Healthy Eating

The other day I was munching on potato chips when a friend commented that it wasn't a very healthy food choice, especially given that I was blogging about healthy living. Busted!

I sort of shrugged with a, "Yeah well, so what?" attitude but I was actually embarrassed. The irony is that I rarely eat that sort of thing, not due to the obvious health implications but because I honestly don't care for the usual array of junk foods. Even the smell of Cheezies and barbecued chips makes me nauseous, and I cannot bear soft drinks.

While I was growing up, we never had that sort of food in the house. My parents nagged us constantly about healthy food choices and the miraculous benefits of exercise and fresh air. When we turned up our noses at suppertime liver, we got the standard reply about the starving children in Asia (I think it was Asia.). Of course, I repeated the same mantra to my own children.

I'm always perplexed that as a society we often choose not to follow a regime of healthy living. We still have to be coerced into not only joining a gym but using its services and in order to lose weight we have to be cajoled and pushed (Witness groups like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig.). Healthy food is readily available and even restaurant owners design menus for customers who are calorie/fat conscious. There is no shortage of books and articles dealing with nutrition, the dangers of obesity and a myriad of exercises meant to tone and strengthen our bodies. It wears me out just thinking about it.

When I was a kid, the world was much less scientific: you just did what your parents told you to do. You accepted their advice and admonishments based on faith, not scientific research.

Sometimes it boggles my mind to think about the nutritious value of each food group: how many vitamins, how many calories, how much fat and how many times will I need to run around the block in order to burn the calories away.

I still tell my (grown up) kids to eat healthy food and get lots of exercise and fresh air. (I'm sure they never tire of hearing this.) Sound advice doesn't have an expiration date.

Oh, I never did finish that bag of potato chips: I ended up throwing it into the rubbish bin.