Pretend you are standing in a crowd of people who know one another.
Someone walks up to that crowd. She had just smoked a cigarette. Everyone can smell it on her. Animated, she starts chatting away. All ears are bending.
"Guess what?" she says. "I just had a cigarette. Mmmm—it was soooo good. Yesterday I smoked a whole pack, maybe I shouldn't have, but it was fun." She smiles big and proud.
How would you react? Would you giggle and cheer her on?
Would the crowd offer comments like:
"Good for you. A few cigarettes here and there aren't going to kill you."
"That's alright. You deserve to have a good time."
"Great – life is short. Enjoy life while you can."
"What kind of cigarettes are you smoking?"
"Where did you get those cigarettes?"
"May I join you next time you smoke?"
Or would the crowd sputter and stare with mouths agape and eyeballs bugging?
I know. What a silly question, huh? But 50 years ago this scenario would not have seemed so silly. Smoking was accepted then. Not any more. Now smoking is scoffed and scorned. Why?
Time and lost lives have taught us one tough lesson: every cigarette spikes another nail in an early coffin.
That's why a mother shudders and shakes when her keen mama bear nose senses smoke on her child, young or old.
We all know that smoking is our number killer, right?
Good news; bad news.
The good news: with growing awareness, smoking has slipped back to number two position.
The bad news: excess fat has trumped smoking as the biggest, baddest body snatcher of all. Hard to believe but true.
And that's scary.
But what's even scarier is that fat stats continue to duck beneath the radar of cultural awareness.
Take that same crowd of people. Someone comes trotting up and exclaims:
"Wait 'til you hear this. I had the best meal last night – full course dinner – lots of food – tee-hee, tee-hee – all that stuff we're not supposed to eat – tee-hee, tee-hee. I got so stuffed – tee-hee, tee-hee – I know I shouldn't have eaten so much – tee-hee, tee-hee – but I just couldn't help myself – tee-hee, tee-hee. I put on a couple more pounds, but oh, well, tee-hee, tee-hee."
Would the crowd respond the same to her as they would to a smoker even though excess food is more of a killer now than smoking? Of course not. They would giggle right along with her. Lots of fun and laughter had by all. They would rally round and cheer her on.
"Oh, don't worry about it. A few extra pounds here and there aren't going to kill you."
"That's alright. You deserve to have a good time."
"Great – life is short. Enjoy life while you can."
"What did you have to eat?"
"Where did you go to eat?" "May I join you the next time you go there?"
The results from smoking and over eating are the same: pain, disability and lost lives, the lives of people we know and love, and perhaps even our own lives. Yet, unlike smoking, we still haven't connected the dots between daily food choices, accumulated fat, and deadly consequences.
We're in denial big-time. And we are suffering because of it. Cancer, diabetes type 2, strokes, heart attacks, arthritis, hip and knee replacements, digestive disorders, back problems, and more are often the direct result of what we eat and how much extra weight we carry.
But not only that, too much weight eats away at our energy, our level of performance, our inner joy, and our self-esteem.
Denial prevents the desperately needed shift in attitudes about food and excess body fat that could add not only years to our lives but life to our years.
I have a simple hope, a simple dream.
That it will not take us 50 years of ruined lives and lost loved ones to wake up to the fat stats staring us in the face:
=> Americans are the richest people on earth. They are also the fattest.
=> 400,000 deaths every year in America can be directly attributed to too much weight.
=> There are now more overweight people on the planet than starving people.
=> In some parts of Africa, obesity afflicts more children than starvation.
=> Average women's dress size in 1950: 8; in 2002: 14.
=> After the age of 25, the average American gains 1 pound of fat every year—1 pound every year—and loses ¼ to ½ of pound of muscle and bone mass every year.
=> By the time many Americans reach 55 years old, they are at least 30 pounds overweight, or clinically obese.
=> 61% to 85% of all Americans are overweight.
=> In 1962, 13% of Americans were obese, 30 pounds overweight. In 2004, 33% were obese.
=> If an adult is 30 pounds overweight, her life expectancy is reduced by 7 years. If she smokes and carries 30 pounds of extra weight, her life is shortened by 13.5 years. From 10 to 30 pounds overweight, life expectancy shortens by 3 years and up.
=> Approximately 31% of our children are overweight or obese. If a child is 30 pounds overweight at 20-years-old, his life is slashed by 20 years—that's a lot of years.
=> One prediction: 50% of our country will be obese by the time 2010 comes rolling around—that's not far away. => As obesity increased from 1992 to 2002 by 60 percent in adults so did the number of people with diabetes type 2.
Facts are facts; stats are stats. The beauty is: we can choose not to be one of them.
No, we can not change the world around us. We can not even change the people we love, and that is the most heart-wrenching fact of all.
We can, however, change ourselves – one conscious step, one conscious thought, one conscious bite at a time.
We can choose to stand apart from the crowd – not because we are better, but because we choose to be different. We choose to align our lives with our heart, our truth, and our intentions.
As my lovely, inside and out, daughter and I remind each other in those isolated and lonely moments, you have to be different to make a difference.
Know that your shining example will open the eyes of those ready to see and will brighten up the world.
Thank you, my friend, for being all that you are and for making a difference.
