The Other Obesity Epidemic

I doubt there is anyone left in this country who hasn't heard about the severe health crisis of obesity. From the White House to my house and everywhere in between, we know about the dangers of carrying more weight on our bodies than our bodies are designed for.

Message received.

But there's another epidemic that we don't talk about and that's the weight we are figuratively carrying around with us. The weight of the world on our shoulders.

Did you know that stress is now considered to be as great a health risk factor as obesity and smoking?

There's no shortage of stress these days in the "Excited States of America," with credit to my favorite Canadian.

It is extraordinary the level of stress that we live through in our daily lives. For many of us, the stress is literally knocking at the door and we wonder how to make a house or car payment. I've been there and it is hell.

But for even more of us, our level of stress has crept up on us gradually and has reset our baseline that we don't know what it feels like to live without stress. It's our normal.

They say that if you are going to boil a lobster or crab, you should put it a cool pot of water and let the water heat up to a boil gradually. The crab or lobster doesn't realize that it is in danger because it has gotten used to the water and doesn't perceive the danger it is in. Trying to throw a lobster into a pot of rapidly boiling water is hard to do. It knows before it hits the water that it is in danger and puts up a helluva fight to get out of the pot. Chefs will tell you that if you do cook the lobster or crab this way, it will negatively affect the taste and texture of the meat. It makes what should be very tender into something that is more tough and rubbery.

We can still worry when we are relaxed...
Note to self: Focus on your heart.

I share that illustration because we are like that lobster... we don't always realize that the pot is getting hotter and that we are in danger. We just see it as normal. But, that increasing stress and pressure is taking its toll on us, too. Heart attacks, depression, addiction...

I struggle with feeding my stress with food and I wonder if the bigger epidemic is the condition of the weight of stress and worry on our hearts and minds. Would we do better physically if we weren't trying to solve our stress and emotional problems through self-medication? Would our brains begin to tell us to get up and go for a walk or a run or any kind of physical exercise as a way of dealing with stress rather than comfort food? There's research going on that asks these same questions. If we could get the health benefits of exercise in a pill, we'd all take it religiously. So, why don't we just exercise instead? Damn good question...