YOUNG PEOPLE ARE UNHEALTHY

When we're 18 or under, most of us lived in our parent's home. Living in your parent's house meant home-cooked meals, bedtimes, and generally no smoking or drinking allowed. After, when we finally head out to college, our habits change.

You may have heard of the dreaded "Freshman 15" which basically declares that most people in their first year of college gain 15 lbs. The main reason being binge drinking, not exercising, and having to feed ourselves for the first time. According to USA Today, young people age 18-29 are staying static in their health or are getting unhealthier than they were 10-15 years ago. So our unhealthy habits seem to be following us out of college as well.

If you're young, this probably doesn't come as a surprise for you. Being young means being untied down, typically with no mortgages, spouses, or kids to worry about. Where does all that extra cash go? Eating out or partying at the bars. The study claims that among young men, almost 1/3 smoke cigarettes and a 1/4 binge drink.

On top of that, a 1/3 of young people are obese AND 1/3 are overweight. By my calculations, that only leave another third in good standing. 30% also don't have health insurance, but I'm not sure how. If you have a job, you generally have benefits. So perhaps a 1/3 are unemployed?

When you're young your metabolism ifs flipping out. There is no need to have an extra 10-15 lbs added to your body.

So the point is, young people have bad health habits which is likely to translate to health problems when they're older. It also seems that men are more prone to bad habits than women as well.

Young people, especially in their 20's, have an invincibility mentality, and sometimes that can mean disregarding their health.

What can be done to get young people to care more about health? I don't have the answer, all I can draw upon is my own motivation for being fit. Mine starting with insecurity at a young age. All I wanted to do was get big and strong and that I did. Then at age 35 I began to look at health being more important than big muscles. So will maturing and growing emotionally bring healthy choices like exercise and eating better into our lives? Or will it take something and emotionally driven event to create a healthy well-balanced habit ?

What is skinny fat?

So what is skinny fat? It's a person who looks thin but is unhealthy in their habits. Usually this means they eat an array of unhealthy foods and do little to no exercise. And for those who are the thin and healthy, they're known as skinny fit. It's weird to think there are so many terms for the kinds of ways a person can be skinny. It just proves how body-obsessed we can all be.

Being skinnyfat, in general, means having good genes but being higher in fat than you should be for over-all health. This means your muscle to fat ratio is out of balance…where your body is flabby, loose. The size of your body is not the main factor, the size of your jeans doesn’t designate your health.

If you are a thin person who eats what you want and still looks skinny or becoming injury due to being weak, then good for you. But can you lift a heavy box or run up the stairs without panting? Physical exercise such as aerobics is a small way to measure fitness. The bigger factor is over-all muscular balance and healthy muscle to fat ratio. So even if you are thin, moving around a bit with resistance training never hurt anyone.

And stop trying to convince others you're fit and healthy just because you're skinny. That's the same as an over-fat person hiding themselves with big clothes or a towel around their waist at the beach. Just because you hide it doesn't mean it's not there anymore or that you're fit.

Tips to Control Emotional Eating

If you are stressed out, suffering from problems in your relationship,seeing financial stress, or just not happy with the overall direction your day has gone, it can be quite tempting to turn to food for comfort.

If you're trying to lose weight however this starts the cycle of self-sabotage so many of us recognize.

Here are 3 tips to help you regain control of your hunger signals.

1. Start a Journal

Journaling can be an effective way to distract yourself from eating and to spot patterns in your eating habits. Do you reach for ice cream at night and donuts during the day? What if you removed ice cream from your house and donuts form your office? If you spot the pattern you can reduce your temptation.

There are loads of pretty journals, but copy paper and a stapler work just fine. No excuses.

2. Come Up With Alternative Activities

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The second way to help combat emotional eating is to look for other activities you can be doing in its place. For example, next time you're feeling like you need something to munch on, consider doing your nails, cleaning the car, or going for a walk.

With a list of activities already prepared, you will be able to distract yourself in the time of need. If you have an activity that can be done anywhere, like filing your nails, you can make an automatic association with filing nails any time the emotional hunger pangs hit.

