Keep your health in check this fall

By Adeline Griffith
Contributor

As I walk around campus, most of the food I see is packaged, processed, and consists mostly of ingredients I can’t pronounce. On Instagram, I see people I know posting proudly how they ate an entire pizza themselves, or are “treating” themselves to a doughnut, or a day in bed watching television, despite the fact that it’s not an anomaly in their lifestyle. As I drive down the highway, every other billboard I see is a deceitful photograph of a fast food meal designed to make your mouth water.

These things, as well as many more aspects of society, have normalized the consumption of unhealthy food and lack of exercise. Especially as school starts and peoples’ schedules fill up, health seems to be thrown to the wayside.

I typically receive both bafflement and admiration when people learn that I eat healthy, run daily and genuinely enjoy it. A lot of people tell me that they wish they could do that but don’t have the time and sometimes I get responses like, “See, that sounds nice and all, but I just love cake too much.”

I used to be a complete sugar fiend, but after an unpleasant sugar crash, complete with extreme nausea that caused my mother to panic that I was diabetic, I made a sweeping declaration that I was going to eat healthy. I started by cutting sugar out of my diet.

It didn’t come easy at first, which was to be expected, but the more I refused to return to my former comforts of ice cream and chai lattes, the more I began to get used to it. I was honestly the last person I would’ve expected to become a health nut, but here I am.

“When we’re busy and running around, we usually pop something easy, like sugar or something that acts like it,” said Contstance Henderson, an integrative nutrition educator and coach who works at the WCC Fitness Center. “We eat sugar because it’s comforting in the moment, but it has the same addictive properties as cocaine.”

Unhealthy eating habits, such as too much sugar, sodium or processed food, can cause many physical problems. This includes, but is in no way limited to, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and several types of cancer.

“Just because you’re youthful doesn’t mean you should set a bad foundation,” said Henderson.

“You’re making all this effort to go to school, but you’re killing yourself on the side; slowly.”

The standard American diet consists of mostly processed, packaged  foods and animal products. Only a mere 12% is from plant-based based foods, half of which comes from french fries, according to an article written by Naomi Imatome-Yun on forksoverknives.com.

People are eating what they want, not what they need. Maybe it’s because they know it’s bad but don’t care. Maybe it’s because they’re not even aware of the negative effects. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to break free of old habits. The list goes on, but no matter your reason, it’s not an excuse to ruin your mind and body by something so preventable.

“Your body has beautifully wonderful healing powers if it gets what it needs,” said Henderson said as she drew a diagram of a plate and separated it into 5 parts: protein, fiber, good fats, fruits and vegetables, and a tiny section she called “play.”

Play gives you room to treat yourself a little. If you’re taking care of your body, you can have the luxury of eating some fun stuff sometimes because your body will know how to process it and recover, according to Henderson.

It is also important that we exercise. Between school and work, most of our day is spent sitting at a desk and we don’t move nearly as much as we are meant to.

“You need to get the recommended physical activity, which is 150 minutes per week, minimum,” said Nicholas DiBenedetto, a personal trainer at the WCC fitness center. “Walking, running, being on your feet reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.”

We have one body, and one shot at taking care of it. It’s time we figure out how, and make it happen. 

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