The Scale and the Mirror …
Feb 29, 2016 08:56PM ● By Annette Briggs (Owner/Publisher)
If there’s one thing that controls what we do, where we go, who we see, how we see ourselves and how we see the world we live in, it’s what we eat. Let’s face it, the scale and the mirror can be a person’s best friends or worst enemies.
The fact is that the word “F-A-T” is the new four-letter word. I remember the cartoon Fat Albert, which I watched many times in my earlier years (showing my age a bit). The main cartoon character, Albert, was always joyous, fun-loving and happy about life as he and his friends explored the world around them together. In fact, his buddies always referred to him as “Fat” Albert … not just Albert, due to his size. To go one step further, the cartoon’s opening line was “Hey, hey, hey … it’s Fat Albert!” Well … it was a very funny cartoon for millions of kids of that day (including me); however, as I have grown older and wiser, I’ve seen and continue to see in the lives of so many, the devastating consequences of that word “fat,” which really translates better to obesity.
It’s true—we are what we eat. It was true for Albert, and the same holds true for all of us today blessed with the wonderful opportunity to make wiser diet and lifestyle choices for better health. World-class chef and award-winning cookbook author Marcus Samuelsson once stated: “We struggle with eating healthily, obesity and access to good nutrition for everyone. But we have a great opportunity to get on the right side of this battle by beginning to think differently about the way that we eat and the way that we approach food.”
Well said! We do have the chance to get on the “right side” of the subject of nutrition. It starts with changing how we think, which determines how we live and the daily choices, good or bad, that we make. How important are the decisions that we make when it comes to food? Well … it’s no laughing matter. According to statistics, unhealthy eating and physical inactivity are the leading causes of death in the U.S., causing 678,000 deaths each year, with more than 67.5 percent of American adults overweight or obese. In the last 30 years, obesity rates have doubled in adults, tripled in children and quadrupled in adolescents.
More and more, the typical American diet is too high in calories, saturated fat, sodium and sugar, and does not have enough fruits, vegetables, whole foods, minerals and nutrients, which can lead to an increased risk of diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and cancer. Let’s crunch the numbers. It is estimated that better nutrition could reduce the cost of these diseases by a whopping $71 billion every year.
It’s a lot to “chew” on, huh? This month’s editorial theme is Food Matters, and yes it does! Albert had close friends, but unfortunately, one of them was not his obesity. A fictional cartoon character can live on forever un-aging and never feeling the effects of poor choices—not so for us in the real world. We’ve got to do the right things to get the right results. Let’s do it … and then maybe the scale and the mirror can become life-long friends.
In health,
