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History has taught us that when a business concept exhibits the potential for growth, industries grow like a virus to exploit the opportunity. The health and fitness industry has evolved from muscle-bound bodybuilders, steel barbells, medicine balls and once-a-day vitamins into a multi-billion dollar money machine. Health and fitness professionals have transformed from toe touching aerobic instructors into highly trained sales and marketing snipers; and your cash is their target.

Consider that heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S., claiming approximately 700,000 lives each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control, this represents 29 percent of all deaths. Now consider that two of the main risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease are high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Although both conditions can be mitigated largely with improved eating habits, physical activity and other lifestyle changes, millions of people are diagnosed with these two diseases every year. They are given prescription drugs instead of taking preventive measures.

The 2007 estimates of direct and indirect costs associated with cardiovascular disease are $431.8 billion and $66.4 billion for high blood pressure. Drugs designed to reduce cholesterol and triglycerides are the top therapeutic class of drugs with $32.3 billion in sales.

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has an interesting way of dealing with our modern-day health crisis. It labels as many conditions as possible as a "disease." This is important to know because according to the FDA, only a drug can "diagnose, mitigate, cure, prevent or treat a disease." It is interesting that even obesity is now categorized as a disease.

The truth is that obesity is not a disease at all. We didn't catch obesity; we developed it bite by bite, pound by pound. Big Pharma wants you to believe the mantra of "Better living through chemistry." I'm not buying it and neither should you. Yes, there are drugs that are important and many that save lives (especially in emergency situations), but the truth is that we have become a nation of prescription addicts who look to drugs as the first line of defense for whatever ails us. The solution we find is in the cure-all prescription pads that provide us with toxic, synthetic chemicals that only trick the body and treat the symptoms, while the true cause of our failing health is left to fester.

When was the last time you walked out of your doctor's office without that little piece of white paper? How quickly did you drop it off at your local drugstore? Unfortunately, the problem with our failing health is not one-dimensional.

Beyond the obvious lack of preventive measures to fend off deadly, life-threatening diseases, there are many forms of addiction that contribute to unhealthy lifestyles and lead us down the path toward poor health. Many of these addictions go unrecognized or fly under the radar of conventional thinking. Consider that the number one reason people do not exercise regularly is that they can't find the time. Yet the average American watches more than four hours of television per day. Not many people would consider watching TV as an addiction, but with one click of the remote, we enjoy instant escape from all the work we want so much to put out of our minds.

Then there are those who like to unwind at the end of each day with a few drinks. No one is trying to bring back prohibition, but could you give up your happy hour for a month? Do the math. An average alcoholic drink has about 125 calories. That means just two drinks per day equals more than 7,000 calories per month. It only takes 3,500 excess calories to pack on one pound of fat, not to mention the fact that when consuming a few drinks before a meal you are eating under the influence. It's always easier to say yes to seconds or that chocolate mousse with a little help from an increased blood alcohol level.

It's the little addictions like these that sneak up on us. Okay, so you can't live without the brew. Instead you decide to at least cut back on those dreaded calories by purchasing low-calorie, sugar-free, fat-free packaged foods to make sure you don't get fat. But just as these products have increased in mainstream America over the past few decades, so too have our waistlines. We have been tricked into thinking that we can eat more and weigh less. It doesn't work that way. If you want to weigh less, you have to eat less and move more. Weight gain or loss is a simple formula of calories consumed versus calories burned.

Another huge issue that affects our health is toxic exposure. There are many forms of toxicity. Most people don't recognize that they can slowly and quietly destroy our health and make us ill. Consider the synthetic chemical sweeteners designed to keep us thin. They are laced in thousands of packaged foods. How about sodium fluoride, which is a known industrial waste byproduct that is pumped into our water supply and dental hygiene products? Or what about the chemicals that are routinely injected into our food supply to extend shelf life and improve the color, taste and texture? It's all good, right? Wrong! It's all bad.

Our bodies operates using eleven complicated systems that are designed to work together to create a state of homeostasis in our ever-changing environment. there are literally trillions of natural chemical reactions that take place in our body in order for it to operate optimally. When we introduce synthetic chemicals into the mix, they disrupt the body's natural function on a cellular level.

The effects of toxic exposure may not be recognized immediately, but over time they eat away at our health, and there is a price to pay. Symptoms of disease will rear their ugly head, and when they do, we treat them with more chemicals in the form of prescription drugs. Perhaps the biggest toxic exposure of all is the one that is responsible for as much as 80 percent of all disease - stress. We are forced to work harder than ever before to make ends meet. We strive to live the American dream of financial freedom, but only a small fraction of the population realizes the dream. The rest are left struggling under a mountain of debt. The majority of every waking moment is spent trying to make more money to buy things we have been conditioned to believe are important, when our health and the time we spend with the ones we love are really the most important things in life.

Indeed, the big, fat health and fitness lie runs deep, but there is also truth. Where there is truth, there is hope. The answers are there for the taking, if you dare to open your eyes and see them.

Craig Pepin-Donat, The Fit Advocate is an international health and fitness expert with a quarter century of experience. Craig is the author of The Big Fat Health and Fitness Lie and The People's Guide to Health, Happiness and Longevity. Craig is also the founder, chairman and host of The International Health and Fitness Symposium with a mission of delivering professional, unbiased and often suppressed information you need to make healthy lifestyle changes. Get more information about Craig along with the answers and solutions to your health questions at: http://www.thePeoplesGuidetoHealth.com