In January of 2000 I was very encouraged about the future of health & fitness. Blue Cross/Blue Shield had begun their “AlternaHealth Care Provider Network Program” and we had the promise of a better informed public, encouraged by this program. The hope was to encourage preventive health care through healthy fitness and good eating, with the eventual result being reduced insurance premiums for the participants along with a partial payment for approved fitness providers and facilities. Well that fell dead in the water, the insurance company relied on college interns to promote the program and no one stayed with it long enough to be effective. Four years later they have again initiated the program. I'm sad to report that it is still dead in the water, a different college intern fumbling their way through without producing a plausible program. So much for insurance companies wanting to lower cost or produce a more effective program.

In 2000 the Surgeon General’s annual report identified obesity as a threat to our health, no longer a personal issue. It is understood that this epidemic is costing everyone a fortune in insurance premiums and medical costs. (You can read more about this in my article “Rising Insurance Costs and the part we play”, located in my web pages under newsletter.)

Well, four years later and we are entering the first time in decades that children will have a shorter life expectancy than our parents. With all of the medical breakthroughs we should be living long, but due to the quick fixes and gimmicks we are shortening our lives and our children's lives. We have a quickly rising population of diabetics in their pre teen years. Just take a look around at the kids coming up. As we reach middle age we have all types of totally preventable conditions. Our public health departments, school lunches and senior meals are poor quality over processed foods. Women of all ages are at greater risk of arthritis or osteoporosis than in decades because of dieting fads, yet our county health department dances around with cow aprons pushing milk on a population already consuming too many empty calories. Nurses with little to no knowledge about nutrition are touting high protein diets when they themselves do not know what a true good quality diet is. Blaming genetics, childbirth and lack of exercise, when the true blame is lack of knowledge about healthy eating for weight loss.

The newest and worst news yet is that fast food chains are picking up on the Atkins fad and “giving the public what they want”. So, many more people will fall prey to the low carb frenzy and will lose weight, lots of it, but at the same time undermine good health and put themselves at even more risk of diabetes and heart disease. (read more about High Protein or Low Carb diets, check out my newsletter). Marketing and media wins again. The average person never even begins to understand what they have done to themselves. Most people think it's up to the medical community to keep us well, the problem is that currently our medical community works with cures not prevention. It is up to the public to stop looking for quick fixes and truly improve health through common sense approaches.