’t need to add to the long list of people who’ve talked about the damage that massive cow farms have on our environment.
While plant-based diets have shown better health outcomes in many respects, there are still a lot of reasons why people we work with may be resistant to reducing beef intake. One is the protein content. This requires an education around the various ways to get protein. And, chicken is still a great source of protein that has a much smaller carbon blueprint.
Another challenge is where to get iron from, especially for women. So if you’re coaching a woman and they reduce beef intake, you should encourage them to get their iron levels checked. This way, you can see if iron supplementation is effective, and provide a protocol to keep iron levels high.
Selling Longevity Science
People who eat less animal protein live longer. This is a fact. A lot of the research is already bearing this out, but it’s becoming clear in the context of longevity science. That’s partly because high leucine content (which is abundant in beef), activates the mTOR pathway, which has been linked to shortened lifespans.
So that’s another angle that you can use to convince even people who don’t care at all about the climate to reduce the amount of beef they consume.
Again this is an intersection that’s good for the person and the planet is where health and climate intersect.
4) Encourage Healthy Foods That Can Improve The Environment
While at NYU, I took a sustainability class that took place on Governors Island, home of the Billion Oyster Project.
As is covered in a book that should be required reading to sign a lease in New York City, The Big Oyster: The History of The Half Shell by Mark Kurlansky, New York used to be world-famous for its big, delicious oysters.
Oysters lived in abundance all around the harbor. Then, because we changed the harbor for the worse, the oysters almost died out, and the ones that survive, we wouldn’t dare eat today.
But why are oysters so important? First of all, they suck carbon out of and clean water. They’re like trees in the harbor. More oysters means a cleaner New York harbor.
Second, as is covered in this excellent New Yorker piece on oysters, oysters can act as a kind of natural sea wall, protecting New York in the case of a serious storm.
These are storms which will become more likely and more severe over the coming years, because of climate change.
The Billion Oyster Project has the mission to put over a billion oysters back into the New Yorker harbor.
Fortunately, oysters are also super healthy.
A higher demand for these oysters, in theory, can push us to create more oyster farms, which means more carbon-sucking, water-cleaning, city-protecting mollusks floating around in our oceans.
The same goes for what’s called kelp or algae farming.
Kelp or Algae Farming
Kelp, like the oyster, is incredibly beneficial for the aquatic ecosystem, as another carbon super-sucker.
Right now, there has been a push to create more kelp farms in places like the Long Island sound, but the limiting factor is demand.
It’s not economically feasible at scale unless the kelp farmers can sell the kelp at a profit.
Fortunately, kelp, like seaweed, is also super healthy. One of our challenges then is to make kelp more popular. If you’re in the health and fitness industry on a deeper level, there’s a big opportunity to tap into the health benefits of kelp for the creation of new products.
Basically, if #eatmorekelp can become the new #eatmorekale, then we’ll have an economically sustainable, scalable process to reduce carbon in the oceans.
Tell all of your vegan influencer friends. Or maybe become a vegan influencer yourself and start spreading the word.[1]
For more on kelp farming, I highly recommend the two-part episode on How to Save a Planet.
This Is Only the Surface
Without a doubt, there are more and more ways exercise, nutrition, health, and fitness intersect with climate change and saving the planet.
And that’s why I want the big takeaway from this to be one of optimism. Being a part of climate solutions isn’t just about recycling or “doing our part” or other small individual actions. We as individuals can have big ripples when we leverage areas where we have expertise.
That’s what’s going to save the planet.
Check out some of our other articles on climate change and sustainability:
And here’s an interview with the founder of L’Aquila Active on the impact our website aims to make regarding climate change.
David William Rosales, Guest Contributor at L’Aquila Active
Learn more about David by reading his bio below.
Click on link below to meet L’Aquila Active’s entire team of experts, including university degrees, certifications, and credentials on yoga and meditation: