If you had to, could you survive a house fire, save a drowning victim, escape from a sinking car? (Matt Hempel/Associated Press, Uli Seit for The New York Times, Ann Johansson for The New York Times)Are you fit enough to save your own life?
That’s the premise of a new reality show from Discovery Health that premieres tonight. Called “Fit to Live,” it’s based on Dr. Pamela Peeke’s book of the same name and raises the question of whether you have the strength, endurance and agility to escape a natural disaster, flee a burning building or pull your family from a wrecked car.
Fitness isn’t about working out at the gym or running a marathon, notes Dr. Peeke, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland and chief medical correspondent for Discovery Health Television. Fitness is important for coping with life’s emergencies, big and small, whether it’s running to make an airport connection or fleeing a burning building.
“Fit to Live” joins a series of reality-meets-health TV shows like ABC’s “Fat March” and NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” But this show isn’t a weight-loss contest. It’s a fitness test to determine if someone, whether they are skinny or fat, is in good enough shape to save their own life. In the show, five average people are given 10 minutes to escape a simulated fire in a 30-floor building. During the simulated emergency, they find stairways blocked and “bodies” to rescue, and none of them can make it to safety on the roof. “They all died,” noted Dr. Peeke. After undergoing a month of basic fitness and health habits, the contestants retake the test.
While this may sound far-fetched, I can personally attest that fitness counts in an emergency. On September 11, 2001, I was on the ninth floor of the World Financial Center, which was just across the street from the World Trade Center. After the second plane struck the Trade Center, my building was evacuated. A nine-floor descent doesn’t sound like much, but my group was stuck behind a slow-moving overweight woman. It took what seemed like forever to get out, and it was truly frightening. The evacuation was far more challenging for the people several floors above us.
Dr. Peeke notes that the television show focuses on escaping a burning building, but the real message is about the importance of fitness to cope with life’s everyday emergencies, like sprinting for a train or catching your dog when it escapes.
“When people think of fitness, they think of athletes and bulging biceps and running to the gym and doing squats,” said Dr. Peeke. “What I’m trying to do is get people strong enough to be able to survive 21st-century living.”
“Fit to Live” premieres on the Discovery Health Channel tonight at 8 p.m. (check your local listings). For more information and the repeat schedule, visit the Discovery Health Web site.
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Healthy living doesn't happen at the doctor's office. The road to better health is paved with the small decisions we make every day. It's about the choices we make when we buy groceries, drive our cars and hang out with our kids. Join columnist Tara Parker-Pope as she sifts through medical research and expert opinions for practical advice to help readers take control of their health and live well every day. You can reach Ms. Parker-Pope at 
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From 1 to 25 of 152 Comments
I’m sure that “slow-moving overweight woman” would be just thrilled to see this commentary. Don’t you think she has enough stigma in her life without being publicly told she was threatening other people’s lives?
— diIsn’t 21st century living all about driving places, watching TV, and having FreshDirect deliver junk food to your doorstep?
Fitness is a necessity for countless reasons, the least of which may be for coping with our daily lives.
— L.M.I’m part of a group that provides safety and security services for large multi-day outdoor gatherings. I’ve been doing it for about ten years in a volunteer capacity.
Consistently, when we are facing an emergency situation, like a microburst or a flood or a fire, there is a subset of the population that requires a disproportionate amount of our resources. Some of them are children and parents of small children. Some of them are older, overweight, or otherwise infirm.
But many of them are able-bodied people in their 20s and 30s, not overweight or out of shape, who simply cannot think in a crisis. A woman who refused to evacuate her flooding campsite because safety personnel refused to also take her merchandise, heavy stone items packed in locked waterproof cases, with her (two extra people detailed to persuade and ultimately forcibly remove her from the water). A young man who, on finding his tent in flames, dove INTO it to try and rescue his sleeping bag (one extra medic on scene to triage and handle his second-degree burns, and the same medic plus another member of safety staff off site and unavailable for several hours to take him to the ER). Someone who, on hearing the tornado sirens for the county, ran to high ground to try and call his campmate on his cell phone and warn him (one safety staff member to get him to take cover, another one to go to the camp and get the campmate out of the tent where he was sleeping with headphones on). Yes, we could let these people suffer for their mistakes, but then we really wouldn’t be very good safety personnel, now would we?
