My Fortunate Experiences with a Healthy Lifestyle
I'm an athlete, and have been one my entire life. Growing up, I
played all the usual sports: soccer, baseball, basketball, and then, more
seriously, tennis. For each sport I had lessons, practices, and games to which
my parents drove me. There were the costs of gas, equipment, and any number of other expenses. As
I got into my teens I began to really focus on tennis, which meant gym
memberships, a focus on healthy food, lessons, clothing, gear, and travel to
and from matches. None of this came cheap; no matter how frugal you are, these
costs are unavoidable, especially if you want to perform at your best.
Nowadays I am an avid cyclist. I bike to and from work, and
go for training rides whenever possible. I take advantage of everything I can
to stay motivated and make the most of my riding: I keep my bikes maintained,
have the requisite gear for any weather, and even use a coach. As a result of
all this and more, I am able to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Many Are Less Fortunate
Even though I spend my days thinking about poverty and how
to serve the poor, I've long taken it for granted that--when it comes to obesity
and losing weight--it's a simple question of "eat less and move
more." But an article in The Guardian, 'Poverty, not gluttony, is the cause of obesity,' forced me to remember that it
is that much harder for the poor to be at a healthy weight. Why? Think about
all the things I do, and have done, to stay fit. And then think about what you
do: try to add up the cost of all the exercise books, food, clothing, equipment,
and coaching you pay for, and you'll quickly realize the problem.
Sure, it's possible to be in great shape just by jogging and
doing jumping jacks, but as the article rightly asks, "...why do a certain
class of people feel that it is perfectly reasonable for them to require
expensive, sustained, multi-layered help to keep fit," only to expect the
poor to do so through a kind of Rocky Balboa, up-from-your-bootstraps fitness
regime? Yet the problem is even more
insidious: the stress of poverty, the need to work two or even three jobs, the
lack of access to healthy food and safe places to walk or run or bike--these
are all significant, additional barriers.
A Different Kind of "Budgeting"
In our modern society, replete as it is with cheap, calorie-
and fat-dense foods, it is all too easy to gain weight. Consider this: if your
basal metabolic rate is 1,800 calories (meaning that's how much, at rest, you
burn in a day), you can only eat three, 600 calorie meals without gaining
weight. If you drink a soda with lunch, then, you've already consumed nearly
half of your allotment for the meal; add in some fries or a cookie, and you've
blown your budget!
Exercise makes things easier, since it increases your daily
caloric burn, and therefore increases your "break-even" caloric intake, but the
logic is the same: you can very easily, and very quickly, eat more than you
burn. In fact, if your daily caloric surplus is 500 calories, you will gain 1
pound per week (conversely, with a caloric deficit of 500 calories, you will
LOSE 1 pound per week). Put another way, one cookie and soda each day is enough
to make you gain over 50 pounds per year!
Perspective Is Key
As I often like to point out, we all make bad decisions, but
the poorer you are, the greater the ramifications of those decisions. The
bottom line is that it's hard to lose weight in general (even with all the
resources out there) but for the poor, weight loss is just one of a myriad of
difficult issues--financial, emotional, educational--to address. Not only must
we show more compassion, then, but we must also advocate for policies that give
low-income families the tools they need to make healthy decisions and then
stick with them. There are no quick fixes, to be sure, but we can start by
adjusting our attitudes and seeing the problem from the point of view of the
less fortunate among us.
