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Introduction
W
hen I am in a grocery store and see a stressed-out parent
dragging an overweight or obese child with one hand and
pushing a shopping cart full of empty-calorie, sweet-fat foods with
the other, I feel deeply saddened. When I flip on the television to
watch the Olympic Games, symbol of humankind’s greatest physi-
cal potential, and see commercials advertising high-calorie fast
food from major U.S. corporations, I shake my head. And when I
look at a group of overweight adults, and now children, and rec-
ognize the obvious risk factors for vascular disease, diabetes, and
other dangerous yet avoidable chronic diseases, I am motivated to
make a difference.
Being an expert in any field means that sometimes you see
things the average person cannot. In my case, I need only look at
a person’s outward physical state and observe the things they are
doing in order to predict what degenerative diseases they have or
will eventually develop. I am a physician assistant who has been
practicing primary care, nutrition, and integrative medicine since
- I know that lifestyle habits and actions have a one-to-one
correlation with how we look and feel and what diseases we get.
Sometimes, when I see how much people are suffering physi-
cally, mentally, and emotionally from unnecessary illness, I want
to just grab them and say, “This doesn’t have to happen! You can
change this! It is easier than you think! These common diseases
are not inevitable!”
I want to show them the evidence that the degenerative dis-
eases we, as a culture, have come to accept as part of the aging
process do not have to exist to anywhere near the degree that they
do in today’s modern society. Or better yet, have them read about
the lifestyle habits of successfully aging populations from around