Am I risking my health trying to be healthy??

April 1, 2011 12:41 AM

I recently purchased the Jillian Michael's Total-Body Kit. In doing some recent research about workouts to use with it, I came across this warning, which was in reference to the product I bought. What does it mean?

I looked over the entire box, and couldn't find anything other than a latex allergy warning. I did some internet searching, and couldn't figure out what would warrant such a warning. Should I take it seriously? What could possibly be causing the warning (I was thinking perhaps lead?). I have two small children at home, one of which really wants to play with the resistance bands, but now I'm a bit wary of the entire product. The whole cancer/birth defects/reproductive harm thing has me wondering. Help me decide if I should keep this kit or not!

posted by I_love_the_rain to Health & Fitness (6 answers total)

Best answer: California sets requirements for chemical levels above the federal guidelines, and products that don't meet that specification are required to have the above warning when they are sold within the state of California. There's a list of all of the chemicals that cause these types of harm kept by the state--I believe it sits at more than 600 right now. Some are things like lead... others are things like aspirin. My guess based on the resistance bands is that it might be PVC.

So, for what it's worth, there's nothing in the product that triggered any federal guidelines, just a higher-threshold California one. I imagine there are any number of products we all buy on a fairly regular basis that contain a warning only in CA, so the rest of the country is blissfully ignorant of the notice. I'm sure other people here have much more knowledge about the issue both in terms of the warning, and if it is PVC/how problematic that may be, but were it me, I'd keep it. I bet there are any number of other brands of resistance bands/exercise equipment that would carry the same warning were they purchased in California.
posted by HonoriaGlossop at 1:13 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Probably lead.
posted by Mr_Crazyhorse at 6:29 AM on April 1, 2011

In California, they put that sign up in parking buildings.
It's not totally meaningless, but it is pretty ubiquitous.
posted by SLC Mom at 8:07 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, that notice is really weird. I live in CA and see it basically everywhere. It's tucked into the windows of grocery stores. It's definitely hanging up at every mechanic and most medical buildings I've been to.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:10 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Proposition 65 in Plain Language

Paraphrased another way: CA is crazy, not even Europe (who are nicely paranoid about this sort of thing) takes it as far as Proposition 65.
posted by fief at 10:17 AM on April 1, 2011

In California, Starbucks has to have this warning displayed because when coffee beans are heated up (to make the coffee, duh) some sort of carcinogenic chemical is produced as a result. This is a natural process.

This isn't restricted to just Starbucks' coffee. Every cup of coffee ever brewed by anyone in the history of coffee has this same chemical.

Prop 65 is might be one of the most useless laws every voted in by the citizens of California. You can ignore the warning because almost everything and every place has it.
posted by sideshow at 11:50 AM on April 1, 2011 [2 favorites]