There are almost 80 million obese people in the United States. That's more than a third of the population. There are 29 million Americans with diabetes. As a point of reference, that's about 3.5 times the population of New York City. I haven't even mentioned the millions of people who are classified as "overweight" or "pre-diabetic". It's not hard to find these numbers. I did two Google searches: "US obesity stats" and "US diabetes stats". You could do a "walmart customers" Google image search if you're more of a visual learner
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With these numbers readily available, it has become trendy for fitness professionals to tell people to stop exercising. To be fair, fit pros are advocating "training" over just exercising. What's the difference? Training means you're following a particular (planned out) program to reach a particular goal. Exercising usually refers to performing prolonged physical activity without the presence of a program.
I agree that "training" will lead to better results than just "exercising". There is an "if" though; and it's a big "IF". Training will lead to better results than just exercising IF the person ready, willing, and able to complete the prescribed program. Everyone is able to train. Everyone is NOT ready or willing to train...yet. This is where I take issue with fitness professionals telling people not to exercise.
Lots of time it's hard enough for obese people just to make a decision to change. Once they make that decision, it's our job to help them to start actually making the changes. Often times this may mean if the client/member wants to come to the gym and walk on the treadmill for 15 minutes and then "try" some machines and exercises, then I have to show him/her how to use the treadmill, set up the machines and teach correct form on the exercises. This is about meeting the client/member where they are. Telling him/her that everything they wanted to do is wrong/bad would be more conducive to getting them to walk out of the gym and never coming back.
I know a lot of "don't exercise, train" stuff that is going around social media is directed at people with higher training ages (i.e. people who know what "training age" means). Unfortunately social media doesn't filter out the newbies from the seasoned gym rats. So when the newbies see these articles, they act as more of a deterrent than instructional advice.
