Movement Deficiency Syndrome™

Movement Deficiency Syndrome™ is a concept informed by the idea that we all NEED exercise or physical movement! Movement is life! Movement is a biological requirement for neurological health and a vibrant, optimal life.

The evidence is clear that movement is an ‘essential nutrient’ to ensure the healthy, homeostatic function, both of individual cells, and our bodies more broadly. And the vast majority of us are NOT getting enough!

“The model for human physical activity patterns was established not in gymnasia, athletic fields or exercise physiology laboratories, but by natural selection acting over eons of experience. In evolutionary perspective it is the sedentary existence characterizing life in contemporary affluent nations which represents the extreme, not the lifestyle which prevailed generally for humans from the origin of our [species] until well after industrialization appeared 200 years ago.”

Eaton, Cordain & Lindeberg Evolutionary Health Promotion: A Consideration of Common Counterarguments. Preventive Medicine 2002 (34) 119-123

“The [current] guidelines [for exercise] are roughly 44% of the level…among hunter-gatherers, almost surely below those of our preagricultural ancestors, and very likely, below the level of physical exertion for which our genetically-determined physiology and biochemistry have been programmed through evolution.”

Eaton, Cordain & Lindeberg Evolutionary Health Promotion: A Consideration of Common Counterarguments. Preventive Medicine 2002 (34) 119-123

“…the relationship between energy intake, energy expenditure, and specific motor activity is still that originally selected for Stone Agers living in a foraging environment.”

Cordain et al.Physical Activity, Energy Expenditure and Fitness” An Evolutionary Perspective. 1998 Int. J. Sprots Med. (19) 328-335

“Although our genes have hardly changed, our culture has been transformed almost beyond recognition during the past 10,000 years, especially since the Industrial Revolution. There is increasing evidence that the resulting mismatch fosters “diseases of civilization” that together cause 75 percent of all deaths in Western nations, but that are rare among persons whose lifeways reflect those of our preagricultural ancestors.”

S. Boyd Eaton M.D., Melvin Konner Ph.D., M.D. and Marjorie ShostakStone agers in the fast lane: Chronic degenerative disease in evolutionary perspective. 1988; Am. J. Med. 84, 739-749

“These conditions (heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, hypertension etc) have emerged as dominant health problems only in the past century and are virtually unknown among the few surviving hunter-gatherer populations whose way of life and eating habits most closely resemble those of preagricultural human beings.”

Young people in the Western world commonly have developing asymptomatic forms of these conditions, but hunter-gatherer youths do not.”

Eaton, S. Boyd M.D. & Konner, M. Ph.D.
Paleolithic Nutrition: A consideration of its nature and current implications. 1985: N.Eng. J. Med. 312, 283-289

“(1) The human genome was selected in past environments far different from those of the present. (2) Cultural evolution now proceeds too rapidly for genetic accommodation – resulting in dissociation between our genes and out lives. (3) This mismatch between biology and lifestyle fosters development of degenerative diseases.”

Eaton SB et al.Evolutionary health promotion. Prev Med 2002; 34: 109-118

“There is now unequivocal evidence…supporting the notion that all environmental factors combined, including physical inactivity account…account for the majority of chronic health conditions. Physical inactivity is the third leading cause of death in the United States and contributes to the second leading cause (obesity), accounting o at least 1 in 10 deaths. Studies showed that 30-50% of all cases of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and many cancers were prevented by 30 min of moderate intensity exercise each day…”

Booth et al. Waging war on physical inactivity: using modern molecular ammunition against an ancient enemy J Appl Physiol 93: 3-30, 2002

What this means is that we can ONLY express true levels of health and homeostasis when we have sufficiency in a range of domains, one of which is movement. Movement deficiency means we cannot function at our best.

The theory as to why this is so, is that our genetic requirements were ‘set’ when the ‘human’ species came into existence from earlier human ancestors. At that time, our hunter-gatherer lifestyle included regular and vigorous exercise, so our genes evolved such that they required this as their ‘norm’.

Movement Deficiency is pandemic in our industrialised society – from sedentary living, to the amount of sitting we allow, loss of micro-movement in the tissues or structures of our bodies (an example being subluxation), over-extending or moving excessively when our body is not ‘used’ to doing so, through to not regularly engaging in exercise or healthy movement of some kind.