Elevating Exercise & Sport To Promote Wellness As An Essential Priority In Life

I’ve come across this topic in articles and news clippings, time and time again.
I’ve read and heard the words of scientific experts across the globe, time and time again.
I’ve racked up the evidence and weighed the outcomes, time and time again.
Disease, illness, low self-esteem, diabetes, cancer, obesity…
Time and time again.

Little fairies, veteran survivors, regiments of pink armies far and wide.
Little fairies, veteran survivors, regiments of pink armies tread that familiar 5-kilometre pledge,
Time and time again.

Tomorrow I will be bombarded with the wrong choices, time and time again.
Today, I will fight for my tomorrow, time and time again.
Yesterday will hand the baton of my effort and perish by my bed for me to start all over,
Time and time again. 

 Will I find the peace I crave in the discipline I must offer, time and time again?
Maybe one day it will all fall in place - the words I hold on to, time and time again.
I feel stronger, fitter, healthier - the effects the good days have, time and time again.
The sustenance of my effort will last, time and time again - the words I believe,
 

Time and time again.

Child obesity: Why do parents let their kids get fat?

The end of the school year comes with a mixed bag of feelings for most kids. Whether it’s the fear of exam results, excitement about the summer holidays or the apprehension behind progressing to a higher form of education or a completely new vocation - it’s all pretty hectic. On the other hand, the beginning of the school year can be full of much optimism and joy for kids and parents alike. New challenges; New teachers; New activities; All great stuff but one school report is in already and it doesn’t make for light reading. The question here though is, who is getting the bad grades and why? For once, it’s the parents in the spotlight.

A recent report from the BBC News Magazine appearing in the news today has shown that the start of this new school year has kicked off with a dramatic increase in the request for extra-large uniforms for primary school children.

Just over 33% of 11-year-olds are now overweight or obese and among four and five-year-olds it’s 22%, according to the most recent figures from the National Child Measurement Programme, which assesses the height and weight of primary children in England (Winterman 2012). With the health risks for obese children higher than previously estimated, the emphasis and care parents need to show their children has risen more than what is being offered at this present moment in time. With the new research published today by the University of Oxford also suggesting that obese children and adolescents have several risk factors for heart disease, including raised blood pressure and cholesterol, compared with normal weight children.

A multitude of complexities exist when it comes to parents tackling the problems of children and their weight. They range from a lack of education about food, limited cooking skills and limited money to buy healthier food to longer working hours and marketing campaigns for junk food aimed at kids. 

Kidding Around: Children and Exercise is a wonderful article that explores ways of combating the sedentary lives that more children tend to live these days. With children today having a higher percent body fat and also being considerably less fit and active than children of the 1960s, it is up to parents to fight back against this consumption-driven society and help our kids to live healthier and more productive lives. 

IS IT CAUSE I’M FAT

The mind is a funny thing sometimes. We get so worked up about social recognition to trigger the reward centres in our brains and feel like we’ve done a good job. It happens all too often, be it with your boss at work, your school work and sadly sometimes even your hobbies. We all scrutinise to the point of no return all hoping to hear nothing but a few words of acknowledgement from people who may or may not even give a hoot. The popular analogy of dangling the carrot with the stick comes to mind. 

Unfortunately, this problem does more to hinder the hard work and effort we put in trying to achieve whichever task we put in front of us. In terms of healthy living and weight loss, not getting the recognition for our effort can kill the buzz you’ve been able to sustain for months on end trying to improve your health and for some, this is not only demoralising but also discourages you from wanting that effort in ever again. 

The people over at Gizmodo said it best, “For many people, a decision to lose weight isn’t just made because of the obvious health advantages, but to change the way people think about them.” What researchers at the University of Hawaii, The University of Manchester, and Monash University have found is that even when people do lose weight and try to turn their lives around, it does little to change the minds of friends or family. They were able to explain their results, published in the journal Obesity:

“Those who had been obese in the past were perceived as less attractive than those who had always been thin, despite having identical height and weight. The findings demonstrate that residual obesity stigma persists against individuals who have ever been obese, even when they have lost substantial amounts of weight.” 

I’ve witnessed this anti-fat prejudice and much like what the research pointed to, the belief that weight is highly controllable is what society hangs onto. Evidence towards this notion, both for and against is widely available but with that said, the negative connotations of excess weight is obvious. We get bombarded with what society thinks is sexy and beautiful everyday and living up to these falsified standards is trying to fill a bottomless glass.

The key to breaking away from this trap, other than living peacefully in a remote corner of this planet, far removed from any and every form of socially infiltrated media, is to love yourself through every peak and trough. We all want to look and feel better with ourselves and our progress in whatever it may be, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That can never be possible if we don’t learn to satisfy the biggest sceptic of them all…. yourself.

Love your body. Spark on :-)

THE PERFECT STORM!

 ’Just a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down our bodies rundown’ 

With the exportation of the ‘western diet’ reaching all corners of the globe, researchers at the University of California explore the problems associated with this diet and tackles the complex issue of “How did we get so fat so fast?”.

One extremely chilling excerpt from the video highlighted a public health announcement from the UN secretary general in September 2011 that non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cancer, dementia) now pose a bigger threat to the developing world than did acute infectious diseases which includes HIV!!!

I have seen first hand the extremely damaging and life altering effects of cancer on the human body. Something I couldn’t wish on anybody in this world. We all have one life to live, granted. That shouldn’t give you the reason to batter your body to a pulp, affect the mind set of your kids, obscure the efforts of those close to you or whichever other heading you fall under in a whole host of categories of behaving irrationally and irresponsibly with your food choices. On the grandest scale of all, when your actions affect the population, as far reaching as the other side of the world, I think it may be time to stop and realise the consequences of such actions.