Food-industry watchdogs: "Exercise is medicine" just a platitude designed to distance Big Soda from chronic disease.
At first blush, it seems like a harmless statement: "Exercise is medicine." Exercise, after all, is good.
"It's plainly true," said Gary Ruskin, co-founder and co-director of U.S. Right to Know, a whistleblower nonprofit targeting the food industry. "Physical and mental health indicators are improved through exercise. In general, it's a great thing."
Exercise Is Medicine (EIM)--registered trademark--as promoted by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), however, is not a great thing, Ruskin noted.
"ACSM is an organization that is somewhat aligned with Coca-Cola, so this is a part of Coca-Cola's effort to deny its responsibility for the epidemic of soda-related diseases that have plagued our country," he said.
EIM is one of the ACSM's major initiatives. The Coca-Cola Co. is the program's first founding partner, noted ACSM CEO and executive vice president Jim Whitehead in 2012.
Central to the EIM initiative is the notion of doctor-prescribed physical activity.
That is a problem, noted Greg Glassman, CrossFit Inc. Founder and CEO.
"When exercise is medicine according to Coca-Cola, then CrossFit is nothing short of medical malpractice," he told an audience on Nov. 12 at CrossFit Downey in Southern California when touring affiliates as part of the "California Invasion: Rally to Fight Big Soda."
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