The Bad Air in Our Gyms
14 November 2014
Michael J. McFadden
have identified Formaldehyde has now been identified as a known human carcinogen by both IARC and the National Toxicology’s DHHS 12th Report on Carcinogens. This places it in the same category as tobacco smoke, and thus, supposedly, “There is NO safe level of exposure.”
So is it now dangerous to go to the gym?
Or is it now safe to go to a bar where people are smoking?
A person could argue that the smoke is “worse,” but that kind of eliminates the whole “no safe level” concept that was used to justify the demand for absolute bans rather than ventilation and filtration. Were they lying? And if they were lying, what should be done about it? Can the agencies and people that were given funding to spread the “no safe level” concept be held financially responsible for whatever damages may have been caused by the lie?
Or was it the truth, and people should be warned away from gymnasiums and perhaps other areas where people spew formaldehyde and other dangerous bodily wastes into the air that everyone breathes?
Michael J. McFadden, Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
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The Bad Air in Our Gyms
November 5, 2014
By Gretchen Reynolds, The New York Times
With chilly weather settling in and darkness arriving before most people’s workdays end, many of us are shifting our workouts indoors, a practice that is much better for us than abandoning exercise for the winter. But a new study of air quality in gyms raises some interesting questions about whether the places in which we work out are as healthy as they should be.
Science and common sense tell us that exercising in polluted air is undesirable. People who frequently run alongside heavily trafficked freeways and breathe great lungfuls of exhaust have been shown to have an increased risk of heart disease, even if they are otherwise in admirably good shape.
But few studies systematically have examined the air quality inside gyms.
So for the new study, which will appear next month in the journal Building and Environment, researchers at the University of Lisbon in Portugal and the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands decided that they would place air-quality monitoring equipment in gyms throughout Lisbon.
Portuguese fitness sites are similar to those in the United States, said Carla Ramos, a graduate student at the University of Lisbon who led the new study. Most feature a weight room and multiple, smaller studio spaces for aerobics classes, yoga sessions and similar programs.
For the new study, Ms. Ramos obtained permission from 11 Lisbon gyms to position air-quality monitors in each site’s weight room and several studios. The machines were set to measure pollutants during the late afternoon or evening hours, when the gyms were at their most crowded.
For about two hours at each gym, the monitors measured the levels of commonly found indoor pollutants. These include carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ozone, airborne particulates such as dust, and various chemicals released by carpeting, cleaning products, furniture or paint, including formaldehyde.
To gain even more detailed readings, the scientists subsequently placed additional monitors in three of the gyms, which measured air quality throughout the building and throughout the entire day.
Then they checked the pollutant levels from all of the gyms.
Their findings were disquieting. In general, the gyms showed high levels of airborne dust, formaldehyde and carbon dioxide. The concentrations of these substances generally exceeded most accepted standards for indoor air quality. (No government agency in the United States formally monitors air quality in gyms.)
The levels were especially high during evening aerobics classes, when many people were packed into small studios, stirring up dust and fumes and puffing heavily, producing carbon dioxide with every breath.
The high concentrations of dust and chemicals like formaldehyde in the air at the gyms represent perhaps the greatest potential concern, Ms. Ramos said. In sufficient concentrations, these substances can contribute to asthma and other respiratory problems, she said. Almost all of the gyms in the study had levels of these substances that significantly exceed European standards for healthy indoor air standards.
Carbon dioxide, though not toxic to people, could also be cause for concern. In high concentrations, Ms. Ramos said, it has been found to contribute to bodily fatigue and cognitive fogginess, neither of which is desirable during a high-intensity aerobics class.
Elevated levels of carbon dioxide can also indicate a poorly ventilated building, she said, especially if they remain inflated for hours, as they did in her study.
“We consider that the gymnasiums meet the criteria for a poor indoor quality,” Ms. Ramos said.
Poor indoor air quality is a particular issue in gyms, of course, because people there tend to be breathing heavily. “When we exercise, we take in more air with each breath and most of that air goes through the mouth, bypassing the natural filtration system” in the nostrils, Ms. Ramos said. “The pollutants go deeper into the lungs compared to resting situations.”
