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Scuba diving is so popular, and there is so much money to be made, that the diving business has a tendency to say: "Scuba diving is a very simple and easy activity, that anybody can enjoy". This is simply not true. About one-third of scuba diving accidents involves people who are not medically fit to dive. If you have medical issues that do not allow you to dive, then you have to find another hobby. You need to be free of certain medical issues if you want to dive. You also need a certain level of physical fitness to dive. You need a basic level of cardiovascular fitness when you want to engage in scuba diving. If you are very unfit you should not dive. Accident reports show that a lot of the "accidents" are happening in the group of obese, unfit people who engage in scuba diving. Psychological fitness is another important issue. Do you feel relaxed and confident when you think about going under water? Do you want to start diving to see what is down there, or are you diving for the wrong reasons? If you want to dive to impress people or to look for kicks, maybe you should choose bungee-jumping. The same for your aquatic comfort level: if you are not comfortable in the water, you should not scuba dive. If you for example feel on the edge of panic when you are one minute swimming away from the shore, your aquatic comfort level is not high enough to start scuba diving. Diving is a beautiful activity, but it is not for everyone. It is important to recognize this. There are thousands of hobbies people can engage in. If you are not medically, physically, or psychologically fit to dive you should not do it. And if your aquatic comfort level is not high enough you should either work on that first, or forget about scuba diving as a hobby.
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