You see, at every event, how people respond to little emergencies. A big storm will come through, and instead of looking at the massing gray clouds and thinking, “I should tidy up the camp and get my food and bedding under cover,” they wait until the downpour starts and then want to drive their cars over from the parking lot and load up their camp in the rain. Or someone will fall down and cut himself badly, and the people in his camp will run around looking for things to sop up all the blood he’s losing instead of sending a runner to First Aid for a trained EMT.
Each time people make decisions like that, safety staff get pulled from managing the actual crisis to managing the people (in the last case I mentioned, it required seven people for over an hour to manage the scene, ensure the patient’s privacy, and keep his campmates from impeding the medics). When we discuss evacuation and crisis management plans for events, we have to figure in an estimate, depending on the population, of how many extra safety folks we’ll need to have just to keep panicked people from making terrified decisions that put other people in danger. We can even usually predict which groups and camps will need that attention.
Seriously, people need to spend a lot more time thinking about crisis management. In a crisis, you worry about yourself first, your children second, your pets third, and anything else (wallet, pictures, laptop, clothes, books) is a distant fourth to be addressed if you have the time to think about it. Some folks will object to ’save yourself first’, but those folks can answer me this question:
If your house is on fire and you can’t get to your kids, but you die trying, who will tell the firefighters they’re in the house and where to find them?
— RowanI’ve gained weight as I’ve aged and I am glad to have found a dog that doesn’t run away….although I do climb stairs everyday, along with the dog, who is smaller and more muscular than I am. I like the test of strength which requires a person to rise, without assistance, from a chair or bench using legs/knees,etc. I believe this is a very simple strength test.
— LParkerWow, Rowan. Excellent post.
— anneRowan’s comments (#3) were particularly enlightening. Fitness is very important for survival, but obviously, so is clear, non panic-stricken thinking. In fact, the presence of former isn’t of any use in the absence of the latter.
— asAfter Hurricane Wilma in October 2005, we were without power for a few days. We lived at the time on the 27th floor of a high rise. The elevators were not operational, so we took the stairs every day. I have run several marathons, and let me tell you, after a few days, those 27 flights took their toll! I felt badly for older and less fit residents who were trapped in the apartments until the elevators were back on.
— SharonI think Rowan should run FEMA, or at least my local fire dept.
— rbait may sound harsh, di, but that woman could get rid of the stigma by losing the weight or simply getting in shape. what a thought.
— anneThanks so much for your perspective Rowan.
— LawrenceI’m a fat woman who can go down 27 flights in under 5 minutes (assuming there are no bodies in the way). I worked in a skyscraper and made a point of participating in every fire drill. Most people did not leave their offices during the fire drills.
Your size doesn’t matter as much as your willingness to KEEP MOVING and DON’T PANIC in an emergency. If 9/11 taught us anything, don’t listen to the people who say “Stay put!” when a catastrophe hits your building. Get out of the building as fast as you can. You can’t rely on anyone else to rescue you other than yourself.
— Laurie D. T. MannAs a participant of the show, thanks Tara for ‘getting it’. Most people, even myself, thought like many of you before I took the challenge, and you bring up very good and valid points as well.
Two months later, 8 lbs lighter, tens times stronger, 100% more confident, and 75% sexier :), I’ve figured that it is about mental and physical fitness together, not one without the other. People, this fitness thing is not easy, I can tell you from the perspective of a soldier and a civilian, and a former NY resident trying to catch the train. If you’re fat, skinny, chunky, anorexic, sloppy, or a meat head, I say to you, in everything that you do have a plan, use moderation in time and energetic output, be conscious and alert enough to have a plan, do something everyday to improve your mental nd physical health, even if its just breathing deeply for a few moments, drink lots of water…oh yeah, be happy. Support what you wish to create…be the change you want to see. Did I mention, being happy?
