Skip to main content

Eat Right, Exercise Regularly, Die Anyway!

I came across a thread on a local mommy discussion board recently that resonated with me. The gist of the conversation revolved around this conundrum: how do you balance health and convenience and (further) how do you reconcile the seemingly contradictory health information that we face every day? 

Examples:
We all know you should wear sunscreen to prevent skin cancer, right? Did you know that some research indicates that sunscreens may be bad for us...and for the environment? Plus, now we have to worry about Vitamin D deficiency if we don't get enough sun. 


We all know we should eat our fruits and veggies...but do they have to be organic? or locally grown? How many of us can afford a completely organic lifestyle? 

Carbs are evil...meat is murder...High Fructose Corn Syrup is from the devil (and yet in everything known to man)...keep your house clean but only use "green" products... 


It makes my head spin.


Even with all of the supposed knowledge at our disposal about what's good, bad, or otherwise for our health, there are endless examples of contradictions caused by a crazy mixture of environment and genetics. There are those who drink, smoke, and eat junk food and live a long life with few health effects. Then there are those whose lives are taken far too soon. For no apparent reason other than bad luck and weird genetics. I just don't get it.


For many of the moms in the discussion, a lot seemed to boil down to convenience and cost. It's challenging to provide a healthy, organic meal that tastes good to your family night after night. I'm not saying it's impossible. People make a lot of money writing blogs and books on the topic. But have you been to Whole Paycheck (I mean Whole Foods Market)
lately? That stuff ain't cheap!  


I think that, as with many things in life, it's all about balance. In my own life, I think about the changes I can make that fit my budget and my lifestyle. I make small steps towards those changes. I eat more veggies. I avoid high fructose corn syrup if I can buy an alternative brand. I buy organic if it fits my budget. I also enjoy a yummy burger on occasion and buy whatever sunscreen is on sale. 


I have a friend who makes a conscious effort to feed her family as healthfully as possible when at home so that when they are "out and about" or on vacation or visiting with friends, they can be more flexible with their dining choices. Hopefully, it all balances out in the end. 


Here's the really important part: life is too short to miss out on chocolate milkshakes, a fine steak, and salty thick-cut french fries. We just have to make sure those items aren't part of our daily recommended nutritional intake, right?

How do you balance nutrition, good taste, convenience, and environmental consciousness?
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Edge of Seventeen

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9.  Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole.  There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them."    I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known.  This
Read more

Bittersweet Sixteen

I think about Charlotte every single day. However, this time of year, I'm flooded with all kinds of memories as we commemorate the anniversary of her birth. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Sixteen.  If cancer had not taken her life back in 2010, I have a feeling I would be planning a massive birthday celebration this year. 16 always feels like a landmark year in someone's life.  I have been thinking a great deal about the last birthday party we had for Charlotte in 2009. We didn't know it at the time, but we were halfway through her treatment journey. We had been through three major brain surgeries and a few rounds of inpatient chemotherapy. Treatments were not going well. In fact, right after her birthday, we would make the trip to Houston, Texas where we would settle in for about 10 weeks of proton beam radiation treatments and a new customized chemotherapy protocol. This was the unspoken "last chance option" to beat that aggressive brain tumor into
Read more

Tis the Season for Leaks

Now that we've had a few posts to settle in with one another, let's get personal, shall we?   It's almost an understatement to say that this has been a difficult year.  The last few weeks, especially, brought back a flood of memories.  This time last year, we were in the home stretch .   We were watching our daughter die.  I have spent the weeks since Thanksgiving thinking of our final days with her.  I miss her terribly.  I miss her laugh and her smile and her stories.  I cry a lot.   This is going to sound funny but I don't cry the way I used too.  In the past, if I got upset, you would KNOW that I was upset.  Now, it just kind of leaks out.  I'll be sitting somewhere: waiting in line at the store, working, driving in my car....and the tears just start to flow.  I don't even necessarily "break down" and sob.  I just leak.   Anything can trigger the leak.  Usually it's a memory of Charlotte.  Sometimes I'm reminded of a child or a family i
Read more