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Bossy
I’m going to get all bossy, again, this week. I know you’ve got a junk drawer in your kitchen. Yeah, you do. Dig around and see if you have a measuring tape, and not one of those metal measuring tapes you’d use for drywall and two-by-fours. The fabric tape, it’s flexible. Tape in hand, haul your balloon bottom over to the mirror in your bedroom, drop those pyjama-day-comfy-pants a wee bit, lift your T-shirt up and measure your waist. Can’t find your waist? Well, using your hands, find the top of your hip bones. Now, look in the mirror and align the bottom edge of the measuring tape with the top of your hip bones on both sides of your body. Take a couple of normal breaths and after the second breath tighten the tape around your waist. Don’t yank that tape so tightly that it disappears into your skin. Okay, women, if your waist is more than 35 inches (and I’m not talking about a pregnant belly) and men, if your waist is more than 40 inches, you’ve got a problem. Yeah, you do. And, blah, blah, blah about having big bones or that you’re naturally shaped like a beach ball. This isn’t about your shape, it’s about the shape you’re in. A bit too much fat in your abdominal area and around your waist is not good for a number of reasons.
According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, fat stored around your middle—your waist and abdomen—can put you at risk for high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Almost 60 per cent of Canadian adults are overweight or obese. Sixty per cent! Some of us don’t look obese, and the rest of us—well, we know what we look like and we just have to look at the numbers on the tape measure to confirm it. The thing is, we aren’t taking responsibility for this massive (pun intended) health problem. We can blame our sedentary, couch-potato life on the times and the technology. We can blame our poor meal choices on the fast-food industry and their super-sizing- combo ways. We can blame our busy lives with too many work deadlines and too much overtime. Heck, we can dump the problem squarely on the kids and their game schedules. We can even say we’re overweight because of budgetary constraints. “I don’t have time to cook a proper meal. Have you seen the cost of fresh fruit? I don’t like vegetables and I don’t have time to wash, peel, chop and cook. I don’t think eating takeout four or five times a week is abnormal, all of my friends do it. I can’t afford to keep my kid in hockey/ballet/piano/martial arts and join a gym, too. We are so busy we often eat on the run at the arena snack stand or pick up something from the drive-thru.” One of my favourite excuses was hearing someone say their parents were big people and they’d inherited a large frame. “If you think I’m fat, you should see the guy who works next to me.” And on and on. I’ve heard all the excuses. I’ve used all of the excuses. One day, when I couldn’t stand being fat, sick and nearly dead anymore, I let someone, who isn’t afraid of me, measure my waist and basically he said, “Houston, we have a problem.” I got scared. Me, fat? Me, overweight? Me, out of shape? What-chu-talkin’ bout?
Now, if you know me, and many of your do, you might think I’m going to blather on about heart disease and stroke. I could, but you know that story already. Nope, I’m not going to talk about my “other favourite topic” today. A topic we don’t take seriously. Indeed, we are rather cavalier about it. It’s all about adult-onset diabetes. Believe it or not, Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes because it usually happened to, you guessed it, adults. Not anymore. Type 2 diabetes is now a disease seen in children as young as 10 years of age. In the last 15 to 20 years, Type 2 diabetes has been reported in children and the numbers are on the rise. We’ve put ourselves in peril and are dragging our children along for company. Our children are less likely to be physically active every day than we were. Our children are more likely to be fat. Excess weight is the number one risk factor for Type 2 diabetes in adults and in children. The more white fat tissue we have, the more resistant our cells become to insulin. Inactivity is another factor. I know. I know. We’re busy with work. We’re busy with our family. Now we find ourselves out of breath and sweating doing ordinary, everyday things. And, surprise. If we think one or two hours of activity per week is going to cut it for ourselves or the kids, think again. Our children need one hour of active, running-around- driving-us-nuts, activity every single day of the week—aerobic, muscle and bone strengthening activity. Adults need about 30 minutes per day—every day. As parents or caregivers, we need to put the tech toys away, hide the clickers and push our children and ourselves out the door to skip, run, jump, bike and play.
Don’t get all preachy on your kids, get outside and play hard with them. Now, go on out to the garage and dig around in the cardboard box full of old stuff. Find that skipping rope and jump and sing as if you heart depended upon it—because it does. “Apples, peaches, pears and plums please jump in when your birthday comes.”
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