Health

Overall - can you beat it? I mean - when you have it and it's good?
Everyone who knows me knows that I strive to be as healthy as possible and that I enjoy it. I work out in a structured class 2x/week, do Pilates 1x/week - am vegetarian and nearly always vegan (striving to reach that 100% vegan goal - learning a little more as I go...), walk or ride my bike or hit the gym on my days off from my classes. I feel inherently abnormal when I don't get in some sort of exercise and I have always been like this.

I am obsessed with 'The Biggest Loser' - really! I never miss an episode...and for those of you who know me - t.v. is really not high on my list of things to do/care about (I'm mostly against t.v., video games, computer games etc. I firmly believe it rots the brain). But I can't get enough of this program!

I am perplexed by the state people allow themselves to get to and live in. My mother is morbidly obese - she may very well be the reason that I (and my sisters) refuse to allow weight to hamper our lives. She's tired: all the time, has bad knees, back pain - and for the life of me - I cannot figure out why she's not yet diabetic (thank god she's not, right?). She's also a nurse: go figure.

There are SO many overweight, obese and morbidly obese people in this country it is simply mind-numbing. Frustrating, disgusting, scary, sad really. I am especially worried about the amount of these people being children. There are many stats that indicate a lot of parents today will outlive their children - and it's the parents' faults! C'mon people - wake up! The incidence of obese people having obese children vs. healthy people have obese children is like 80% higher (and you know it's the same with pets, right? fat pet-owners, fat pets).

This: http://www.naafaonline.com/dev2/ website is one of the most offensive, idiotic, backwards sites/organizations that I have ever known the existance of! It's the "National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance" - not kidding! Holy crap. If you read some of this site - you'll freak out (if you're normal - sorry!) - I mean - Oh My God!

Should we have fat acceptance or something like: the "Coliation to Advance Health and Wellness"? C'mon.

I am also really concerned with the large amounts of self-esteem young (especially girls) people and teenagers have when they're overweight. Now - don't freak out - everyone deserves to have positive self-esteem but - it's got to be for the right reasons, shining through in the right areas and it must be balanced.

I see so many heavy girls wearing clothers their counterparts (with bodies to fit the attire) wear because they too want to look cute, hot - whatever. Well - those clothes shouldn't be made for them - and often it appears they're not. These girls are popping out all over the place - and it's not that they're breasts are growing fast - it's that their thieghs and buts and guts are busting out and it's terrible. Big girls should feel good about themselves for being: smart, funny, kind, compassionate but should NOT carry that over into wearing clothes they really shouldn't. I see people laughing, pointing at these girls - I know I look at them crooked too...and that will ultimately end up in bad feelings - and frankly they should kind of feel bad - or at least feel like it can be better and they should be striving for that.

I know there's an impossible balance - too thin (stick-skinny little hollywood girls) - too heavy and well: healthy.

It should be everyone's mission in life to get and be healthy and to take their health and help empower others to get healthy.

This epidemic is going to slaughter this country within the next couple of decades (really - I've done the research in school - I have a bachelor's in science: health sciences): financially and otherwise - let's minimize the slaughter (c'mon - I'm against it on all levels!).