GUEST COLUMN: What To Keep In Mind About "Game Changers"
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What To Keep In Mind About Game Changers
by Kevin Faber
The 2018 movie Game Changers introduced audiences to a behind-the-scenes look at the diets that a lot of noteworthy people follow to maintain their lifestyle as an injured martial artist interviewed them. While the documentary has inspired change, it may not have been as beneficial as it could have been. Keep reading to learn what you should keep in mind about the Game Changers movie.
There Is One Central Focus of the Documentary
The documentary does not go into everything that the interviewees go through to succeed. It only focuses on how plant-based diets affect their performances. With that being the case, you have no idea what else they have to do to get where they need to be. While a plant-based diet may indeed boost their performance, they need to do a lot of other things. Take skin care, for example. An actor might be asked about what they do to keep their skin up after all of that makeup is removed at the end of the day, and they might give a Thrive Skin review. However, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was interviewed, it just focused on his diet.
Not Everything Works For Everyone
There are a lot of people who think that they should change something about themselves because they saw one of their favorite celebrities do it. Most of the time, they do not even think about how it will affect them in the long run or how it would change everything around them. Also, they have to do the research alone. They do not have years of training in their idol's specialty nor access to the team of coaches that has worked for years to perfect everything that is involved with the athlete's training and performance. People need to be advised that there is a lot more work involved and that they need to talk to some professionals.
Experts Are Heavy Critics of the Film
A lot of experts across the board have been criticizing this documentary, even going so far as to say that it lends too much to pseudoscience to be comfortable or trustworthy. The athletes pretended to be experts on the general subject instead of confining it to their individual lifestyles, and the so-called experts on the project were making claims that could not exactly be backed up. There is also an issue in the document being one-sided. In order to make a well-rounded and convincing argument, there should be more of a presence of the other side.
In this case, there should have been more of a discussion about a meat-based or meat-heavy diet. Instead, meat is criticized and not given a voice at all. The people making the documentary also failed to point out that meat and plant-based diets share some similar production issues. One such issue is that deforestation would still occur even if the entire planet was put on a plant-based diet tomorrow, so not all of the blame can be put on livestock farms.
The Game Changers documentary can be seen as educational, and is a vital part in the curriculum of many institutions, many of which are medical schools. However, you should take this documentary with a grain of salt. The next time you watch Game Changers, think of all the factors that go into an athlete's performance, and remember that all of those factors work in tandem to make the athlete the best version of themselves that they can be. Keep this article in mind so you do not run out and buy up all of the vegetables without knowing what works best for you first. There is no one solution to a better life, and you should keep that in mind.
