Social Workout

Newslinks

right...'cause nobody actually believes marketing schemes, right?

Apparently Coca-Cola is being sued for untrue claims that Vitamin Water is a healthy beverage. The company's response? "Well, nobody ACTUALLY believes us."

New York

Newslinks

You Thought Your Two Hour Yoga Workshop Was Long?

Yesterday at 5 P.M. Canadian yoga instructor Yasmin Fudakowska-Gow, age 28, completed a 32-hour yoga marathon, thereby breaking the Guinness World Record for longest yoga session. The previous record was 29 hours 4 minutes. For Fudakowska-Gow's sake, I like to imagine an eight hour savasana built in there (aren't yoga teachers always saying that's one of the hardest poses?) but somehow I don't think the record keepers would have gone for that.

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The John Friend/New York Times Kerfuffle

Last weekend, the New York Times Magazine ran a mega-piece on John Friend, the founder of Anusara yoga. Some people thought it was glowing. Others found it off-base and needlessly negative. Now John Friend is out with a rebuttal. In his words, "I believe that there were several instances in the article in which information was twisted in order to make the article sensational and juicy." Here are a few of the points he refudiates:

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Coach's Daughter Convinces Him To Yog-ify The Team

University of Maryland's football team used to lift weights four days a week. Now it's three days of lifting plus yoga. Why the change? Head Coach Ralph Friedgen explains: "My daughter did [yoga] and I saw what it did for her." Which makes you wonder if her dad times her on drills in the living room or if she just got that noticeably strong and flexible.

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The FDA Says No To New Weight Loss Drug

Yesterday, in a 10-6 vote, the FDA's expert advisory panel voted not to approve Qnexa, a new weight loss drug. Even though 10-6 sounds like a landslide for no, many of the "no" doctors said it was a tough call. In trials, Qnexa has proven more effective than any weight loss drug currently on the market. As one trial participant testified, "I weighed 200 pounds. After 15 months on Qnexa I weighed 143, and went from a size 20 to a size 10. My brain quit nagging me about food. I immediately became a person who quit snacking and ate healthy meals." But that's the pro side. On the con side...

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24 Hour Fitness Sued for Discrimination

The Mexican American Legal Defense Fund filed a class action discrimination case against 24 Hour Fitness yesterday, alleging that the gym has consistently failed to hire minorities for management positions.

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The UK Axes Their Food Standards Agency

Remember the EU "traffic light" food labeling system? (Red for foods you shouldn't eat, green for go ahead). As a result of the fight over the labeling system, the UK's new administration is eliminating the Food Standards Agency, which is similar to the FDA. The food industry spent more than a billion dollars lobbying parliament to vote against the traffic light plan, and apparently their lobbying went even further than that — pushing for the elimination of the food regulation agency altogether. To apparent success. So I guess this means The Fitness Libertarian can breathe a sigh of relief — the good people of Britain no longer have to worry about fascist food agencies trying to get between them and their poisonous ding dongs...

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The Curves Growth Curve Reverses

Curves is having some trouble. There's the problem with Montana teenagers driving through their front windows. But that's actually kind of exciting, whereas the fact that more than 1,000 locations closed last year while only 35 opened is much more depressing, particularly for the people who invested their bucks and opened those franchise locations. In fact, in the past three years, the chain has closed about one-third of their locations, shrinking from 7,758 locations in '07 to 5,208 at the end of '09, reports the Wall Street Journal.

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Are You As Bad At Counting Calories As The Rest of America?

The International Food Information Council is out with a new survey which shows that Americans are really bad at estimating calories. Like, really bad. As in, only 12% of us can do it with any accuracy whatsoever. A few of us need to shake off our freaky knowledge of calorie counts (if you know how many calories Certs have, I'm talking to you). For the other 88% of folks, PhotoCalorie is free. Not that you need to obsessively track everything, just that maybe you should know that your Starbucks tuna melt has 390 calories and the Outback Steakhouse cheese fries have 2,900.

Newslinks

The Tanning Tax Upsets Greased Up Body Builders Nationwide

There was a time when going to the gym and tanning went hand in hand. And not just for guidos. It's not fully over — Well + Good NYC spotted a vestige of that crispier era in a Gold's Gym in midtown just a few weeks ago — but for the who-cares-about-cancer holdouts, a new law going into effect today may finally turn them off tanning. Now, all tans come with a 10% tax. Doctors hope it'll have the same chilling effect cigarette taxes do. Tanning salon owners are obviously unhappy. One tanning salon owner put it this way:

"I don't know when it was that the government was assigned in the Constitution to be my doctor. I think I should make decisions about how I exercise, what I eat, who I'm with and what activities I do. You know, before they know it, they'll start taxing people for not going to the gym."

Is it weird that I think he's onto something? A gym-goer tax break could be awesome!