As per the International Business Times, Australia now holds the number three position when it comes to the fattest nations in the world.
1: The United States
2: Mexico
3: Australia
4: New Zealand
5: United Kingdom
6: Canada
7: Ireland
8: Chile
9: Iceland
10: Hungary
So it makes you wonder, how is it possible that countries like Australia and New Zealand, which are supposedly sports minded and active, have the most abundant open spaces like parks and nature walks, an effective health care system?
They have high disposable incomes, supposed advanced education systems and a plentiful supply of high quality fresh produce, are among the fattest nations in the world?
Australia number 3, followed closely by New Zealand at number 4.
You will quickly notice that there is not even one Asian country in the top ten. Fortunately, Asian diets have not “evolved” as fast as Western diets and are still predominantly made up of un-bastardized unprocessed foods.
In comparison, the nations listed as the fattest, are also the nations that have the highest consumption of sugar, processed and fast foods per capita. They also have the highest reported levels of diabetes, cancer and heart disease.
I’m guessing that if you are like me, you spent over 15 years at school and probably can’t remember more than about 5% of what you learned.
Sadly, we cannot rely on schools to supply us or our children with the information so desperately needed to live a healthy life. We get taught all the things that we can do when we are living, but not actually taught how to live.
I find this so strange. What is the point of having knowledge if you don’t have health? Maybe if people knew how, more would choose to live a healthy lifestyle.
Unfortunately, no one is going to fix the problem for us. We need to take responsibility for problem we have created and arm ourselves with the knowledge to address it.
Take a few hours out of your life to learn about how to effectively manage your most important asset, your body. Time spent on your health will give you the biggest return of your life.
It’s not even about eating low carb, low calories or following some crazy diet. It’s not even about a number on the scales or how you look.
It’s about how you feel 365 days a year, your energy levels, preventing many deadly and debilitating diseases, your quality of life and most importantly, having quality time doing the things you love and time in good health to share with your loved ones.
It’s about unlearning the negative eating habits which the food industry have spent so much time and money ingraining into our culture over the past 50 years.
Making cheaper low quality foods into larger portions, increasing our appetites whilst increasing their overall profits. Sadly as their profits have risen, the consumer’s health has declined.
Thousands of supposed “healthy” “convenient” processed foods have been introduced in the past 50 years.
Foods which are high in sugar and trans fats are purposely created to stimulate your taste buds, making you physically crave more whilst providing very little actual nutrition.
This creates a real need for your body to eat more to satisfy its need for nutrition from the calories you consumed.
Compare the feeling of satiety after eating 500 calories of lean meat and veggies, versus the feeling of emptiness after eating a 500 calorie burger or fries.
Your body can tell the difference and will leave you feeling far more satisfied and less likely to reach out for junk food when you choose to fill your plate with whole foods.
We read books on what to eat, but somewhere along the way, we have forgotten how to eat. We need to learn to fall in love with REAL food again.
Please choose not to add to the already sad statistics. Stay away from processed foods or anything that contains numbers and stuff you can’t pronounce.
You only have one body to live in, so make it last!
You can find much more information on living a holistic lifestyle in these free magazines and on our YouTube channel.
Matt Straight
