Modern living and chronic disease - how did we even get to this point?
If you've been looking around, you've seen quite a few examples of chronic disease in our population. Some of the numbers I'm seeing show that 1 out of every 2 people has at least one chronic disease/condition and 1 out of 3 has more than one. This is scary. What's worse is that it's getting even more prevalent down through the generations. Now, we have young kids suffering from things like type 2 diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, or cancer, and more people than ever encountering fertility issues.
Why is this happening?
The short answer is that while society has advanced exponentially in areas like technology, agriculture, and transportation, the human body is still 99.9% the same as it was thousands of years ago. Physiologically, we are designed to eat real food, move our bodies daily, fight or flee from danger, relax, play, and sleep.
Eating a wide variety of properly prepared real food that is in-season provides us with a smorgasbord of nutrients to power the body to accomplish the bajillion chemical reactions that keep us running perfectly. OK, maybe there's not quite a bajillion, but there's a LOT!
Early humans moved every single day hunting and gathering food, following herds, seeking shelter. They didn't run marathons, do killer cardio workouts, or lift as much weight as possible over and over again. Those behaviors were only needed in cases of extreme emergency and usually only for short bursts. Once they were done for the day, they would eat, relax, and play until the sun went down. Then they would sleep.
That's not how the world works these days.
These days, many people eat industrialized convenience food-like substances (usually bolted down on the run), sit for most of their day, stress their bodies out in a myriad of ways, constantly rush around bombarded by toxicants, stay up way too late using artificial light, and drop into bed exhausted to sleep for too little time. Am I right?
And that doesn't even take into account the mental and emotional factors. When did it become "OK" to feel guilty for not being perfect at everything? Why is it "normal" to apologize for taking some time for yourself? Why is shaming a part of our food culture?
With this many internal and environmental insults, is it any wonder that our bodies are getting overwhelmed, worn out, and dysfunctional?
Does that mean there's no hope, and we should just continue to accept this depressing status quo? Oh, heck, no! Absolutely not! There are so many ways we can reverse this downward spiral. Now, is there an Easy Button? Um...no. I'm not going to fib to you. I'll tell you from experience that health transformations are not for wussies.
Is it doable? Yes. Is it worth all the effort? Yes, yes, YES!!!!
Photo by Henrikke Due on Unsplash