Okay let me start off by saying, I am a bit of an oxymoron when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. I come from a family of health conscious people, my mother being the “poster mom” of living a fit life with her pilates workouts and best friend- kale. While my dad is involved in a business project called OneCity that is essentially creating mini cities/communities centered around mindful, healthy living. That being said, I do believe in being health conscious and active, but I also believe in the magic of Snuffer’s cheese fries…(one of Dallas’ pride and joys)
Growing up in Texas I have grown up on the mantra “bigger is better” and this definitely applies to the food. We have adapted ourselves to increase our intake and you could say this is beneficial economically for restaurants, but not necessarily for our bodies. In the words of Amy Wigmore, “the food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.” Now we ask the question of why we maintain increased portion sizes and the benefits we reap. I believe eating is largely a social act and with an increase in portion sizes makes for a longer stay for socialization to take place. However, then we must analyze why fast food chains maintain bigger portion sizes with drive-thrus (which more often than not is for individuals on the go who are too busy to stop and eat a meal). The obvious reason, food tastes good and when we are offered more than we can lengthen the satisfactory period.
I had not truly realized the difference between even the plate sizes in Texas versus other states in the U.S. until I started traveling. In the Story of the Human Body, Lieberman proposes “we didn’t evolve to be healthy, but instead we were selected to have as many offspring as possible under diverse, challenging conditions. As a consequence, we never evolved to make rational choices about what to eat or how to exercise in conditions of abundance and comfort.” (Lieberman. Story of the Human Body) This directly relates to the obesity epidemic in the United States, we continue to live in adverse conditions. Now to pinpoint obesity on solely larger portion sizes is not accurate or fair, but there is a relation of the two in many cases. In addition, intake is also greatly affected by how much an individual is expending calories.
Living in Dallas, Texas, it is almost a necessity to have a car- it being such a large and widespread city. From birth to age 16 my main method of transportation was my parents driving me; and from 16 on I had my own car. This contributes to the lack of day-to-day activities such as walking, while other places such as Angers, France rely heavily on walking and therefore inactivity levels are much lower. Wearing a fitbit this summer proved quite shocking into how much 0f an effort I had to put into walking even 5,000 steps a day during the summer while in Angers 15,000 steps is a typical day. Ever since high school I have been involved in physical extracurricular activities such as yoga and running to remain active. While I do believe this is a great thing, I also believe it can be viewed in a negative light. America as a country is highly consumeristic and now even being healthy has turned into a consumer good with exercise classes and certain superfoods that juice stores broadcast and sell (*cough kale and chia seeds*).
The most serious health risks are derived from our own creation, and in Spillover it is reflected upon, “the most serious outbreak on the planet earth is that of the species Homo sapiens.” (Quammen. Spillover) Things such as cigarettes leading to lung cancer, over consumption of processed foods leading to obesity and heart problems, car accidents, the list is endless of all risks to human life that were created by us. Of course there are viruses spread to us by related species that are out of our immediate control; however, many diseases fall under the category of preventable.
I have definitely been caught up in the idea of consuming a healthy juice and having the thought “okay I’m healthy now, I can reward myself later with a cheeseburger”. This pattern is very counterintuitive to a wholesome healthy lifestyle, yet we have adopted it in America. Being in France for a few weeks, I have managed to make some adjustments to how I go about my day-to-day life; in part due to no Whataburgers or easily accessible junk food places.
Bottom line is the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” quote is not applicable to health. I want to focus my research on how to re-define health as a lifestyle rather than a product to be consumed from the etic perspective living in France.
Lieberman, Daniel. The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease. Pantheon, 2013. Print.
Quammen, David. Spillover. London: Bodley Head, 2012. Print.