This is for the past generations, who complain about the new generations and those to come. I often hear parents and the elderly complain about how kids came about, how they don’t care about their future, the environment, their health, etc. The fact of the matter is that somebody had to show them… We get our influences from somewhere, and let me tell you that it’s not getting better.
My wife is a phys. Ed. teacher in high school and it’s just plain crazy. Every day, we talk about kids that just don’t want to move, or do activities. They are just plain lazy. Making stories up or just not caring if they get a good grade. As soon as their getting pushed for harder challenges they just give up and find any excuses that could help them quit. Schools and the education system are cutting on the phys ed. Classes, so the activity level of our kids are not getting better. There’s also one more very important thing I might add, that is influencing our kids, it’s us the parents. I don’t know if it’s the work pressure, the lack of time, the newly founded families due to the increasing rate of divorce, but there must be something going on that makes those kids so deprived of interest, self esteem, and absolutely no will to improve or to challenge themselves.
I’m experiencing it from all angles; I’m a dad, husband of a high school Phys Ed teacher, strength coach to some kids and parents, so I get a taste of every generation and their way of thinking. The funniest thing is that we all blame it on others, nothing is our fault. Unfortunately, we are all right and wrong at the same time. Every generation has its own set of mistakImage may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
es. I’ll show you some important aspects and what could be done to maybe help solve those issues. Of course, some of these explanations are generalized and are not the perfect representation, but I’m sure you’ll at least know someone that could need or maybe could use some of that information.
Most of our parents are from the baby boom Generation and were born during world war 2, between 1946 and 1964; they thought they were a special generation. They changed a lot of the old family values and remodelled it in their own way. One of the main concerns was that they were not profound about death and were not big savers, which leaves a lot of burden on their kids and the next gen. Most of them are still avoiding the subject of death and can’t even start thinking of planning their own funerals. They weren’t careful about their health either and when you talked to them about weight lifting and nutrition, the key phrase is ‘’ I always ate that way and I’m in great shape ‘’ or ‘’ I never trained before so why should I start now?’’. The fact is that they are now golden boomers, meaning that they are starting to retire. But how many of them will actually take advantage of their lifetime earnings? I see it too often; they come in my office, unable to move because of lower back problems, unhealthy, lack of energy… In my office, it’s never too late to turn back time and get them back into shape. The key here is to improve their ‘’health and longevity curb’’ for them and coming generations. Without an active lifestyle and good nutrition, it was shown that our health starts declining as early as 45-50 years old. Any health problems could start appearing due to a decline in health and just plain getting old. But as soon as you are active, the health and longevity curb won’t show signs of decline before the age of 65 or 70. When we start putting money aside for retirement, we think of the future ahead. Why wouldn’t we do the same thing with our health and think of the future ahead? What we do now with our bodies will have a major impact on how you’ll live the rest of your life.
Those from Generation X were born between 1964 and 1981, they are the ones that started some kind of bad influence. Didn’t care about god or their siblings and wanted to do things for themselves. Being one of them, I think that the characterization made popular by novel writer Douglas Coupland was in some way accurate. Society is driven by bigger, faster, and stronger challenges. My generation is working harder and longer than our fathers with less time for leisure. Researches have shown that we are making less than our fathers too (12%less)[i]. And if you round up the fact that we work more hours than they did, rarely with compensation, we are doing even less. I think I speak for most of my generation when I say that the dream of everyone is to own his business and work for ourselves. We are prepared to make the sacrifices and we pay the price, usually with our health. My generation needs to stop, and enjoy life. Stress has become a major problem in this decade, and for every generation. Everybody has encountered some type of stress. Forget about cancer and all overcoming illnesses, stress play’s a big role in every known condition. It contributes in many ways for your body’s inability to regenerate itself. Cortisol is the stress hormone that is from near or far contributing to such conditions as Insomnia, insulin resistance, diabetes, crohn’s disease, etc..
First thing you could do is read about stress management. Listen and learn how to control your body. With the help of exercise, relaxation, nutrition and supplementation it is possible to control your mind, body and soul. Enrolling yourself in some type of physical activity will help you in many ways to control your cortisol levels. Adding some protein to your daily nutrition will help you lower cortisol. When your body is missing this important nutrient, he burns lean muscle tissue which elevates cortisol levels. By eating more protein, you’ll boost your metabolism and concentration. Best trick I learned was to eat meat and nuts in the morning. Boosts your mental abilities like crazy and if you train in the morning, you’ll feel amazingly strong and powerful.