The findings should not, however, discourage anyone from visiting a gym, Ms. Ramos said. None of the sites in the study had measurable levels of carbon monoxide, she pointed out, one of the most dangerous of known air pollutants.
The data might, though, prompt diligent gymgoers to perform a sniff test. If the air at your fitness center smells chemical-laden and stale, consider talking with the site manager, Ms. Ramos said. Ask about ventilation and if the building has undergone a recent indoor-air-quality assessment.
Inquire, too, about the types of cleaning products used at the gym and whether floors are swept or mopped; the latter is better at reducing airborne dust, Ms. Ramos said.
For her part, Ms. Ramos conducted a formal air-quality assessment at the gym she attends (separately from her study) and offered the manager advice about how to reduce some of the pollutants that turned up. “I prefer to be indoors to practice physical activity,” she said, as long as the air is as healthy as the activity.
I Tried to Get Healthy and Keep Smoking Cigarettes
April 16, 2015
by Dan Buyanovsky
It’s been just over five years since I first picked up a cigarette—at a party, surrounded by people who seemed much cooler than me by dint of their smoking. Determined to fit in with my new social circle and with my new city—New York, a place where even the corpulent look interesting with a hand-rolled cigarette hanging from their lips—I started smoking socially, and eventually, regularly.
Through the years I’ve quit dozens of times, to no avail. This, like any addiction, is a personal struggle. If you’re an addict, no amount of disappointed friend-shaming, bummer chats with parents, or losses of potential girlfriends can make you do something you’re not ready to do. I get it. Cigarettes are bad. And yet, despite all that I know about cigarettes and why they’re bad, I still fucking like them.
All of which brings me to my current situation. After trying for so long to quit, only to disappointingly flip between stopping and guiltily falling off the wagon, I’ve found a “healthy” medium, a half-happy place where I can smoke casually. Actually casually.
It started a few months ago, when, feeling dangerously worn out for a 24-year-old, I quit smoking. I knew I wanted 2015 to be different, and I didn’t want to wait until my New Year’s Resolution to make it so. I joined a gym, changed my diet, and started exercising five times a week.
Since November, I’ve kept it up, shedding some pounds and, more important, feeling better about myself as a human being. Part of this is due to the fact that, about a month into my new routine, I decided that I was doing OK and should probably ease up on my cigarette abstinence. Maybe I could be the kind of guy who keeps a pack at work, I thought, smoking a few here and there.
Surprisingly, this worked out pretty well. I continued going to the gym and eating and sleeping well, all while sneaking a few smokes, balancing the good with the bad on a daily basis and seemingly achieving the impossible—gaming the system, being a healthy person while not being an entirely healthy person. The dichotomy also inspired a mutual motivation—if I had a good work out, I definitely deserved a smoke, and if I smoked heavily on a particular day, I definitely ate a healthy lunch.
With the devil on one shoulder and angel on the other, I felt like I’d found universal balance. Maybe I didn’t have to fully quit after all. Maybe it’s possible to lead a healthy life while continuing to smoke regularly. Do we not have to quit? I decided to investigate.
“It’s important to first define what is meant by ‘a healthy lifestyle,'” said Dr. Azure B. Thompson, the associate director of policy and research at the CASAColumbia addiction center. Thompson, an expert on the social determinants of substance abuse, said that while a healthy lifestyle is defined by eating well, being active and managing stress, “people may comply with some of these activities and believe they are leading an ‘otherwise healthy lifestyle,’ but by smoking cigarettes regularly you are not protecting yourself from harm.” Harm, of course, being stuff like long-term lung damage and increased risk of cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, and stroke.
By smoking while living healthily, you’re welcoming dangerous entrants into your body, but it’s not like I was smoking a pack a day. If I am letting toxins in, at least it’s not like they’re waltzing in through the front door. It’s more like they’re sneaking in through the window I cracked. In theory, I should be able to keep doing what I’m doing so long as I don’t fall back into my pack-a-day habit, right?
