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I love food. I love to eat, I always have. Food was a reward for good report card, or a way to console me after something tragic when I was a kid. I had the stereotypical Italian grandma that always made too much food for any and every occasion, so it’s not that big a surprise that I grew up the fat kid, and I never grew out of it.
Harmful Habits
We look around and see mainly two types of people. Fit people and obese people. Yes, there are some that fall in between obviously, but overall, that’s what we see. It is becoming more and more frequent to see more obese people than ever, a trend that has been called a pandemic by physicians all over the world. This was a pandemic that had been recognized before COVID caught everyone’s attention and made that a household name.
Obesity used to be primarily a disease of Western culture. Our diets brought it on. Too much sugar, oil, and animal fats, not nearly enough plants. Obesity has a direct link to causation of type II diabetes. Also, rampant in the world and at epidemic, if not pandemic levels. And we, as humans, have done it to ourselves.
Just an Exaggeration?
You read the information I just wrote and think, yeah right, she’s full of it! So now I will do what is expected. I will throw in numbers and percentages! Why? They stand out among the words. Numbers are impressive and make people think a little harder about what has been written. They indicate research, actual science, has been done!
There are at least 700 million obese people in the world. 108 million of those are children. This will be the first generation that, despite the advancements in science and medicine, will have shorter lives than their parents. Now read that again and let it sink in for a minute.
When I was in grade school, there were maybe four or five kids in the whole school of about 200 kids that would have been considered obese. Now, it is not uncommon to see that many in each classroom.
Heavy Complications
Just being overweight isn’t enough to let me verbally bash people and call them out. I am not excluding myself, so don’t anyone dare start pointing fingers. Let me add more information to your reeling brains!
A type II diabetic is at as high a risk for heart disease as someone that has already had a heart attack! Diabetics very often lose toes, fingers, or even limbs due to poor circulation. They frequently suffer blindness due to the disease. There are four million deaths per year attributed to complications from obesity.
That all kind of makes you want to go for a walk and eat a salad for dinner, doesn‘t it?
Silver Lining
Now for some good news! Obesity isn’t permanent. Type II diabetes is totally reversible. You have the power to change your life and change your body before your body makes you a prisoner. It’s not easy. If it were, obesity wouldn’t be a pandemic and type II diabetes would be nothing but a blip on the radar. But it’s definitely possible. You have to decide if you’re worth saving.
There are so many ways to start a better eating regiment, whether it be following a specific diet plan, or working on a few meals at a time. Try a new cookbook with some new ideas to get you started. Try some supplements to increase your plant intake to help you feel fuller longer.
Never Give Up
If you are struggling to see how this might relate to you and your anxiety, let me help connect the dots. We all have what I call a baseline anxiety level. That is just what we go around with every day without any triggers. For most of us, since COVID, our baseline levels have gone up. This makes every trigger elicit a bigger response, making it harder to keep things in a “good space”.
I am not going to take the time to poll everyone in the world but am I going to go out on a limb and believe that most of us will agree that if you feel better physically, you will feel better emotionally. This helps stabilize or even bring down that baseline anxiety level. The healthier your body, the better off your brain will be.
Comments and feedback are always welcome!