We are at war with our own bodies. It’s time we take it serious. We are fatter, weaker and sadder, than we’ve ever been. We're about to break into all of this. It's dense and juicy. But first, a quick minute on how I got here.
I’m Parker Rex, son of two cancer survivors. I was born with pectus excavatum — a condition that causes your ribs to grow inwards pressing against your heart. Depending on the severity of the condition, it can lead to shortness of breath and heart complications if you don't take action.
The surgery involves:
- Custom fitting 3 titanium bars to your chest cavity
- Inserting them carefully through an incision made on both sides of your ribcage
- Guiding the 3 titanium bars up-side-down over your heart (without prodding it of course)
- “Gently and swiftly” rotating the titanium bars to “pop” the sternum and it's associated muscle and cartilage back out.
- Leaving the titanium bars in for 2-3 years. (Many patients complain about feeling them move around in their chest cavity)
- Getting put up for 6 months, incapable of movement, and in constant pain.
- Removing the titanium bars in a second surgery and hoping things stay put (most fail)

It didn't take much time for me to realize this was not the solution for me.
After reading dozens of accounts from patients with bad experiences on forums and chats, I opted-out. I studied what could be done to fix this without the surgery and began correctively stretching and exercising to reshape the cartilage and bone in my sternum. It's not a slice open and fix with metal in 6 hours solution, but it's one that will be a long term solution and will give me new skills and new habits.
So far I am not only changing the shape of my body, but also getting stronger and picking up skills, habits and disciplines that will last a lifetime (I also will never set off a metal detector at the airport).
I share this personal experience to provide context as to why I went on a journey to learn more about health.
A Disturbing Fact We Can't Ignore
My health and fitness journey led me to reading a significant amount of medical literature, and a handful of software prototypes. After a few years of reading and following influential doctors like Dr. Peter Attia , I kept coming back to staggering data I can't ignore. We are fatter, weaker, and sadder than we’ve ever been. That stuck out to me. I wanted to know why. If you are unhealthy, it's hard to be happy. A quick glance at the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid will tell you that.
The Scale and Pace of the Obesity Crisis is Hard to Grasp
There are 8 billion people on the planet. More than 1 billion people are obese. The World Obesity Atlas projects that by 2035, over 4 billion people (more than half the global population) will be obese. If that doesn't scare the sh*t out of you, what does? Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.
What other trends were on the same trajectory as obesity? Internet adoption. Think about that. The internet is a big deal. Obesity is a big deal. It's a big deal because it's a leading cause of death in young people in the world and it's entirely preventable.

Times Have Changed, Urgency is Not There
In 1961, JFK declared a war on obesity. He said: "There is nothing more unfortunate, than to have a soft, chubby fat looking children. I hope that all of you will join to make sure our children participcate fully in a vigorous and full life that's possible in this rich country of ours. This should be a matter of concern to us all. A country is as strong as it's citizens. I believe physical and health and mental and physical vigor, go hand in hand."

Obesity in American adults:
- 15.0% in 1976–1980
- 30.9% in 1999–2000
- 41.9% in 2017–2020
- 50% in 2035 (projected)
The total cost of treating illnesses related to obesity will be an estimated $4 trillion per year
> 50% of The World Will Be Obese

Obesity is the gateway drug to death of your friends and your loved ones. People are dropping like flies and we're not taking appropriate actions. Instead of addressing the war head on with a logical strategy, we let massive companies feed us food that is not food, and push injectables that create nausea, destroy appetites, and reduce muscle mass and bone density.
Getting people hooked on an injection allows them to continue eating foods that provide little nutritional value. It gives them weight loss without exercise. It reduces not only fat but also lean muscle mass. This new trend will breed a population of walking skeletons. Have you seen someone who has been on Ozempic for over a year? It's not pretty. Bones brittle up, you lose the fat in your face, (similar to someone you see living on a sidewalk)... It's not pretty.

