Chapter 9

Are you healthy and getting stronger, or are you like most Americans, sick and getting sicker? Having lived in five different countries around the world, it seems that America is sicker and heavier and more doctor and pill focused than those other places I have lived, by a very very long shot. Of course I am stereotyping with this statement and not everyone in America is heavier and sicker, in fact I am reading a delightful book right now by American authors called “Younger Next Year.” Its about getting younger each year, especially holding off the ravages of aging in the final third of our lives. But on the whole, based on what I see at the store, and hear advertised on TV , I think I am pretty safe to say that we are getting heavier and sicker.

We have a great deal more control over this aspect of our lives than we take responsibility for is seems to me. Those other countries I have lived in, just don’t have the massive amounts of junk food (everything in your grocery store except the fruits and veggies section) that are considered the norm here. And honestly, they move around physically a lot more than Americans do. Some of that is urban design, more of that is a mentality - they take their responsibility in designing their own health way more proactively than Americans do. They talk about diets and food a lot less, and they eat a lot less, ALOT less! Most eat two meals a day max, instead of the three Americans do. In other words they are far less food-focused and absorbed than we seem to be on this side of the planet.

And they just move more. Cranking a car is the last thing they want to do, and one of the most expensive things they can do. You see 70 and 80 year olds on bicycles and walking every day in Germany, France, Macedonia, Poland, etc. 

You got this - you are the author of your health, or lack of it.