We all have our on struggles. You all will see mine tonight if you watch…I looked great, but ‘was’ an emotional mess and weak. In the darkest hours, I had no one but me to save…think about that.
For those of you brave enough to fly, I take the instructions of the flight attendant to heart, “in case of emergency,…secure your oxygn mask first, and then assist the person next to you.” Classic and pure genius!
Love is all there is.
— K HRowan, in most of the examples you give the possibility of dying doesn’t seem to have entered into the victims’ equation. It’s as if in their minds the only choices were to save their property or lose it because some ‘guard’ was overreacting. (I would suggest, though, that the guy who ran to high ground during a tornado warning might have been from a place where the sirens don’t warn for tornadoes but for flash floods, and “taking shelter” indoors in such a case would be lunatic idiocy. It’s easy to over-train yourself and respond automatically.)
And Anna, if you don’t personally know what it’s like to be overweight, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about (and I say this with understanding, since I was in your position once). Being overweight has nothing to do with lack of willpower or laziness or stupidity or all the other assumptions people who are thin make. It has much more to do with poverty, lack of self-worth, hatred of exercise (often caused by vicious bullying in childhood), the repercussions of decades of cruelty, medical problems, and/or (what is not talked about often) different priorities in life. I gained weight after having to take prednisone for over a year, and I was shocked by how strangers felt they had the right to treat me. Young men especially were unspeakably vicious - I don’t think they would have treated me worse had I been a serial child molester or a mass murderer. It also didn’t help that the same people who were the cruellest about my weight were the same ones who dismissively proclaimed how easy it was to lose it, although they’d never been more than ten pounds overweight in their lives. (And as an aside, if I hadn’t had the money for nutritious food and a gym membership, I couldn’t have lost the weight. Cheap food is high in calories, and perpetual hunger is a horrible feeling - and yes, for many people it is worse than eventual death sometime in the far future.)
— CharleneWhen I read the comments above I thought about how I would handle the situation of the heavy woman blocking people from getting out during an emergency.
If I was alone, my Canadian non-confrontationally polite nature would mean I’d die of smoke inhalation rather then say “excuse me” and slip past her… However… if my kids were with me she better get the h*ll out of the way, because she’d be a speed bump. Being a parent changes everything.
Anyway you can hate me for that on the show tonight, because I’m a participant as well. I mention the kid thing because it was a primary motivation during the whole process.
— Dennis Laganiere
P.S. Hi KH
— Dennis LaganiereComment #1, this isn’t about someone’s potentially hurt feelings, it’s about the clear and important message that an out-of-shape person not only imperils themselves, but puts others at risk around them as well, however unintended. An overweight person’s choice to be unfit (passive, yes, but a choice) is their right, of course, but ethics should compel us to aim a little higher than what’s minimally required even if it takes a some effort or involves a little sacrifice. What greater incentive could there be to drop a few pounds and get exercising?
— csc@ Di:
So let me get this straight, the feelings of the overweight woman are more important than the fact that her inability to move at a steady pace may have potentially cost people behind her in the stairway their lives?
— nicoleVery important for physcially limited persons, e.g. seriously overweight, disabled or just being older, to avoid potentially dangerous activities or locales where physical limitations affect safety.
There wouldn’t be fables like “The Ant and the Grasshopper” or the “Three Little Pigs” if people generally put much thought into how they lived their lives.
If I learned anything traveling across America recently to meet as many people as possible, it’s just how averse people are to serious thinking.
Skydiving, bungee jumping, climbing Mt. Everest, etc., aren’t on my bucket list.
— MARK KLEIN, M.D.I feel like those who are chastising the rest of us for mentioning overweight people as a danger aren’t getting it. It’s not about being fat or thin. It’s about being able to do what you need to do to survive and/or help others you love in a dire situation.
