As a child, I never heard the term wellness. However, my Mom constantly urged me to eat all my vegetables (I had no problem with meat and potatoes) so I would grow up to be “Big and Strong” as she put it. I did not become aware of what I put IN my body impacted my wellness. So, Is Wellness A Choice? I believe it is and it is one of the more important choices we can make in our lives.
What Should We Put In Our Bodies?
During my school days, I took a Health class. Diet was discussed and the United States Dairy Association (USDA) Food Triangle (it was a little different then) was taught as the “go-to” guide for healthy eating. I grew up on a farm and was fed lots of beef and potatoes and as I said earlier, Mom pushed the veggies on me. The only veggie I refused to eat was Okra. I have since learned that there are ways to fix Okra that I like but… the Okra my Mom fixed was (my description) slimy! Yuck!
I later learned that the contents of this USDA Food Triangle were largely selected to benefit and boost the sales of the Dairy Farmers. The beef producers, the chicken farmers, and milk producers would benefit if we were all told from an early age that consuming those items daily in the suggested amounts. In other words, this Food Triangle was an “advertising gimmick” foisted upon the American people.
What Should We REALLY Be Putting In Our Bodies?
Probably ten years or so ago I ran across what I consider to be a “better” Food Triangle. The image is shown above with a link where you can download a copy if you so choose. You will see that some foods contribute to disease while others contribute to your wellness. You get to decide. That’s one of the gifts God gave us: Free Choice. You can choose to eat healthily or not. Which will YOU choose?
Fast Food and Your Wellness
I work in a retail environment for my daily JOB and I often see children coming in the store with their parents and BOTH are carrying sodas from the nearby fast food place. Quite often, both the parent and the child are overweight. Obesity is fast becoming an Extremely detrimental problem for so many people and lack of knowledge, not money as is often used as the excuse, is the problem. Constantly eating fried foods and drinking sugary sodas can certainly put the pounds ON and if you’ve ever attempted to get the weight OFF… you know how challenging that can be. Don’t you?
There is a story that became a Very Successful advertising campaign and it tells how a young man went to a particular Sandwich Shop and those sandwiches were all he ate for ALL his daily meals. He did this for quite a lengthy period of time and during this time he lost an amazing amount of weight. It became his “claim to fame” and created a huge success for the restaurant chain by sharing his weight loss story. So you can eat fast food but you MUST make wise choices in selecting WHAT to eat. The young man in the story ate meat and vegetable sandwiches on healthy grain bread with lots of WATER. Speaking of water… most of us fail to drink enough of it each day. Again, that’s a choice (remember: Wellness Is A Choice) and you can drink the suggested 8 glasses of water each day or not. To learn much more about the importance of water in our bodies go HERE.
Conclusion
At this juncture, I must ask you… Is Wellness a Choice that YOU make? Hopefully your answer is yes! Maybe you haven’t always done so and fortunately, it’s never too late to change. Freedom of Choice is ours so my suggestion is to Choose Wellness.
