DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: I’m 20 and just got diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I’m not even overweight. A friend has something wrong with her thyroid. Another takes high blood pressure meds. Another has asthma. Another Asperger’s. A couple of friends are on antidepressants or anti-anxiety medicine, another takes Adderall. Another friend has back problems. Include the friends who are overweight or have eating problems and there is something wrong with almost everybody I know. Are we really this unhealthy or just over-diagnosed pill poppers? — T. C., Monterey, Calif.
Editor’s Web Note: Who needs global warming or nuclear bombs? We can go extinct with Cheetos and Big Gulps. We’re definitely at a precipice. Some experts predict infertility to double in the next seven years — to one in three women unable to conceive. The discoveries of Dr. Weston Price (known as the “Charles Darwin of nutrition”), and the experiments Dr. Pottenger, show that when it comes to diet, the “sins” of the parents pass to the child. As a result of poor nutrition, each generation births increasingly weaker offspring. Pottenger experimented with healthy cats by putting them on a fixed non-ideal diet. With each passing generation, their health became progressively worse. By the fourth generation, his cats experienced all the problems humans have (heart disease, cancer, immune system disorders, etc.), with the addition of mental illness and infertility. At that point, he turned the experiment around and fed the cats an ideal cat diet again. It took seven generations on their ideal diet for optimum health to return to the population. Millennials represent the third or fourth generation of people eating a non-ideal diet. And we, too, are beginning to see mental illness and infertility emerge on a grand scale. It’s time we turned our food experiment around, too. The book “Nourishing Traditions” (available on this website) teaches the ideal human diet that Dr. Price discovered in living action among 14 independent villages of people who he found with perfect radiant health in the 1930s. The website for the Price-Pottenger Foundation is http://ppnf.org. The Weston Price Foundation website is http://westonaprice.org. —Lauren
Comments
-
Honestly most of my friends are quite healthy. Yeah, I can think of a few people that have minor health problems but nothing that alters their lifestyles. Most of my friends are active, try to avoid excessive TV watching/internet using and even eat healthy.
-
I and most of my friends are in pretty good physical shape, but I only think that is because we are still young. I know that my diet is pretty healthy and probably a little better than my friends, but I still consume a large amount of sugar everyday. I try and stay conscious of my sugar intake and sometimes I am able to control it but it is still out of hand. I think a larger concern for my friends is the use of tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. Maybe it’s just summer and people want to drink, but four days in a row seems like an unhealthy habit and a tough one to break.
-
As you can see from Maureen and Gregg, not all the panelists who weighed in on this question, experience the onslaught of health problems that others do. But, in general, the biggest challenge this generation has is their health. For instance, excess weight and obesity are hardly even mentioned and they are rampant.
I would love to hear from you! What do you experience in your own health and the health of your circle of friends? What do you think it’s from?
Thank you for your input.
Lauren -
My twin sister and I are exact opposites when it comes to this. I’m very healthy and happy while she is constantly sick and depressed and is very overweight. The reason is obvious. I eat healthy foods and exercise while she stuffs herself with junk food and never exercises. People can’t believe we’re sisters, much less twins, since we look and act so much different, although we are fraternal, not identical twins. She has such a negative, depressed attitude that my friends don’t even like to have sleepovers at our house since we share a room. She’s so ashamed of her body that she actually demands that anyone but me leave the room when she undresses the rare times that anyone is willing to spend the night. I love her and have tried to point out why she’s in the condition she’s in, but she just gets angry and continues to be depressed and feel sorry for herself. Health may not be 100% in someones control, but it is too a very large extent, but you can’t force someone to take care of themself if they are not willing.
-
I read your column with interest and usually appreciate your thoughtful comments. Your response to “Poor Health, and Lots of It,” is distasteful by your statement that, “Unless we start eating an omnivorous. whole-food, organic diet…the next generation’s health will take another step dowhill…”
I agree with the whole-food, organic diet; however, I raised three incredibly healthy and athletic children who have grown into healthy adults who have given me three healthy grandchildren—all on a vegetarian diet. Why omnivorous? You’re usually more objective.I do think we seriously need to address what children are eating. Meat consumption, if you haven’t read, is contributing to our global carbon footprint more than almost any other food source. I don’t have objections to those who wish to eat meat, only to those who insist that it is the only way to be healthy and to those who put their heads in the sand about the ramifications of meat eating.
