And as if that wasn't technical enough. The above post about typolologies of physical deficiencies is an example of a more general approach to science and medicine that I favor: seeking idiopathic laws. The term, as used in Psychology, if I recall correctly, was coined by Egon Brunswik to distinguish idiopathic from nomothetic laws. What the hell am I talking about? What from what? Here's a primer.
Most researchers really want to find general rules (called "nomothetic") that will apply to everyone, but where we (or at least I) suspect that most of the real action will turn out to be, perhaps a century from now when we've gotten our act together, will be in specific rules (called "idiopathic") that apply to one or a small group of people. In Psychology (I capitalize it to represent the field of study), "individual differences" was usually considered the province of "Personality Psychology," while we in the rival area of "Social Psychology" looked at the effect of situations upon all sorts of people, and some bright people would eventually think to look for interactive effects, where certain situations might affect certain personality types differently. As applied to exercise, I'm suggesting that different people -- based on the combination of being too tight here and too inflexible there and too weak somewhere else -- probably can be classified into many different subtypes based on their profiles, and that developing specific exercise programs for each profile would probably be individualized enough "treatment" to steer clear from the "one size fits all" problem.
Looking for interactions is a good direction, although psychology is hampered by the fact that most of the really interesting things to look at are invisible (even though psychologists often try to reduce them to observable physical reactions with MRIs and other physiological measures, experimental tasks, and marks on opinion surveys.) But while psychologists have it tough, those working in nutrition and exercise physiology should have it much easier, and it's not clear to me that they take advantage of it.
I think this is particularly true as applied to diet and nutrition. Part of what I'm doing as part of the personal training is concentrating on improving my diet; I've also been getting a better sense of how different foods may affect different people differently. It seems entirely plausible for me that rather that Atkins being a "good" diet and some other one a "bad" diet or vice versa, it may be that different diets may be good for different people and/or at different times. I've been a vegetarian for 25 years, for vague ethical and not-at-all-vague aesthetic reasons (which is the one response that seems to squelch Atkins prosyletizers), so Atkins is out for me, despite the help that it has apparently given to some in my family. But it seems possible (even probable) to me that rather than being "bad" or "good," Atkins may be effective for some people and not others for reasons that we don't yet understand, because we haven't yet done the work of classifying people into types. (For food, this might include factors as how well they metabolize glucose, what caloric deficit is necessary before their body starts to metabolize fat, etc. All things that, it seems, ought to be discoverable.)
A test I took at the gym was designed to get at some of this typologizing, based on factors such as whether I crave fat or crave carbohydrates. As usual, the answer was more complicated than the answers would allow. For example, my favorite foods would be a combination of fats and carbohydrates -- potato pancakes (with applesauce and sourcream, alternative bites), falafel with tahini, rich ice cream, etc. And at some times I may think I want one, and at other times another, and my craving may in fact be satisfied by something else than what I think I want. The typology in this case would have served the purpose of selling me either carb-lust suprression or fat-lust suppression pills, which my doctor assures me would not work. OK, it's a start, but I think we can do better. Are there medical tests, monitoring glucose levels and such after people eat various foods, that can start placing people in relatively homogenous categories that would guide relatively individualized treatment? If not, why not?
With the war on fat seeming like the Next Big Thing, it would seem worthwhile to develop such tests and give them free to all the schoolchildren whose weight gain we profess to be so worried about, so that they can know that, yes, I am the type of person whose hunger won't be satisfied by all the vegetables in the world, or refined sugars: I need a little protein and fat -- and not much of it -- as a snack to feel satisfied. Or for another person to know, perhaps, that they don't need much fat or protein to feel satisfied; a baked potato will do it. Now that I'm keeping track of what I eat, I'm trying to make sense of how different foods affect me, and am already finding some surprises (like, cottage cheese really does me wonders, and yogurt does not. Weird.)
In diet, as in exercise, some general principles (unrefined complex carbohydrates are better than refined sugars, poly- or monounsaturated fats are better than saturated fats, etc.) will apply broadly. People do have to know those rules -- but they also have to I'd love to know if there is work out there on developing typologies in nutrition and exercise, if anyone knows.
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