THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

Most people agree that the majority of us want to succeed in life, both personally and professionally. Today we not only face the challenges of stiff competition in the workplace and challenges in our personal lives, many of us also experience difficulty in distinguishing between that which is mediocre (if effective at all) in preventing conditions & diseases and that which is most effective. We are ultimately being robbed of not only our money, (that's bad enough) but we are also being robbed of our precious time as we continue to be inundated with all the hype, pseudoscience, and nonsense spun by those taking a page or two out of "The Emperor's new Clothes." The purveyors with less than honorable intentions have sold us little, if anything, to help us achieve optimum health & fitness and more often than not, they can also do us harm both physically and psychologically.

For those of you who are not familiar with the children's story by Hans Christian Anderson "The Emperor's New Clothes," it is a tale of two unscrupulous weavers who promise a very vain emperor a new set of the finest clothes from an amazing fabric "invisible" to anyone who is unfit for his position. They subsequently pretend to create and fit the emperor with these special garments. Although the emperor's ministers cannot see the clothes themselves, they pretend they can for fear of appearing unfit for their own positions. Later, as the emperor is paraded down a procession before all his subjects, the townsfolk go along with this pretense for fear of also appearing unfit for their positions. Suddenly, a young child yells out that the emperor is wearing no clothes at all prompting the crowd to then follow the child's lead and cry out as well. Although the emperor becomes suspicious that the assertion may be true, he nevertheless continues with the procession. 

The phrase "the emperor's new clothes" has become an idiom about logical fallacies. The story itself is explained by pluralistic ignorance. This is a situation where no one actually believes something to be true, yet everyone believes that everyone else believes it so they also go along with it. Alternatively, everyone may indeed be ignorant as to whether something is true or not, but they believe that everyone else cannot be as ignorant as they are.

So here we are, well into the 21st century and a popular Danish fairy tale written in 1837 describes what is pervasive today. So many people want to believe things that cannot possibly be true regardless of not only the empirical evidence to the contrary, but the evidence right before their very eyes, yet they still choose to believe what everyone else does. The lesson here is that we must always keep our eyes wide open and we must sharpen our critical thinking skills since the two charlatans who sold the emperor his new clothes are among us today. We find them in all walks of life and in all professions such as medicine, law, wealth management, journalism, education, politics, publishing, and real estate. Although we would like to believe that everyone is operating with honesty and integrity, when it comes to matters of health in particular, we unfortunately have to come to terms with the fact that much of the public will be tricked into believing what is thrust upon them so vehemently whether it is based on scientific fact or not.

Take it from me, a New York State permanently certified teacher, when it comes to your health, do your homework, believe in empirical evidence, and do not assume anything. Be cautious especially of those unscrupulous individuals who try to sell you "a bill of goods." (For those of you whose first language is NOT English, "a bill of goods" refers to something that is intentionally misrepresented or something that is promoted or sold in a type of deception or fraud.) 

For optimum health & fitness,

"CLIMB, LIFT & EAT WELL..." ®