Group Exercise and Cellphone Holsters...guess which one I don't like so much

I was forced to exercise indoors this morning along with 250 other people, most of whom are public health professionals who have decided that it’s time to take action against obesity. It was early in the morning in a windowless bunker of a ballroom in a Marriott. And it was called, “Instant Recess,” which is a program from the Professional Athletes Council, featuring Allen Rossum of the Atlanta Falcons demonstrating exercise steps and marching in place to get the heart rate up. I admit that it raised my energy level and made the next session much more gripping.

For my job I get to frequent health conferences—3-4 day marathons of best practice models, power point presentations, and plenary sessions where people talk a lot about leadership and behavior trends. Every major presentation includes a minimum of two New Yorker cartoons for laughs. Most of the time when people go to conferences they go with colleagues or get to meet up with people who do similar work in other cities. I’m always sent to conferences where I know no one and end up locked up in my hotel room dreading the “networking opportunities” which always end up feeling like middle school dances.

This latest conference has been one of the best ones by far. The hosts have really wholesome senses of humor, which are critical when things get started at 7am. I came down for a meeting this morning and the organizers were finishing up their staff meeting that had started at 6am. But really, these conferences are a gift where I get sent off to distant states and let out my unbridled geekness. People gather round to hear me make a fool out of myself whenever I get back to the office. I send out these long winded emails about how I think we should devote resources to a new initiative that will solve all of these problems but is completely outlandish. For the past two conferences, I’ve come back freaking out about the obesity epidemic. My general panic is this: little kids are developing Type 2 diabetes, which only a few decades ago, was only seen in adults. Tweens are something like 3 or 4 times bigger than they used to be just a few decades ago. This latest generation of kids is the first one in recorded history that is probably not going to live as long as their parents. And get this: a lot of the drugs aren’t being tested on larger people—including hormonal contraceptives. And there’s preliminary data to suggest that they don't work as well if you're on the seriously obese side of things. But the main part of the problem that makes me so depressed is that there's no infrastructure or support to help people lead healthier lives and maybe not get so big.

I always like to go on walks when I go to conferences, but this one is in a “tech park,” which is basically code for concrete wasteland with no grass or crosswalks. If I lived here, it would be hard for me to get motivated to go outside and walk around. I seriously thought I would get hit by a car many times because there was no way for me to cross the 11 lane highway. No crosswalks, but lots of khakis and polo shirts with the ever-present, and perhaps requisite, belt attachment for phone and blackberry. I issue a penalty on all people who use those. I tried to have a conversation yesterday with someone whose blackberry was buzzing in the holster every few minutes. I couldn’t concentrate enough to form a coherent sentence. Today I’ve been working in my hotel room and running outside every few hours to consort with the displaced bunny rabbits that look terribly confused in the parking lot and the bees, that, I guess have all come to the “tech park”—they weren’t disappearing after all or suffering from extreme immune system breakdown because of pesticides.