Obesity Starts In The Past

This Rewind The Future public service ad from Children's Healthcare of Atlanta shows the consequences of a lifetime of unhealthy choices and it's impact on obesity. Rewinding from a 32 year old man having a heart attack back through moments in his life that collectively brought him to that point.

The ad is a, hopefully, sobering look at how your food DOES matter.  We're often taught “a calorie is a calorie, just eat less and exercise more.”  To that I would like to point out the vast difference between 100 calories of broccoli and 100 calories of french fries.  Our bodies are amazing but they still need the correct fuel to run properly.  Borrowing a metaphor from Liz Lipski, “We fuel our bodies the way we fuel our cars.  Stop.  Gas.  Go.”  I'd like to point out that at least we give our cars the fuel they need.  If you put water in your gas tank your car isn't going to make it very far.  Unfortunately that's what we wind up doing with our bodies; sugar is not a healthy fuel choice, excessive and overwhelming amounts of unhealthy fats, chemicals, sodium, all add up to have a negative impact on health.  I frequently say, and I strongly believe, you need to eat well to be well.

I do like this ad and I hope it shocks people and then gets them to make a change.  I'd also like to point out the following:

1. It is never too late to make a change.  Every thing that you do for health is one thing more than you were doing the day before.  And it all adds up.  Rather than giving up in defeat (“oh I'm already fat/sick/diabetic/ill”)  resolve to love your body and your life by committing to make a change.

2. Food producers are large part of the problem, they create foods which are high fat, high sugar, highly addictive and then spend tens of millions of dollars marketing them.  And we are surrounded by it every day in almost every setting.  It's extremely challenging to make changes when you are immersed in an environment that's calculated to encourage you to eat poorly.

3.  Part of #2 above but so important that I'm going to give it it's own number is the fact that manufacturers overload our food and deliberately seek out that perfect balance to make us desire them.  And then claim that it is not in any way their fault.  It's us, we should have better control.  While I'm not saying that we do not have individual responsibility I feel strongly that they need to acknowledge their role in what's happening.  Shoving excess sugar, fat, and chemicals into our food because they know it makes it seem to taste better is upsetting.  Refusing to accept that this is a part of the issue is just plain wrong.

4. Family habits are…well…a habit. Set healthy ones for your family.  It's not easy but it's worth it to make that focus on healthy eating, exercise, and wellness.

5. The biggest challenge, in my opinion, is that it takes so very long for these health issues to show up, in some cases decades.  That makes it difficult to stay focused sometimes.  We don't see the effects immediately after eating a particular food.  It's after years of eating that way that our body finally begins to show the results.

One eye-opening movie that looks at some of this is Fed Up.  A documentary to examines sugar in our food supply.  Below is a trailer from the movie followed by a video of a 10 day no sugar challenge.