health & fitness

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There are two systems that promote change in the human being. Adaptation and evolution. Adaptation is something that can be achieved in one person’s lifetime, and be inherited from one generation to another. Evolution is a slower process, and maintains a much larger scope of change. Evolution can also be described as a change in the genetic material that can be a permanent psychological or physiological adaptation that benefits survival in a changing environment.

What has spurred this idea is how our bodies adapt to continual physical exertion, load, and impact. I think for the most part your physical ability is limited to what was passed down by your parents. If they were inactive their entire lives, it is possible to be given traits that are less resilient than their own. If they were very active and put a constant heavy load on their bodies or minds, their children can inherit abilities that exceed their parents in the same aspect.

This idea can be disparaging in learning that no matter how much you condition, your tendons can only take so much stress in a given time period. But it should be encouraging that your continual drive will ensure that your offspring inherit improvements in areas that you were weak in. This is adaptation. It can revert if your children are lethargic. Their offspring may inherit weaker tendons, muscles, bone structure, etc. If you live your life as a pig, lethargic and gluttonous, you are potentially disadvantageous to the advancement of your children.

Evolution is less short-term, and usually is a much larger development. It is arguable that evolution is constantly advancing, never do we devolve. Adaptation on the other hand can advance or retard certain human levels of performance aspects from one generation to another, or even in the same lifetime.

This idea exemplifies the need to care for our bodies. We only get one, and it is selfish in many aspects to let it go to waste. People who live unhealthy lives put an unfair load on the health care system, pass on weak and unhealthy characteristics to their children, introduce hereditary diseases in their blood line (and more importantly, OUR society), and are more likely to breed less healthy children. There are studies that also indicate that unhealthy people can breed further infirmity through social acceptance. Increasing exposure and making it more of a norm has made it acceptable, and some cases glamorous.

We are taught from a young age to eat large, healthy portions at every meal. We are taught to clean our plates, at any cost. Enormous portions that are offset and processed largely by our highly active childhoods. I remember being held at the dinner table for more than an hour after my father finished eating because I didn’t finish everything on my plate. I was only relinquished from my post when I started to cry. This is a horrible mentality. “Eat because other people are starving!”. Except the gleaming hole in this logic is the fact that those hungry people will be just as hungry whether I stuff my face or not.

Historically people didn’t begin to gain unhealthy amounts of weight in America until they were out of high school or college. This is when most of American’s active lifestyles come to a screeching halt. Unlike many countries in Europe, we don’t encourage adult-based physical activities like soccer, tennis, football, etc after we finish school. They exist, but are not the norm. And now children are eating even less healthier than just ten years ago and they are becoming more and more sedentary. Less active. In a time-crunch, parenting is more frequently being done at McDonalds and in front of a television. This has led to obesity beginning at even earlier ages.

All of these factors are working very hard against our society. We are being pushed fatty, processed, unhealthy food and it happens to be easiest and cheapest way to eat. The media is glamorizing obesity, parents have less time to be parents, children are becoming more sedentary, and even less sedentary when they reach their adult phase. Producing a healthier society by creating a healthier you extends further than just a healthier you. It encourages a healthy lifestyle in the people who you are surrounded, and more importantly, it passes down traits that will lead to healthier children.

Healthy living isn’t something that should be a considered a short-term fad, it should be a lifestyle.