Nutrition- just a general rant
I was just getting home from class and thinking about the way of the world right now. The people in our country getting heavier and not seeing anyone stepping up to reverse the problem for the most part. I really think it needs to be employers who start to make a change to healthier lifestyles.
Why it should be our bosses…
Even though children are also getting heavier, adults are really the cause because we’re in charge of what our kids eat. Usually, until they get to a certain age and have part time jobs and stuff, but still, it’s mainly us as adults.
Nutrition taught in schools doesn’t reach the adults typically. And when it does, it’s in a round about way where there might not be any learning from the info. In order to really change our eating habits, we need the knowledge to know why. If schools aren’t getting it to adults, someone else needs to.
Our government doesn’t have daily contact with us to continually educate on the importance of diet and exercise. Diet here meaning the daily food choices we make not what is now typically called a diet. Not talking restrictions, weight watchers, or atkins. I mean the stuff we eat. Like animals, they’re not “on a diet” but we call what they eat their diet.
Off the soapbox on the diet wording issue now…
Our employers have near daily contact with us. They have to hand out masses of information. With everyone in our company hearing, reading, seeing the same info we automatically have a group of people to discuss the info with. We can discuss valitidy, opinions, and whether we will or wont adopt the info into our eating plans. If a few people decide to act on the info, well it’s a build in support system as then there are others in the same company- that we’d also probably see nearly daily- finding the same struggles and benefits to the new habit or way of eating.
When I’m done with school, I think I will do this where ever it is I work. I’ll find information, print it out, and pass it out.
How else will people know their poor nutrition can kill them sooner? Or make their lives more painful? Or increase their risks of dying a painful long drawn out death of cancer?
So eat healthy, cancer is a painful and long term disease. If you can decrease your risk, and the risk you inflict on your children then decrease it. Don’t put your childrens’ health at stake. Eat healthy.
For The Life Of Me 
I agree with you, Michelle. Though I think employer responsibility needs to extend even further than that. Why is it that in Asian countries there are mandatory “tai chi” breaks during the day? Granted, we have 15 minutes for every 4 hours of work in this country, but many people take that time to smoke a cigarette, or go to the lounge and eat a donut.
Nutrition is just part of the problem. It seems to me that the underlying cause is a societal approach to the body that is disjointed, disconnected. And beyond that is our connection with Nature, with the natural world. There’s so little natural space left in our cities, and even in suburban areas. And there’s less participation in it than ever.
I’m not sure what the solution to this problem is. The Path of Least Resistance is a natural law – everything follows it, and we as natural beings are no different. Everyone would rather sit on the couch and zone out to TV or the internet than to get outside and sit and watch the grass grow…
In full agreement with you as well. I hate seeing that my daughter does not ever play outside unless I force her. In winter when I was a kid, we were always outside building snowmen, having snowball fights. It’s not just her either, it’s her friends as well. They have less desire to go to the park and would rather just stay home and play. Inside. And it’s not because of TV at least here because we don’t have any channels. Only thing we can watch is movies. I’d say we watch two at the most, one or less mostly during a week.
I don’t know the solution either. But I really think my daughter, and kids her age, will have so many more health problems. I really fear that she will die early of disease because of how the world is changing into this much more sedentary and lazy lifestyle.
Oh my I can so agree on this one. I had a teacher at my son’s school send me an email about what my son was choosing to eat at school. (He’s diabetic.) I got pissed. I’m like well if he shouldn’t be eating it then they shouldn’t be serving it at the school. How am I to expect him to make good choices when everyone else is allowed to eat junk and that is what is served for lunch as an option. I have been packing his lunch lately now. He can eat junk if he chooses to and adjust his insulin accordingly. Although not the best plan, he can keep his numbers in range eating junk. It just irritated me that him not eating healthy was only an issue to the school and teachers because my son was diabetic. It should be an issue for them for every kid there.
mama- it would have iritated me as well! How old is your son? My daughter is nearly 11 and definitely not qualified to make nutritional choices at school. Kids her age really don’t need the option of healthy or junk. If they’re offered only healthy stuff, they will eventually eat it. It should be an issue for every kid.
I’m getting caught up on your blog today…some really good stuff. Personally I think the thing with the nutrition education thing is if someone just gives out brochures or “lectures” to people, there’s the uncertainty of are they actually going to listen to it, think about it, and act on it.
The easy part is getting the info out there, what happens after that is pretty much of out of the informer’s control.
Also, I will blog about plyos/using the boxes. Since you’re not starting for another couple weeks, I won’t post it until then.
I agree, and actually think most people probably wont act upon it. At least not at first. But all we need is a few people to really start being vocal about changing eating patterns and habits in a workplace and then others will become more interested. I feel it would be a slow process, but at least a start. With groups of people hearing, seeing, learning the info all at the same time, I think that would help to increase the number of people who would discuss and make changes in eating habits or health habits for that matter. At my work there is one girl who is a bit ahead of me on clean eating. We keep each other motivated to continue. Others see this and ask about it. It definitely makes them more consious of things- I’ve noticed at our department pot lucks things are looking much more healthy. When I first started a year ago, there would not be anything I would eat. Now, they usually say, hey, there’s stuff here even you will eat! There are two other girls who are working toward better eating, one joined me with more salad but don’t know if she’ll continue past that and another looking to loose weight is trying to cut down on processed stuff as well. I like to think (maybe wrongly) that my one coworker and I with our clean eating talk maybe inspired these other two to start eating better. Imagine if the company also encouraged those same habits…
Okay, that got so way longer and tangental than I was expecting!
I’m looking forward to your plyo post! I don’t really know much about it in general. I’m sure there is much more to it than just boxes and I’ll hopefully get in time to research it before I attempt a blind start!
Ultimately I think giving school kids nutritional advice is useless anyway, because the kids will go home, see that Mum has brought home KFC for dinner and decide that if Mum’s doing it, then it must be ok, and all the school’s advice is lost.
Likewise, I think getting employers to educate is pointless as well. I think nutrition is similar to smoking – if people are still eating trash and are too ignorant to believe they are significantly reducing their lifespan, even with all the information in our faces every day, then chances are they won’t turn their eating habits around until either it’s too late, or they get a big health scare.
Having said that, I’m all for spreading the love of good health. If you can convert a few people at work, then I think it’s definitely worth doing! I’ve already got a few at work considering a paleo-style diet!
See Luke, spreading info does work! At my work, us two “clean eaters” though as of yet I’m still far from clean- we do have a few people getting interested as well which is why I think an employer organized would help. I don’t by any means think everyone would be converted. But I think it would start a healthier trend, particularly if incentives were offered…
There will always be some who will say they don’t even care if they die younger as long as they can die doing what they love. To bad they do not realize that whether it be smoking or poor eating, cancer is not a quick all of a sudden you’re dead kind of thing. Watching my uncle battle cancer after not smoking or really having any reason to have cancer (38 when he died), was hard on our family. Yet some people purposely put their loved ones through that by their bad habits.
Keep spreading the info at work! More converts is always good :).
Thats a good point about giving the info to kids! It just complicates the effort many times over since they are not in control of what food gets bought. Plus there’s the whole stigma of healthy food tasting like you-know-what, so then the parent might wonder how they can make a healthy meal that their kid will actually eat.
Good for you guys though to initiate the change at work! Great to hear that you’re getting some converts (sounds kinda cult-ish dont ya think :P)
Chris, for a small fee you can join my cult. I’m thinking it’ll be something like all your worldly possesions :).
I never did get why they give that info to kids. It really should be the parents. And now that I know the way we ate was putting my daughter at risk in her future, I’m much more dedicated to wanting to change our family eating habits :).