Anthea Turner How I See It...

Hello,

I’m loving the theme of this week’s bumper My Weekly about health and wellbeing. The sage advice steeped in science and social studies, if followed by all, would go some way to save the NHS.

About a year ago, an American magazine showed us a photograph of a packed Florida beach taken in the 70’s. Everyone was having a good time in the water, sunbathing, eating food from picnics, playing games. They then showed us a second picture taken recently from the same vantage point, with the question: Spot the difference. Well, the most obvious and terrifying difference was the size of the people. In the first shot you’d be hard pushed to find anyone vastly overweight, yet in the second it portrayed harshly the US’s biggest killer: obesity. What used to be the American disease is now ours, with current figures showing 63.9% of us clinically obese. Tomes have been written on how the problem has manifested, but lets delve into history. We’ve all heard the phrase, “You are what you eat.” Well those exact words were coined by American radio presenter, health food writer, and osteopathic physician Victor Lindlahr. In 1940 he wrote a book entitled You AreWhatYouEat selling over half a million copies. He was attacked at the time with his low carb diet referred to as nutritional quackery. Ironically this was the same year McDonald’s opened for the first time.

BRUTAL HONESTY

I wish I could tell you something enlightening but the bottom line when it comes to our health is what we’ve known all along: its largely to do with the food we eat, the amount we move, and lifestyle choices we make.

We can lay the blame on so many doorsteps – temptation via advertising being the most popular – but to be brutally honest it comes down to our ability to say, “No, that’s not good for me, you don’t have my best interests at heart just your company profits.”

These days we have the best of everything and yet the worst of everything.

Did you know for the first time in world history, more people are dying from overeating than starvation? Every time I read that fact, I want to cry.

So, let’s make sure in 2023 we rise above the hype and remind ourselves we’ve been on the planet for long enough to know what is good for us and what isn’t.

Love, Anthea X

P.S. Don’t forget wine is just grapes made easier to digest, good for the soul and arguably one of our 5 a day!