The Future of our Health
Today’s post is courtesy of Susan Torlucci, an NSA Wellness Educator that I met at one of my small business networking groups. She began her career as an information technology expert, deeply involved in system design, development, implementation and training throughout the first 13 years of her career. After a hiatus of about 10 years to raise her two daughters, she dove back into the workplace, now focused on obtaining and maintaining a position in which she could leverage her skills that had not grown stale and maintain a healthy balance between work and home life. She found that balance by becoming a distributor of Juice Plus, a completely natural supplement derived from the juices of fruits and vegetables. She is an excellent resource for health and nutrition information and I’m pleased she chose to share her story here today.
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Americans are not very healthy. With our busy lifestyles, we are eating more processed foods than ever before. As an educator, I work with doctors and health professionals on a regular basis and I find one thing in common by all. They are seeing more illnesses in younger people than ever before. There are epidemic proportions of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and autism, just to name a few. Our local YMCA nutritionist recently told me about families with whom she consults that have children as young as twelve years old with the early stages of heart disease.
The New York Times has quoted nationally recognized health expert Dr. David L. Katz of Yale University School of Public Health as saying, “If we continue to eat poorly, in the next few years, we will be seeing teenagers die of heart disease on a regular basis. And, for the first time in history, our children may not outlive their parentsâ€.
Early detection of disease… is that the best we can do? No. Many of us live day to day, reacting to symptoms and illness by going to the doctor. Yet, we can make a choice to be pro-active and live a healthy lifestyle in our best attempt to prevent disease and avoid that doctor visit. With health costs constantly on the rise, we are searching for ways to reduce these costs, but more importantly, we are looking to resolve the diseases that we are experiencing. Through thousands of studies, it has been clearly proven that we can reduce our risk of disease by improving our diet. All of the major health foundations and diets recommend eating fruits and vegetables every day. Yet, very few Americans actually do this. In 2005, the USDA began the More Matters campaign, realizing that the original 5-a-day was not enough to maintain good health and have increased the recommendation to 7-13 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. In other words, more matters!
So, how do we get people to eat fruits and vegetables every day? I believe that through education, we can start people on the road to better health.
As parents, we all try to spare our children from pain and making mistakes, however, we all know that by making our own mistakes, we truly learn and grow. For many years, I have unknowingly made mistakes in how I have taken care of my family in regard to their nutrition and health. Looking back, I would stock up on juice and soda because it was on sale. I would buy granola bars and easy on-the-go foods to feed everyone while taxiing my children from after school activities to the soccer field.
Our wakeup call happened one day when our youngest daughter, Marisa, had an ear infection that was being treated with antibiotics for three solid months! She was only four years old and was suffering with pain. My frustration had reached its limit and I wanted answers. It was then that our pediatrician began a conversation about looking at our eating habits. With an open mind, I listened.
Since then, our lives have changed dramatically. With the recommendation from our pediatrician, we added more fruits and veggies to our daily diet. I make a fruit smoothie to start off each and every day with a nutritional punch of antioxidants. We drink lots of water and regularly make fresh squeezed lemonade. As a standard practice, we read food labels and look for a simple, easy to understand list of ingredients. Finding hydrogenated oil raises a red flag and if found, that product goes back on the shelf! And, with the elimination of sugar and most processed foods from our diet, we see a much clearer picture of long term health. Ultimately, Marisa avoided having surgery to have ear drains inserted and my twelve long years of suffering from allergies, sinus infections, and bronchitis had finally come to an end.
Even with our best intentions, we often fall short of getting the proper nutrition that we need every day to maintain good health. I am ecstatic to have joined a growing number of health professionals to help educate others on working towards optimal health.
Each day is a day of learning. I subscribe to online health publications and learn something new every day that I can integrate into our lifestyle and improve on our health. It is my mission, but more so my passion, to do the same for those I meet along the way.
If we take a look at the money that we are spending, we should be asking ourselves: Are we investing in our wellness or are we just subsidizing our illnesses?
Please feel free to contact me with questions or concerns.
Making a healthy difference,
Susan Boutillette-Torlucci, nsa Wellness Educator
908-490-0099 office
908-447-3851 cell
bouts1@hotmail.com
www.healthwithsusan.com
