Why Does America Struggle with Such a Preventable Health Crisis?
The answer is very complicated and most frustratingly, it has a lot more to do with our environment than failings or lack of willpower on the part of the individual. As many have observed, if you “go with the flow” in America, you will be overweight or obese.
This does not mean, however, that individuals are powerless or that we should accept this with certainty as our assured fate. Education and wellness coaching can go a long way in empowering individuals to swim against the current towards better health and wellness.
This blog post will explore some of the issues that tangle together to make healthy living in this country so elusive for the majority.
The more you learn and know about the environment in which we need to make food, activity and ultimately health decisions each day, you more you realize weight issues and obesity can not be blamed on a failure of individual agency or willpower. We are not doomed, but understanding the issues described below is imperative for the individual to have a chance of navigating themselves and their families towards health. In America, health is the ultimate “knowledge is power” issue of our time.
Our Very New Toxic Environment is at Odds with Our Evolution
In the last 75 years, we have created a toxic environment in America that is incompatible with the way our body’s needs have evolved. Our modern world is characterized by excess energy reserves hard to avoid and this abundance of calories is evolutionarily new. For 4 million years humans have inhabited an environment of food scarcity so we are programed to eat as much as possible when calorie dense foods, such as meat, become available.
This hardwiring allowed us to survive food insecurity, and even famine, but in our current landscape of overabundance, the instinct becomes disadvantageous. Food is now obsequious everywhere in America – we see it at gas stations and bookstores and vending machines are present at every school and workplace. This is another new development and it provides us with unrelenting external cues to eat.
We are also designed to walk several miles a day in search of food, water, and firewood—as indigenous people do to this very day. Since our bodies depend on this activity to function properly, our new sedentary, indoor lifestyles cause chronic discomfort, pain and arthritic conditions for the 1 in 4 American adults that get no physical activity at all.
Additionally, up until the very recent past, people lived and worked in dwellings without the consistent temperature control of central heating and air conditioning. That meant that many calories consumed in past generations where expanded to maintain the body’s internal temperature.
These biological factors put us at odds with our new food supply, which has become completely industrialized during the same period of time. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts that take a deeper dive into the health and wellness issues that arise as a consequence of our industrialized food system.
Explore Wellness Coaching to Combat These Issues
Learn more about developing your own personalized formula for heath and wellness to combat these issues by working with a Thrive Wellness Coach.
The answer is very complicated and most frustratingly, it has a lot more to do with our environment than failings or lack of willpower on the part of the individual. As many have observed, if you “go with the flow” in America, you will be overweight or obese.
This does not mean, however, that individuals are powerless or that we should accept this with certainty as our assured fate. Education and wellness coaching can go a long way in empowering individuals to swim against the current towards better health and wellness.
This blog post will explore some of the issues that tangle together to make healthy living in this country so elusive for the majority.
The more you learn and know about the environment in which we need to make food, activity and ultimately health decisions each day, you more you realize weight issues and obesity can not be blamed on a failure of individual agency or willpower. We are not doomed, but understanding the issues described below is imperative for the individual to have a chance of navigating themselves and their families towards health. In America, health is the ultimate “knowledge is power” issue of our time.
Our Very New Toxic Environment is at Odds with Our Evolution
In the last 75 years, we have created a toxic environment in America that is incompatible with the way our body’s needs have evolved. Our modern world is characterized by excess energy reserves hard to avoid and this abundance of calories is evolutionarily new. For 4 million years humans have inhabited an environment of food scarcity so we are programed to eat as much as possible when calorie dense foods, such as meat, become available.
This hardwiring allowed us to survive food insecurity, and even famine, but in our current landscape of overabundance, the instinct becomes disadvantageous. Food is now obsequious everywhere in America – we see it at gas stations and bookstores and vending machines are present at every school and workplace. This is another new development and it provides us with unrelenting external cues to eat.
We are also designed to walk several miles a day in search of food, water, and firewood—as indigenous people do to this very day. Since our bodies depend on this activity to function properly, our new sedentary, indoor lifestyles cause chronic discomfort, pain and arthritic conditions for the 1 in 4 American adults that get no physical activity at all.
Additionally, up until the very recent past, people lived and worked in dwellings without the consistent temperature control of central heating and air conditioning. That meant that many calories consumed in past generations where expanded to maintain the body’s internal temperature.
These biological factors put us at odds with our new food supply, which has become completely industrialized during the same period of time. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts that take a deeper dive into the health and wellness issues that arise as a consequence of our industrialized food system.
Explore Wellness Coaching to Combat These Issues
Learn more about developing your own personalized formula for heath and wellness to combat these issues by working with a Thrive Wellness Coach.
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