Friend Or Foe?

Is your diet plan your friend or your foe? To be truthful, diet plans don’t work. Or if they do, they only work for a while. Or they work as long as you take the pill or eat the food, then you regain the weight you lost plus some, so you have to start at square one and start the pills or food plan all over again. It is a never-ending merry-go-round and roller coaster ride that once you start you can’t ever seem to get off. People go from diet-to-diet and plan-to-plan only to go on to something else that sounds better, something that they see on television, something that a celebrity endorses, or something that a friend has lost some weight on.

We are talking about a multi-million dollar a year business that doesn’t ever want you to get slim and stay that way. If you didn’t need to lose more weight, then who would buy their products? Haven’t you seen over the years how the diet business has boomed and grown? That is because there is big money in it for those that sell it… and big expenses for those that purchase it.

If you follow the statistics, you see that in our country obesity is now classified as an epidemic. Two out of three U. S. adults are now overweight. This is up from the 1960’s when fewer than one out of four was classified as overweight or obese. Our kids are now obese at a young age. This is partly due to the fast food industry that sells them fat laden foods packaged in cute little meal boxes that are targeted just for them. The food is fast, easy, and unhealthy. Moms buy it on the run and serve it to their kids in the car. That is because both the moms and kids are short on time: going from one activity to another. What even compounds the problem more is that these meals also come with sugar-laden drinks included.

The diet business is now looking at a multigenerational scenario of selling to parents and their children. This is not a pretty picture if you consider the cost of the medical problems caused by obesity for either generation. By being overweight, you are more likely to develop health problems, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, certain types of cancer, gout (joint pain caused by excess uric acid), and gallbladder disease. This can also cause problems such as sleep apnea (interrupted breathing during sleep), arthritis, and osteoarthritis (wearing away of the joints). The total annual economic cost of obesity in 2002 was estimated to be $132 billion. The per capita annual costs of health care rose from $10,071 in 1997 to $13,243 in 2002, an increase of more than 30 percent.

Part of the answer to this problem lies in lifestyle change. By returning to a lower fat, less pre-packaged/pre-prepared diet we can counteract this trend of obesity. It takes a little thinking ahead and a little time spent in preparation. But the enormity of the consequences overrides all the objections. Just by losing as little as 10 to 20 pounds, or 5 to 10 percent of your body weight you can improve many of the problems linked to being overweight.

Adding exercise to your regime can also make a huge improvement in your health and your children’s overall health. Exercise also has the extra benefit of reducing the risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, beyond weight loss alone. Being physically active also helps you feel better physically and mentally.

So you see, there are small changes that you can start now, and add to later, that can make a huge difference in the health of this generation and the next one. Now that you know the problem and some of the answers, the next step is action. The future is in your hands, literally. Children are our future and what we teach them now can change their lives forever. So is it to be a healthy lifestyle lesson or an unhealthy one? Think about it.

Love yourself and take care.

Frances Lewis