Red Flag Words: Holisitc

ho·lis·tic(h-lstk)

1. Of or relating to holism.

2.

a. Emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts.

b. Concerned with wholes rather than analysis or separation into parts:

 

Of all red flag words, or as I would call them, bull shit words, this is probably one of the ones that best correlates to their actual meaning when used today. You most often find this word when someone cannot spell out the actual benefits to what they are doing.  For example, holistic medicine, while there are things wrong with the pill popping symptom only treating medicine practices by Americans today. Holistic advocates mistakenly, or ignorantly, argue that it is a failure of western medicine, rather than the misapplication of western medicine by an ignorant populace and lazy medical field. 95% of holistic medicine is utter bullshit. I had to hear one holistic advocate talk about how prior to modern diets and medicine that tribal man didn't suffer from diarrhea that is so common in todays modern and sick world. Right.....

Even more dangerous is when someone is selling a product or service, say for example physical training, and they use the world holistic. While holisticness, in it's actual meaning, is very desirable for physical training, most often I have seen the word used by trainers that do not know two shits about what they are doing and have little real world experience. You can tell the trainers that not only know what they are doing, but have actually done it, and frankly, there are far too many trainers who don't know what they are doing. Certifications don't mean squat in regards to their competence.

I have a friend of mine, a swim coach, who has no certifications in lifting, or coaching for that matter, but is easily one of the best swim coaches in the state, if not the country; and is one of the most effictive weight trainers out there. I should know, we lifted together for a year, and the one year he was a trainer for our swim team (he was ineligible that year due to NCAA age restrictions) I saw the biggest increases of strength for the whole team than any other year with any other trainer. The guy has no certifications in kinesology, exercise science, or anything like that, but he easily knows enough about how the body works in the gym and in the water, that his knoweldge base is masters level.

So the next time you hear the word holistic look for any sort of concrete descriptions or illustrations on what exactly do they mean by holistic? Is there a detailed methodology supporting their statement or is it just an adjactive that is thrown around without any real thought as to how they achieve holisticness?