Unhealthy Lifestyle Choices

PROBLEM: Unhealthy Lifestyle Choices

These days, it seems like our culture tells us that eating overly processed foods from boxes and gaining unhealthy weight is okay, because everyone else is doing it. But as we stray further and further away from whole, natural foods and a keen understanding of what a truly healthy weight looks like, we’re opening the door to preventable diseases and other health risks that can easily be circumvented by simply learning a few facts about the food we eat.

Those tasty “foods” found in boxes that can be stored for years without losing their flavor or texture have been manufactured at the expense of any nutritional value the original whole food once held. Take that “whole grain” cereal you and your children may have had for breakfast this morning, just as one example. In the process of making great-tasting cereal, heart-healthy grains are broken down to such an extent that the product becomes a sugary, nutrition-less mess.¹ The processed grains and sugars send blood sugar soaring—even Cheerios, one of the best-selling (and seemingly healthy) cereals out there has a very high glycemic index (GI) of 74.² Unfortunately, it’s low glycemic products (with scores of 55 and below) that help people lose and manage weight, reduce the risk of heart disease, and keep us feeling fuller, longer.³ Learn more about the glycemic index here.

These high glycemic scores are prominent in many processed foods because they are filled with sugar, salt, and preservatives to help the products sustain a longer shelf life. Filling your diet with high-glycemic foods can lead to insulin-resistance, which in turn may lead to diabetes and coronary heart disease.⁴

As processed, high-fat, high-sodium foods have become the norm in the United States, so too have larger pant sizes. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), 68 percent of Americans in the United States are either overweight or obese.⁵ That’s more than two out of every three Americans. And exercise? Only about half of Americans exercise regularly (at least three sessions a week for 30 minutes at a time).⁶ This combination of unhealthy eating habits and sedentary lifestyles is slowly killing us by making us more susceptible to diseases that could be prevented by a healthy diet.⁷