As teenagers, most of us don’t even care if we’re eating right, or begin to understand the implications of poor eating habits. However, as we age, we begin to notice the effects of improper exercise, poor eating habits, and how they affect our health. Today, as baby boomers begin their retirement years, health concerns and questions are on the rise. These aging boomers are more concerned than any previous generation about their good health, their ability to maintain good health, and how their diet affects their health.
You don’t have to be a doctor to understand the relationship between excessive food consumption and health disorders. You just have to look around you in a nation approaching an obesity epidemic to understand what happens when you overeat in general. On a smaller scale, we wonder about overconsumption of only certain types of food. What happens when you go overboard in the sweet department?
There are all kinds of health problems related to excessive sugar consumption. Diabetes would be the number one health problem. But, diabetes is not the only negative effect of excessive sugar consumption. Obesity, thyroid dysfunction, poor kidney function, and intestinal problems can be directly associated with excessive sugar consumption.
What about excess alcohol? The devastating effects of alcoholism are an ongoing struggle and medical expense for many businesses and citizens in this country and, indeed, around the world. Loss of youth, liver problems, brain deterioration, acceleration of other age-related diseases are side effects of excessive alcohol consumption.
So we can talk about the effects of too low food intake. What happens when we do not consume what we need to maintain our health? Gum disease, heart disease, muscle wasting, vision loss, and anorexia occur when we don’t get the necessary food our bodies need.
Even when we can’t get enough real food, we can supplement the vitamins and minerals our bodies need to maintain healthy function. You only have to walk down the aisle of your local supermarket to discover that there has been a vitamin revolution. Every possible vitamin and mineral the body needs is available in capsule, pill, tablet, or powder form.
Once your body has reached the point of unhealthy functioning, or you have put so much stress on your body from overconsumption that one of the related diseases has taken over, it is almost impossible to correct one problem without creating another. Once you have become diabetic, there are so many complications that simply choosing to diet and exercise is no longer an option. The health problems you now have far outweigh the easy fix of diet and exercise. Can you begin to see how important maintaining your health is to your quality of life? How important is it to the quality of life for your spouse and children? Your choices directly affect the situations with your lives. You must do everything possible to maintain your health; Do you owe it not to your family, but to yourself?
