Are You Willing to Take the Pledge to Be Healthy Today?

By , SparkPeople Blogger
I am a health fanatic. I read everything I can get my hands on when it comes to healthy living--everything from nutrition to exercise to the role sleep plays in our lifestyle and on and on. If it has healthy and living in the title I read it.

Recently I came across three very staggering and disturbing statistics about the health and well-being of Americans, especially our children. If you feel as passionate as I did when I read the research, I think one by one we can slowly turn this trend of obesity and unhealthy living around. It isn’t going to be easy, but it must be done, if we want to live healthy and productive lives and more importantly if we want the next generation to do the same.

The latest research shows that by the year 2030, 86% of Americans will be classified as overweight or obese! That is only 21 years away!!! And if this trend does not change, ALL Americans will be overweight or obese by 2048!

To think that this trend is going to change without our commitment and hard work, we must think again. This trend has yet to see a decline, since records have been kept. This must change, NOW! Not only does obesity endanger our health but according to Youfa Wang, MD, PhD, lead author of the study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the University of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine, expect for health care cost to double with each passing decade.

The second stat that shocked me was the one stating that by the end of next year (2010)-a little less than 2 years away-cancer will surpass heart disease as the number one killer of individuals. This is a very frightening statistic since many of the risks for causing cancers can be related to our lifestyles. Yes, some cancers do carry a genetic predisposition, but many first generation cancer diagnoses may be related to a lifestyle of poor diet, lack of exercise, lack of sleep and our inability to deal with stress.

Finally, and possibly the most unfortunate stat is the one claiming that this generation of children will be the first generation in over 200 years who will not experience the life expectancy of their parents or grandparents. In the wonderful world of science and technology, there is still no substitute for healthy nutrition and exercise. This is something we MUST teach our children by living as an example. You deserve to be healthy and so do your children!

With diseases such as Type II diabetes and heart disease reaching epidemic proportions we are slowly imploding as a nation. A few years ago while I was attending a cardiology seminar, the cardiologist leading the discussion stated that those individuals who have been diagnosed with Type II diabetes are put in the same high risk category as those HAVING ALREADY suffered from a heart attack. Talk about a wake-up call. Here we have our children being diagnosed at an alarming rate with Type II diabetes, which was very rare prior to 1980, now facing many long term health effects at such a young age if we do not change TODAY!

A running friend of mind who works as a transplant coordinator for some of the largest hospitals in the south mentioned to me that pediatric hepatologists (liver specialist) are quite alarmed at the rate of fatty liver disease in young children. Having elevated liver enzymes for years on end can lead to non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver, as well as end stage liver disease. Unfortunately, we cannot survive without our livers; therefore many of the patients, if we do not reverse this trend, will require liver transplants--this in a world where organs are few and far between for transplantation as is. Once again telling us all of the urgency to change the direction we and our children are heading in.

I hope you don’t view this blog as nothing but doom and gloom. At least for me, education is fundamental to changing our views. The research is out there. And while it’s easy to turn a blind’s eye to such reports, eventually we will all be paying the price in increased health care cost or losing our children well before their prime. This is a reality, even for health care providers who are urging their patients to change but do not have the means for doing so.

So what can we do? We must change our lifestyles and be role models for our children and families. They say one person can’t make a change--I don’t believe it.
This is where SparkPeople is such a valuable tool. And for your kids, I highly recommend the SparkTeens site.

If we all take the pledge that we are not going to allow unhealthy habits to control our lives then WE CAN and WE WILL make the change. Are you willing to take the pledge to be healthy-not just to be thin or a certain number on the scale, but truly embrace the world of healthy living?