Controlling your stress levels will have a major impact on yourself and on everyone around you. With stressful work conditions, it’s not easy to come back home to wife and kids and forgetting the days problems. People around you are the best tools to help you relieve some mental stress. There may be work deadlines, business to work on, advancing in some long overdue accounting, but taking time with loved ones can only make your thoughts better and clearer. I hear a lot of parents that just don’t take time with their kids, to help them discover life, grow with them, work on their father/mother and kid relationship. I can’t resist when my son comes to me and tells me to leave my computer and come play, how can I say no. I’ll do my work when he’s in bed. This leads me to the next generation.
Generation Y and the millennial generation. Those are our children, born from the early 80’s to this day. Since they can’t really help themselves, we have the responsibility to teach them, the best we could. We have to make them learn from our mistakes, and leave our pride behind us. What is the first thing we could do to influence the health of our kids? The food they eat! I really admire what Jamie Oliver is doing with his ‘’Food Revolution’’. We absolutely have to change the eating habits of our kids. Too often I hear about the breakfast of champions, which is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before going to school. If you eat that a major part of your life, you are used to it and won’t be able to feel what it really does to your system, but sorry to say that you should look like someone who did eat shit all his life. But I challenge you, the parent, to eat meat and nuts for breakfast, 3 to 4 weeks (you’ll thank me for the weight loss later) and then go back to your old habits like peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a week. You should know how the character of Austin Powers ‘’fat bastard’’ feels by the end of day 2. Now, imagine doing that to your kid, because you have no time to cook breakfast for them, because you woke up late or he woke up late. He doesn’t know better, you cook for them, so he takes what you give him. We are the caretakers in charge and they see us as role model. You could show them how to or kill two birds with one stone and make a healthy breakfast for everybody. If you aren’t in good physical shape, or at least healthy by medical standard (and that shouldn’t be a reference), I can tell you one thing, you gave your kid some kind of genotype, which determines his hereditary predisposition for family health conditions or disease patterns. So if for example your family has a history of heart disease, he will probably be prone to such conditions if you don’t change something about his nutritional lifestyle.
If there was one thing that I could eliminate from the kids menu is gluten, and I wish I, my parents and past generations knew that too. Gluten sensitivity is systemic autoimmune disease which appears in many forms, and can go silent for many years. Recent researches as shown that individuals experienced some neurological dysfunction roughly 30 years after being diagnosed with gluten sensitivity[ii]. For every person that we put on a gluten free diet, we see major results in digestion, concentration and joint inflammation (aches and pains) practically disappears. It takes 90 days for your system to eliminate 1 gram of gluten, and it is cumulative. So those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches aren’t looking as good as they were before ?
Now what would I add in their diet? Fish oils a.k.a. omega 3’s. I already find this article too long to enumerate all the benefits, but if there was one single supplement that I would give to a kid it would be fish oil.
Here’s a great web site that will help you learn about omega 3’s.
http://dhaomega3.org/index.php?category=health-conditions
I know, it’s easier said than done. It takes time and effort, for all parties involved. Wouldn’t you like to take advantage of your lifetime savings for a trip around the world? However that trip wouldn’t be possible if you weren’t in shape to do it. Wouldn’t you love to see your business rise to new heights? Although being all there and ready for new challenges is a must; you need to be top shape physically and mentally for this. Wouldn’t you love to see your kids excel in everything they do, at school, in sports and everything THEY want to achieve because they have the drive to do it? Except without your support, motivation and example it wouldn’t be possible. If we all take charge and help every generation, all this will be much easier for us, our kids and grand kids.
[i] Standing in the shadow of dad’s salary – May. 25, 2007
[ii] Gluten sensitivity: from gut to brain. Hadjivassiliou M, Sanders DS, Grünewald RA, Woodroofe N, Boscolo S, Aeschlimann D. Lancet Neurol. 2010 Mar;9(3):318-30. Review.PMID: 20170845 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]