This trend is not slowing down. It's getting worse. It's caught the attention of Silicon Valley Elites. Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive, said “Societally these folks (35-44) are not tracking in whatever dimension you want to measure: happiness, stability, safety. Something is meaningfully wrong in this cohort of people. The "experts" don't have answers to solve this problem. They're just trying to make money off of it.
Short Term Fixes ≠ Long Term Solutions
Not so long ago we thought it was wise to:
- Put maggots on peoples wounds
- Use a drill to release pressure from the brain
- Pierce the brain by way of eyeball with an icepick to help with mental illness
We've come a long way, but we're still doing some pretty stupid things in response to poor baseline fundamentals of getting diet, exercise and sleep right.
Tactics to fight obesity not nearly as extreme, but outcomes are dire. It's almost worse in that way. We're not doing anything to fix the root cause. We're just putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.


Supergluing a wound is worse than letting it heal. SSRI's to relieve stress or anxiety is worse than fixing the root cause. Anxiety is an excuse to avoid taking an uncomfortable action.
A Huge Part of this is an Education Problem
People are not educated on how to eat, how to exercise, how to sleep, or how to manage stress.
Learning how to eat right means knowing what is real food and what is fake food. Learning how to exercise means knowing how to move your body in a way that is sustainable and enjoyable. Whether that's going on a 15 minute walk after you eat, or picking up a new game like pickleball. Learning how to sleep means knowing how to wind down at night, and how to wake up in the morning. Learning how to manage stress means knowing how to take a deep breath, and how to take a step back and look at the big picture.
When we go to the grocery store we see items on the shelf that claim to be healthy because the brands producing them have deep enough pockets to pay off the organizations that determine what is good and what is bad for our health. The few who are awake to this reality are labeled. Health is not a political issue. It is a human issue.
Pills
Surgery
Fad Diets
Ozempic
Hard work
Exercise
Eating Real Foods
Structured Diet
I Understand It's a Problem. What Now?
More companies like Map need to take initiative. The health of our species is a fight worth fighting for. By way of fantastic product and effective messaging we must create a movement. We do this through education in form of media, and delivering fantastic software that teaches people:
- What is in the food they're eating and how to track it's nutritional value for a small period of time to get a baseline understanding of healthy eating.
- How to incorporate small amounts of exercise in a sustainable, habitual fashion.
- How to stack wins through goal accomplishment, ticking off one action at a time.
Our purpose is to accelerate the pace of human innovation and our niche is to maximize happiness, health and accomplishment. The best way to get healthy and happy is to focus on the building blocks of discipline. Follow Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Start with the basics. Food, water, shelter, sleep. Then move up the pyramid. Once you have the basics down, you can start to focus on the higher level needs like love, belonging, esteem and self-actualization.

In order to get popular culture involved in this movement you must give consumers dopamine. We recognize cheap dopamine is not a fix. We know the best way to feel good about yourself is to keep the promises you make to yourself. To accomplish the things you want to do with your life. To make your future self proud.
A Broad Strokes Approach by Map
For the first time in human history we can train a computer on what we want to be when we grow up. How we want to look. How we want to act. Who we want to spend our time with. How we want to spend our time. What we want to accomplish. What we want to learn. What we want to do. What we want to be.
That computer is a mirror. It's there to remind you when you're not being the person you want to be. We can train that computer to be the PEAK version of ourselves. We can talk to Map and understand what our dreams are, and how to make progress towards them on a daily basis.
I urge companies to start taking War this seriously.
I'll be writing weekly on Fridays' and soon will share a Master Plan Akin to Elon's Master plan going into greater detail on the vision of Map.
What Can You Do?
If you found this helpful or insightful, or even if it scared you a little bit, it'd mean the world to me to share this with someone you care about. We're all in this together.
I'd love to hear from you via email or on X.
A Note For the Nay-Sayers
I am not a doctor. I am not a nutritionist. I am not a personal trainer. I am not a psychologist. I am not a therapist. I am not a psychiatrist. I am not a scientist. I am not a researcher. I am not a politician. I am someone who has had health issues and struggles and came out happy and healthier through focusing on the fundamentals, and leveraging software to help. If you have something negative to say, please direct that energy into your next workout.