Longevity

Modify Me – The Shocking Trend that has Shifted Health in the 21st Century

I remember when I was a kid in school it was rare to see other kids carrying EpiPen’s, suffering from chronic asthma, or being overweight. It just wasn’t the norm…in fact, sadly these kids were typically picked on for standing out because of it. Fast forward to my time as an educator in my local High Schools, the reality and trend has completely shifted. What now seems to be normal and accepted is to be overweight. Look around you. You don’t have to look long to see our future generations struggling with their weight at a very early age. What now seems to be normal and accepted is to struggle with fitness during activity. We see it all the time with our friends and family. Even as our own kids were growing up in a healthy and active family, it was always a struggle to get them to participate in a family hike, walk or run in the various parts of the world we were visiting…and we have athletic children. What now seems to be normal and accepted is to have some kind of allergy or food sensitivity. In fact, the school office drawers are now filled with medications and EpiPen’s for student medical emergencies. Our very own son has grown up with an anaphylactic allergy to Peanuts and a few other food items. It’s been an ongoing fear and concern for him and us growing up in a world that is surrounded by potential reactors and as a result have spent many nights in an Emergency Room narrowly escaping a catastrophic exposure to peanuts. Why? In the years we have spent building a business in the Health and Wellness Industry and having coached and mentored thousands of people through their various health transformations…it seems this a question that is mostly never asked. Despite all the compelling evidence around us that our communities around the world are becoming progressively more unfit and unwell, we don’t pause to ask “what has changed?” We have adopted the “it is what it is” mentality and “it’s out of our control”, along with “this generation of kids are too busy playing their games and gadgets on their computers and phones to get out and play”. I did some digging into clinical articles and studies produced by a variety of cancer institutes and came up with some of these harrowing figures. Although nobody really shared these exact ratios, this was the best I...