Day 62, What If...

... 10% of the world did The Peak Condition Project? This thought bubbled up in my mind today as I was jumping rope. Of my friends and acquaintances who know I'm doing this, (and it's getting more and more obvious that my physique is changing, thus, more people keep asking) the reactions fall in this range. Let's take a sample of 10 people:

• 4 will say something like : "Why? You weren't out of shape or anything..."

• 3 will be in the ballpark of: "Wow, sounds tough, I could never do that..."

• 2 will say something along the lines of : "That's cool. Good luck! I'll check your blog!"

• And 1 out of 10 will say: "How did you do it? I want to do it. I want to start tomorrow. Tell me how you did it. I'm serious."

When I was an aid worker, a 10% compliance rate for a given health initiative was considered a huge success. So I've been surprised to have so many people not only express interest in the PCP, but practically beg me to let them do it too. (This is why I decided to open it up to three others) All I can say is that the Project brings out the best in people, especially in that 10%

So anyway, I was just trying to do a thought experiment. What if 1 out of every 10 people in the world started eating right, controlling their diet, and exercising consistently? How would that change the planet?



First, a lot of industries would see an immediate 10% drop in profits. Fast food, restaurants, bars and the like would have 1 out of 10 tables empty.

Other sectors of the economy would see big upticks, especially agriculture and sporting goods. Fruit prices would go up as demand soared. There would be a lot more eggs sold too, which wouldn't be a great thing considering how most egg farms are run.

But there would be other effects. If 1 out of 10 people started looking and feeling really good, the people around them would naturally start to become a little healthier too. As I wrote about way back on Day 19, when you're on the PCP diet you don't take your friends to restaurants, everyone in your house eats the low sodium soy sauce, etc...

As a result, healthcare costs would go down. The 10% wouldn't want to opt into insurance plans that supported the other 90% who had unhealthy habits.

Maybe even a divide would open up, as indeed it already is, between people who think about their health and those who don't. There would be those who took their smoke breaks, and those who took their jumprope breaks.

Readers, what am I missing? Do you have any ideas for how the world would change for the better or worse if 10% of the population did the PCP?