I have a confession. A weird one. I am not a foodie. Every time I say this out loud someone exclaims ‘WHAT?! WHO doesn’t love food?!’ Wait a moment. I didn’t say I don’t love food, I’m just not a big fan. Food doesn’t excite me as much as it does to other people and even when I do get excited, it lasts only a few minutes. I could be extremely hungry and complain of my pangs, yet once the food is placed in front of me, I would be the first to leave the table. I feel like food is overrated. But that’s just my opinion right? It takes junk food or something really special for me to properly eat it. So yes, I’m a junkie and I’m sure many people my age are junkies too. Its just a thing nowadays. However, for someone who has had several health issues, I have grown to be conscious of my eating behaviours.

I came to realize that when you are this young you feel all the energy flow in you and you never imagine the worst getting to you. So you eat whatever looks appealing to your eyes. I do know too that we have the weight freaks who are so scared of gaining weight so they diet as they marvel at those who eat and eat whatever they want without gaining weight. Obesity is bad, we all know that but that aside, the food we consume does affect our health even when it isn’t visible on the weighing machine that you keep checking everyday.

In my opinion, social media plays a role in all this food obsession thing. It has been a trend for people to continuously post images of food and restaurants they visit every other day. Most of the times, food posted is junk and I think that many youth have started to believe that junk food potrays class or whatever else people convince themselves. So those watching are drawn to live similar lifestyles and tend to copy the same behaviour of ordering burgers and lots of fries and pizza or whatever else, just so they can have the ‘images for the gram’. I am not saying this applies to everyone but social media without a doubt pressurizes so many youth to adapt behaviours just to fit in.

I have two friends who almost always have sweets or a bar of chocolate or any snack in their bag. It has become a routine for them. Or others would always make a point to buy pizza or fries whenever they go out. So once I asked them, imagine how healthy you’d be if you walked around with an apple or any fruit instead?

The quote that says ‘you are what you eat’ is as true as it can ever be. Most of the time we overlook the long term effect of what goes into our bodies because we are blinded with our seemingly nice and youthful physiques.

If you look around now, almost all the people in their fifties nowadays have knee problems or having to literally drag their feet to walk or have diabetics or blood pressure or being over-weight. It is quite rare to find a fully healthy man or woman with that age. Yet, our grandmothers era would stay maybe until their 70s to start having health complications. I assume that our generation will have complications even at earlier ages of 30s or 40s.

I know I know, nowadays you get whatsapp clips talking how almost everrrything is bad for your health. Rice made of plastic, sugar having mercury, noodles being harmful, dairy milk bars having AIDS virus inserted, sausages made from goats and sheep who were just shoved into a machine before even being slaughtered lol. I mean, I get how annoying it is everytime you crave for something and someone reminds you of that clip that you watched on how a certain food is bad for consumption. But all that aside, we very well know of the ABCs of what is healthy and what is not. Don’t say ‘YOLO’ (You Only Live Once) because trust me, you wouldn’t want to shout YOLO once you are diagnosed with diabetics and your leg has to be amputated or when your child wants to play football with you and you can barely run five minutes without breathing heavily like a pregnant woman.

All I’m saying is, eat responsibly. Know how to balance your meals. You are allowed to have cheat days and treat yourself every once in a while. Your body is like a trust given to you by God so treasure it. Don’t put trash in it. Take care of it as you would care of a house that you are a guest in. Take a walk sometimes. Work out. Drink water oftenly. Sometimes when you are drawn to buy a junk, buy a fruit instead. Train yourself to be food conscious and eat while being fully aware of what you are taking in. You may not realize the benefits of doing this now, but someday definitely, the older you will appreciate this.

This is a reminder to myself first (of course) and to you my dear reader. May God help us in this mission of eating and being healthy. Ameen 😀