I Care For My Health, But I Don’t Care For My Health
A 2019 survey from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that only 10 percent of American adults ate the recommended number of fruits and vegetables. 35% of adults 18 and older in Colorado alone are overweight and another 24% are considered obese. Healthy eating and exercise can help prevent disease, illness, and aging, yet many people throughout the world struggle to eat healthy. Eating healthy for older adults in particular can help in maintaining a healthy weight as metabolism slows.
Growing up in a home that never put an emphasis on exercise or clean eating, I have struggled to break the childhood habits I know so well.
It was around 2011 when I first read the “American Girl Doll ‘Caring and Keeping of You 1” book. My young mind learned a multitude of things, but mainly I was blown away by the fact that kettle cooked popcorn was better option than chips. This book was really telling me that the crispy, salty, delightful experience of eating chips was bad for me?
As I approach my 22 year of living, I am well aware of my relationship with food. I have the most extreme all or nothing mentality where I am either a vegetarian or eating pepperoni pizza and salami subs as most of my meals. The older I get, the more I understand how important health is, yet I still struggle to put the effort into caring for my health.
Linae Warden, a retired communication professional, when I asked her if she cared about her health, she said, “Of course, I want to actually live.” Eating healthy was not much of a problem for Warden throughout her life as she was fascinated by the study of nutrition. Physical exercise, however, was not ingrained into her habits.
Throughout her 20’s and 30’s Warden did not need to think about her exercise, her occupation and social life kept her where she needed to be. As her professional career continued to develop, the 9 to 5 and family life took over Warden’s schedule.
Through a strengths assessment, Warden discovered her weakest strength to be personal development. “It’s like what they say on the airplanes, put the mask over your own face before helping others,” Warden said. Too often we tend to put the needs of everyone else, our jobs, our families, before our own and neglect the things that will help calm the inner battle. “Sometime life just gets in the way.”
Now approaching her 70’s with express intention of living into her 90’s, Warden struggles to make a habit of physical fitness. On top of the mental struggle all of us face when making healthy choices, older, members of Warden generation face more barriers to taking care of physical fitness.
Older adults have higher blood pressure, different range of motion, and in general different need when it comes to exercise. This lack of accommodations makes it massively difficult for individuals like Warden looking to care for their physical fitness. Many fitness clubs are woefully ignorant of the needs and restrictions of people over 65,” Warden said.
Being healthy and making choices that support well being are not as clear cut as many. While Colorado is home to vast national, state, and city parks, many areas lack access to safe outdoor areas for exercise.
Additionally, its well established the cost of organic, fresh foods is heftier than a trip to a fast food drive thru. The food filling the shelves of groceries stores are heavily processed, mass-produced productions that hurt our health more than help it.
Living a healthy lifestyle can feel like an impossible feat to conquer, but no one is alone in this feat. Society’s structure, the science of habit formation, the consumerist, single story world we live in wants us to fail, even if all we want is to live.
Luckily, Northern Colorado is home to resources aimed at providing, inexpensive, healthy foods to the public. Vindeket is a non-profit organization aimed at saving food from grocery stores and other companies that would otherwise be housed in a dumpster.
In an effort to limit food waste, Vindeket offers grocery items at little to no cost. Small donations or time volunteered are Vindeket’s form of payment making it a great option for those who are looking to eat healthy on a budget.
Looking for alternative resources than a traditional grocery store could help save money and foster a better diet.