Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Redefining the Meaning of Health & Nutrition

I'll be turning 26 in less than a month. The number of people that tell me I'm still young and have "plenty of time to figure it out" is steadily decreasing. EEP! But as the birthdays pass by and the hangovers become more intolerable, I also feel like I grow a tiny bit wiser as well. And part of becoming wiser involves redefining things in my life, such as the definition of "health."

Until recently, "being healthy" has been more about vanity than anything else. I've focused on how food affects my outward appearance, but am slowly beginning to learn about the chemical properties of foods and how they affect my body on a more basic (and cellular) level-- what is going on inside and why are these nutrients so important?

Being consistent in my diet has always been a challenge and probably always will be. But when I'm on, I'm really on-- to the point of grossing people out with my algae potions (spirulina is rough). When I get motivted enough to juice, I'll throw in tomatoes/spinach/broccoli/carrots (and once even added garlic when I had a cold) or blend vegetable smoothies (including veggie skins to reap nutrient AND fiber benefits), make wheatgrass/flaxseed/soymilk/fruit smoothies, or experiment with all kinds of supplements (fish oil/probiotics/flaxseed oil, etc). It doesn't take an Asian engineer to realize... yeah, this was making me feel a lot better, look better, and actually want to be phsyically active. My skin was more glowy, I felt lighter, and I just felt... healthier. I felt like maybe, for the first time in 25 years, I could do a quarter of a pull-up. Dare to dream, they say.

All of this has made me realize: food IS medicine, and for this reason, I want to go into nutrition. Especially as we age, we shouldn't say no to "bad foods" just so we can fit into that one pair of pants or look a certain way. Rather, we should focus on picking the right foods that can give our cells and organs they need to run at their maximum performance levels. Think of your body as a luxury car-- it needs the right kind of oil to purr a kittens on the road (I actually dislike small cars, but it makes sense here, right?).

When I hear about adults with thyroid problems, cancer, or diabetes, I feel like these are medical conditions that more adults in their 40's, 50's, and upwards encounter than adults in their 20's and 30's. As a 25 year old, being 45 feels like a far away planet that I'll be forced to go to one day and I figure I'll start dealing with those issues when I'm forced to take the rocket ship there. But when I heard someone in one of my classes say, "I want to go into nutrition because too many people are dying of preventative diseases," that struck a chord. This is THE time for young adults to start making healthy decisions because these choices will absolutely affect the status of our health later on, no matter how far down the road it may seem.

I'll leave you with an analogy. You know when you're gassy and holding it in because it's not a silent-but-deadly or you're in a museum, church, echoey venue and you keep holding it in and it becomes more and more painful and by the 5th or 6th clench, you know you're about to be in big trouble because the trumpet's about to play (or maybe even trombone)? This is a silly example, but I'm applying it to a very serious topic. The point is-- we should do what we can in our power to take care of the problem before it gets out of control. None of us can know what lies ahead, but exercising our knowledge of nutrition sooner rather than later can only help our bodies stay as happy as possible for the long-run.