“I think that is a natural sentiment,” Thompson countered. “With some potentially unhealthy behaviors,” like eating junk food or drinking alcohol, “we are told that they are OK in moderation, but there is no way to game the harmful effects when it comes to cigarette smoking.”
According to Thompson, not only am I not supposed to smoke if I want to live a healthy life, but I’m not even supposed to be near a place where smoking is happening. “Any exposure to tobacco smoke is harmful,” she assured me. “Risks are not limited to heavy or long-term smokers.” Still, living a totally smoke-free existence is an unrealistic ideal: if you’re a social person in your 20s, you’re bound to be regularly surrounded by smoking peers, and if you live in a major city, second-hand smoke is almost unavoidable.
Thompson gave me the answer I knew was coming—of course the addiction researcher is going to tell me not to be addicted! I needed input from another source, so I reached out to Jonathan Henry, a certified personal trainer. Though Henry is a kindergarten teacher who knows a bit about how to compromise with crying six-year-olds, he doesn’t compromise in his night work, which is making sure people stop putzing around with their bodies and get healthy to stay that way.
“It is not possible to lead an otherwise healthy lifestyle while smoking cigarettes,” he told me as soon as I brought up the question of whether or not I could lift and still smoke. “Doing so is the exact contradiction to living a healthy lifestyle,” he added for clarity.
I should note here that Jonathan trained me once—when I was in my heavy-smoking phase—and nearly made me pass out by telling me to do 100 jumping jacks. Before doing the jumping jacks, I looked and felt like a normal person. “Even if an individual doesn’t look out of shape due to their fast metabolism, eats well, and does some type of exercise,” Henry told me, through smoking, “damage is being done to the vital organs and will eventually be visible to the individual and the world.”
Jonathan went on to say that if I don’t quit smoking soon, even while living my otherwise “healthy” lifestyle, my gym routine and diet would eventually fall by the wayside.
Still! I’m feeling mostly OK. I no longer struggle when I walk up a few flights of stairs. I don’t have an agonizing chest cough, the sort only fellow pack-a-day smokers could relate to. And I don’t smell so much like smoke that my mom winces in dismay when I hug her. Everything’s fine.
Besides, sometimes I need a cigarette. Sometimes things aren’t going great at work, my relationship feels more taxing than usual, or I’m just crippled with fear about getting older. You know, just normal 20-something stuff, most of which usually fades away after a smoke break. Even if it’s clearly not a physically healthy activity, maybe smoking provides some sort of mental health benefits, especially for those of us who do it to relieve personal stress. I reached out for validation from Margie Cohen, a California-based psychotherapist whose ex-wife was a longtime smoker. Surely she’d understand.
“It is my job to track and respect people’s choices,” said Cohen, “and especially to help them understand and find new ways to manage the emotions that smoking is helping them medicate.” Some of which, she said, if unchecked can create a distance between a person and the possibility of living a deeply rewarding life.
According to Cohen, smoking, like any other addictive substance, while typically mislabeled as a stress reliever, functions more so as a distraction from issues lying beneath the surface.
“It has been my experience that a person’s relationship to smoking will become less compelling if they are less fearful of their feelings and of their previous traumatic experiences,” said Cohen.
Cohen seemed to stand firmly beside Henry and Thompson in the belief that smoking is unequivocally bad, both mentally and physically, though she admitted that quitting—an “empowering choice that will help move a person toward greater fulfillment and happiness”—isn’t something she’d push someone to do if they weren’t ready.
If a person is quitting simply to “comply with social or internal pressure to ‘do what’s right,'” said Cohen, “it will probably not be a choice they can manage successfully, and may likely add to their stress, self-blame, shame, and low self-esteem.”
So according to the experts I spoke with and common sense, it is not possible to maintain a healthy lifestyle without quitting smoking. But the very reason I started living this new life in the first place was to avoid the feelings of stress and low self-esteem Cohen mentioned above, and for the first time in my young life, I’ve found a footing between careful and irresponsible by forcing myself to sacrifice while allowing myself transgressions. So for now, I’d rather just keep smoking, blindly soldiering on with this unhealthy addiction no matter how painful it may be in the long run.