I know someone whose daughter fell through the ice on a lake at their vacation home. This woman is not overweight in the slightest, but she could not carry her 9 y.o. daughter all the way to the safe, warm house without becoming exhausted. That is scary business. (Luckily, everything turned out okay.) But I hope everyone heeds the warning that this blog post is trying to convey: Are you prepared?
One of the main reasons I exercise is for this very reason. Why do you think big wave surfers exercise vigorously underwater for 2-3 minutes at a stretch? So they can hold their breath underwater when needed, hopefully for as long as needed, especially when the adrenaline that uses up more oxygen is pumping.
As pointed out by a few people, and wonderfully by Rowan, many people are venturing out into situations they are not prepared to deal with. Did anyone else read that story a few months ago about the several hundreds-of-pounds guy who went rafting down a river by himself, had some medical emergency, and took like 5+ people over 8 hours to rescue him? Be whatever shape you want to be, but don’t rely on everyone else to rescue you.
— KarenI’m mildly overweight currently and have run 10 marathons, including the Boston Marathon (for which I qualified), and recently completed my first Ironman distance triathlon. It’s not about the weight so much as the fitness. Wouldn’t it be great if we could take the focus off of appearance and put it on health?
When more than half of our country is overweight, doesn’t it seem likely that the problem is not with one person’s willpower or self-esteem? Perhaps, rather, it is the environment we have all created.
— Annecsc, my sentiments exactly. public health is not about feelings, it’s about the facts of safety and those of endangerment. the “slow-moving, overweight woman” in the stairwell did endanger the lives of others, intentionally or not. perhaps this realization would allow most of us to let others pass by us — and, at the very least, to place a priority on becoming as fit as possible.
— lvGotta tell you… being significantly overweight might be a choice for some, but there are others that didn’t get to make that choice. While a low number of people, there are those that have medical conditions that cause weight gain. Anybody who takes steroids for health reasons will gain weight. I guess their choice is to gain weight to live.
— nonnimouzHow about just focusing on the ‘get exercising’ thing and less on the dropping of pounds. It is in fact possible for a person to be strong AND large if that’s where her metabolism insistently wants to send her but she also does strength training and some kind of cardio work. She’d probably rather be thinner, for various reasons, and maybe she could get there with additional elements to her program, but this is a topic about emergency fitness so we could limit the discussion to just that.
Oh, and thanks, Rowan, for your remarks about people not thinking straight. At this point, what’s your perspective on what’s behind that? Panic, helplessness, or just old-fashioned superficiality, stupidity and attachment to material things? It seems telling to me that you noted that most of the dumb behaviors you cited were from younger people. What’s up with that?
— kraftytrilobiteHmmm…..
if there was an overweight woman / man in front of me impeding a groups escape…..I wonder if it would be possible to have a few stronger big brave Humans to help me carry the woman down the stairs faster.
At least it would be a nice example to set for my children.
From TPP — An interesting comment that actually proves the broader point of the article. Fitness, particularly strength, is useful in an emergency.
— Helping Handdi, comment #1, the overweight woman SHOULD read this, not that she would be that troubled. Obese people have an enormous capacity for rationalization. Also she will probably appreciate the opportunity to revel in her victim-hood. Shame on people for pointing out the problem she caused. After all it wasn’t her fault she was overweight and slow-moving. It wasn’t her fault she was slowing down the evacuation.
As for Helping Hand and TPP at 5:03 — you really think four (or however many it would take) people carrying an overweight woman down the stairs would clear the jam?
— Max G.I’d like to remind folks, that, in an emergency, people might not immediately think of what the best way is to proceed, which was, in many ways, the point of the article.
Ideally, there should be at least 2-3 people going downstairs simultaneously in an emergency.
On the other hand, you need to leave half the stairway available for the fire/rescue people who are climbing UP. So that means you generally are limited to one line at a time.
And what about old people, physically-limited people, and other people slowing everyone down?
By nature, I’m a fairly aggressive walking, but I generally try to avoid bowling people over. In an emergency, that’s even a bigger issue - a person stopped completely in a stairwell because they’ve been knocked over can make a situation much worse than a line being slow.
— Laurie D. T. Mann