Don’t Die Of Ignorance

I have been reading up quite a bit lately about nutrition and health, or to be more accurate holistic nutrition and health. Some of the stats that I have stumbled across are positively frightening, especially around obesity in the US. It only takes a walk through a mall or down a busy street to know that a lot of people are overweight but I had no idea the figure was over 60%!. This is a national emergency that poses a threat to the nation that leaves terrorism trailing in its wake. Yet very little of any substance is done about it, why is that?

 

I guess it could be that successive Governments are scared to be seen to be meddling in personal affairs. It could be that food manufacturers have millions of $’s to lobby Government to prevent any real change being legislated for on the quality of food that they are allowed to sell to the general public. It could be that the pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars in selling medications for diseases and conditions that could be treated by a change in lifestyle and so will fight tooth and nail to hold on to those profits. It could be that people are lazy and that they would rather pop a  pill for depression than look into the causes and try and treat those. Whatever the reason or reasons, it appears that it is up to the us the individual to take responsibility for our own health and wellbeing because if we don’t nobody else will.

 

One of the books I have been reading is ‘The Five Forces of Wellness: The Ultraprevention System for Living an Active, Age-Defying, Disease-Free Life“by Dr Mark Hyman and I would thoroughly recommend it. Dr Hyman takes an approach that is born out of looking for the causes of disease rather than simply trying to diagnose it (i.e. give it a label) and then treat the symptoms. His conclusions are that the majority of illness emanates out of lifestyle and diet. That is, eating the wrong foods, lack of exercise and high stress levels. Sound familiar?

 

I’m a life coach not a nutritionist nor a medical doctor, but I know enough to realize that the diet of highly processed, high saturated foods that most people indulge in, is a recipe (excuse the pun) for disaster. I see many people that come for me with stress management issues that could often feel much better by following some simple life style advice.

 

There is a quote and I forget who it was by in the book and I paraphrase “Today’s children are the first in American history that are likely to die younger and live more unhealthily than their parents.” A sobering thought and one that will all probability come to realization if we don’t act soon.

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