Choose activities that work for you. Not everyone wants to file nails andnot everyone a=wants to do a set of 10 push-ups. But do consider trying something new. Add some new activities to your possible distractions so that you have something to learn which will give you even more distraction.

3. Decrease The Frequency Of Your Down Time

The busier you are the less time you have to think about food.

So fill your schedule with activities that will keep you active and away form the emotional triggers. If you find that spending time with certain friends or family members triggers the temptation to eat, then find other people to be around or find activities that can be done solo.

I'm not recommending that you avoid your loved ones, but plan activities that allow you to be away from your triggers. Those who love you will understand.

Try to fill your free time with hobbies that will keep you away from food rather than hobbies that allow you to eat while you do them (watching TV, reading, etc).

BONUS! 4. Stock Your Pantry With Healthy Alternatives

Finally, if you're still really struggling to beat this problem and absolutely must have something to eat, then the next smartest move is to focus on stocking your pantry with foods that won't break you.

This way you control what you will eat before the temptation sets in. This will help you stick to your plan and minimize the damage of emotional eating.

Chopped vegetables, fresh fruit, and air-popped popcorn can all work as healthy snack options to use in a situation like this.

By recognizing your challenge upfront and planning ahead with solutions to fix it, you're one step closer to putting it behind you.

Awesome bunch of comments that keep coming back to the question of relationship between food, stress and anxiety so let's start to unravel that mystery.

Are there particular foods that soothe stress/anxiety? ?Many of us reach for something with crunch, a little salty and perhaps a little greasy . . . bag of chips anyone?

While we probably know deep down that those items are not going to help us, we may not fully understand what the body is doing in response to the chips. Not only will chips not quell your stress, but also they are likely to cause cellular damage which increases the stress on your body. So instead of getting a little relaxation, your body doubles up on stress. The opposite of what you wanted.

Here's what is going on:?Starting with the potato chips . . . the potato is a starchy food. As such it has a high glycemic load. The glycemic load is based on a food's glycemic index value (85 for potato) and compares how much your blood sugar level raises and for how long.

The importance of the glycemic index and load is that they influence the release of insulin by your pancreas. So, when you eat a high glycemic food your blood insulin remains elevated all day.

But is that a problem?? Insulin influences almost all of the other hormones in the body. High levels of insulin reduce the amount of insulin growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFPB-3) which is the protein that modulates cell growth and vascular development. In other words, IGFBP-3 helps your veins and arteries repair themselves, determines when your skins cells die and a whole bunch of other very useful things. High levels of insulin use up the IGFBP-3 which means your body's ability to repair itself diminishes.

Complications that arise as a result include inflammation and for some specifically the inflammation that leads to acne. It's not that the potato chip caused acne, it's that the potato chip caused the cascade of hormonal responses that united to cause acne. The same principle has been seen in action within the arteries. The swelling of arterial walls which thenrestricts blood flow is caused by a series of hormonal responses. A food like potatoes can start the hormonal snowball rolling.

How do you compare foods??The *glycemic index* (GI) is a scale from 1 to 100 that measures how quickly carbohydrate foods are broken down into glucose. To minimize the glycemic response, you need to choose low GI foods. Like a potato, but with a much lower GI rating, the yam (GI rating of 37) could be a substitute if you must have a "potato chip" to quell your stress.

You can thinly slice the yam, sprinkle with a little bit of natural sea salt and a very little bit of olive oil and voila! in 10-15 minutes you have a better chip.

If you can give up on the chip altogether, even better. But better to make baby steps with alternative foods if you are not 100% on board. Yams can be a healthy part of your diet.

Get Back to Feeling Like Yourself Again with a Body Cleanse

Have you ever felt just not right? Remember those silly commercials from the 80s when the daughter turned to mom and they discussed something rather private about freshness?? Have you felt like something was off balance?

Maybe a nagging cold or turbulent tummy . . . that dragging feeling of, "I'm not Sick-sick, but I'm not well."

Perhaps it is time for a full body cleanse.

The cleanse has been around for years as a part of holistic medicine, and it’s finally being accepted and embraced within the modern medicine community. Though there are many different ways to cleanse, the results are all the same as a cleanse works by helping to eliminate toxins and restore a healthy balance within the body.

