Donnette

Obesity levels are rising to over 67% of the US population and children are also developing health problems reserved for the over 45 population. In Europe, obesity is also a rising problem and countries such as Italy have introduced the SLOW FOOD movement. The Slow Food movement is both a resistance to fast food and a practice of enjoying home cooked food with family and loved ones in a calm environment.

I remember the first time I went through an American drive through and experienced what I had only seen on TV. It was 1997 and I was a tourist from Australia in Colorado with a group of new American friends. We had one day on the road to see as much as possible and it was getting late. In a flurry to get back to camp we pulled into a drive thru (even the word thru is shortened!) the driver yelled at us and then yelled at a box and suddenly some sort of wrap was on my lap. I laughed to myself as I realized I was truly in America and no one else in the car understood how foreign the experience was to me.

Convenience foods are so taken for granted in the US that the alternative is seen as inconvenient. Marketing and food supply companies have done everything to make junk food and processed foods more easily affordable, available and fashionable than real food. So when do we start to take the time and make the effort to fight for the right of good old fashioned fruit, vegetables and whole foods? There is the impression that time is the aspect that you have the least choice over in modern American culture.

What to eat has become a hot topic with the popular press pushing one new diet after the other. Marketing by food companies attaches emotional and feel good vibes to products. When food becomes a fashion, an emotion or a choice made by a fad diet, there is a disconnection from the hunger centers of the brain and the bodys natural response for nutrients.

One of the other challenges of modern culture is the over supply of food in the environment and the lack of the need for food considering we dont move as we used to. Reconnecting to YOUR bodys natural ability to understand what it wants is perhaps the most important skill to learn in order to avoid being overwhelmed by environmental factors in your food choices.

The first step to get back to some sense of what your body wants is to follow the Italians and slow down. Think about the reason you may choose a convenience or processed food. If you are choosing food because its there, you dont have time, its cheap, understand your choices are creating your future and your childrens future health or lack there of.

Education about what foods are supportive for you is a gradual process. Sensing what foods are right for you will change throughout your lifetime as the body chemistry changes. If you have an obsessive attraction to unhealthy foods then take a step back and see if youre actually craving some other sort of emotional need or high. Highly processed foods act like sugar in the body and sugar is just as much a drug as alcohol.

Reintroducing fresh fruit and vegetables is the most important step to reeducating your taste buds and brain to the bodys more balanced response to what to eat and how much to eat. In traditional medicine, fasting and abstinence from food for a short period was also a good way to re-calibrate the bodys natural response for nutrients. You can try short periods of abstinence from a particular food to test how you react to that food when you reintroduce it into your diet. Most importantly, start finding ways where you have MORE choice over what food you have available, so you have whole foods you enjoy that are good for you.

About ANGELA BADOLATO:
Angela Badolato is a dance performer from Australia and has been teaching and performing dance and healthy lifestyle practices for over 16 years. She has a bachelors degree in drama and communications and is a certified foot and hand reflexologist and belly dance performer. She shares her passion for aliveness of the body through online writing, teaching and live performance. In her articles & programs, you will find the blueprints of the body that empower our health, you will learn to develop a strong connection between your body and mind and reach your lifetime fitness goals stress free and with fun! http://www.lifetimebodyfitness.com