subject: Take Responsibility For Your Health Starting With Your Diet [print this page] Besides the fact that your existence is contingent upon the state of your health, so is the overall enjoyment of your life. Most will admit that life is most enjoyable when it is disease-free. Yet, in most cases, the illness and deadly health conditions that are most prominent among Americans are preventable. However, we are quite careless in doing what needs to be done to keep our health on the up and up. Amongst other things, we are neglectful in maintaining a nutritious, healthful diet, but this is where the path to good health begins.
The body requires food for nourishment. As such, it behooves us to be careless in choosing the right foods to carry out this task. Nonetheless, we have become a junk food nation, a society of sugar-crazed, high sodium, processed food junkies. This has consequently led to record-breaking rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, stroke, cancer, hypertension, and a host of other deadly diseases.
The message here is clear. Triumphing over these statistics begins with taking responsibility for our own health. It means that we have to eat and drink more responsibly. Every time we even think about eating we have to ask ourselves whether or not it will be nourishing for our bodies. We have to become responsible enough to educate ourselves on what will benefit our bodies versus what will harm it. We have to own our health rather than leaving its fate in the hands of others.
The state of our health cannot wait for legislation to be passed or for food producers to change their product line. It also cannot wait for grocers to diversify their selection. Thus, the responsibility is that of every individual. If a food company does not offer foods that best serve the interest of our nutritional needs, then we have to look until we find one that does. If the government will not raise its standards and make policy changes that protect our interests, then we have to use our power as consumers to do it for ourselves. If pharmaceutical companies do not develop medicines that cure our illnesses rather than create dependency, then we have to return to ancestral practices of utilizing food as medicine. Either way you look at it, the power lies within each of us to improve and safeguard our health. So, why not be proactive in improving your health, starting now?