How Does All of that Stuff Get There?

You may not think that you need a cleanse as you may feel as though you lead a healthy lifestyle already. Even the healthiest person can benefit from a cleanse because there is always some level of toxin and chemical build up, it’s just natural.

Additionally there may even be parasites or other related things lurking within your colon or other parts, and if you don’t perform some form of detoxification this can lead to a sluggish feeling and even health problems over time. So no matter how healthy you are or how you may feel as though you do all the right things, everybody can benefit from a cleanse.

Over time the environment we live in, the air that we breath, the foods that we eat, and the toxins that we knowingly introduce wreak havoc on our bodies. All of these substances start to build up toxins and chemicals in our body that can slow things down, cause our organs to function slower or improperly, and leave us feeling sick and tired. If you perform a cleanse on a regular basis, you will quickly see that you feel more energized and healthier almost immediately.

You will also have better nutrient absorption as the cleanse will take out the gunk that prevents you from fully utilizing those organic veggies you've been noshing.

What’s the Best Way to Proceed?

With so many different cleanse programs out there; it can be hard to know which one to choose. This has been a fixture within holistic medicine for years, and at the core of most cleanse programs is the idea that you subsist on liquids for a period of 3-7 days. The liquids are specifically raw, fresh, natural fruit and vegetable juices.

There are plenty of variations to this body cleanse, some of which involve citrus juices with cayenne pepper and syrup, and others that focus solely on water and natural herbs in the form of teas. Pick one that seems most appealing (or least repelling!). Just remember the cleanse should ultimately focus on letting your organs rest so that the body can naturally get rid of the toxins that have built up.

Be prepared as the results of a body cleanse can be eye opening to say the least! You may find yourself attached to the bathroom, feeling nauseas, and you are likely to feel weak and tired. The first time you perform a cleanse, it can be a good idea to stick close to home so that you can see how your body reacts to this healthy measure. Don’t be alarmed if you see some things come out that you didn’t think possible to dwell within your body—these are all signs that the cleanse is working and the toxins are moving out. After the initial period of exhaustion and living without solid food for a couple of days, you will find that the cleanse leaves you feeling healthier, more energized, and more vital than ever.

Many people report a delightful feeling of "being lighter."

Foot Detox

Foot detox is a term that is making a stir in the marketplace. With all of the recent news and push towards detoxifying our bodies, more and more methods for detoxification are being developed. Foot detox is one area where new methods are becoming available on the market more often. These range from patches to foot soaks to machines that are designed to detoxify the body. Many people have seen these products and methods advertised, but may be wondering exactly what they do and if they actually work.

Let’s look at the foot spa machines first. These modern machines are based on ancient Japanese traditions. This was started approximately sixteen hundred years ago. The Japanese used to soak their feet in hot springs to obtain the results that we currently achieve with foot detox with a machine. Adding oils, herbs and other natural ingredients to the water helps to provide a variety of different benefits. Research results on the power of machines that provide foot detox are both positive and negative. There seems to be some benefits, but other claims have not been able to be proven through research yet. It is known that soaking your feet in hot water can aid in circulation, ease stress and reduce tension and also help to alleviate some symptoms of illness.

Foot patches are becoming better known in recent times. There are infomercials, store displays and other ways that foot detox is being encouraged through the use of patches. These pads have an adhesive backing. They are designed to be used while you sleep to help detoxify your body and remove impurities. These pads are said to absorb toxins from the inside out and help cleanse the body. They have been designed based around Japanese trends and ancient practices and customs. There is controversy surrounding how whether or not these patches work effectively for foot detox. Research is currently in the early stages and there is not a lot of concrete information available to say one way or the other.

Foot soaks can take on a variety of different meanings in terms of foot detox. There are many different ingredients used to make an effective soak. There are also differences of opinions and ideas about the benefits and results with foot soaks. There is little research that has been conducted regarding foot soaks for foot detox. Many people believe that hot water has many healing benefits and that herbs have medicinal properties as well. However, it cannot be said for certain whether or not foot soaks will help to detoxify your body, but they should certainly feel relaxing!