Cooking and Teaching to Prevent Obesity and Promote a Healthy Lifestyle

When listening to the younger generation of women discuss the topic of cooking, it is often a bit humorous and yet a saddening experience. It sounds as though we have had a disconnect in the generations and adults have failed to successfully pass on even the most basic cooking skills. Young ladies converse about this topic as though it was a skill from the past that is no longer required in our daily lives. Sadly, lack of teaching the art of cooking as a basic life function is directly the result of the fast pace of our lives. It is easy to understand how we have become a society of fast food. It quickly became much easier to make use of the hundreds of restaurant drive-through lanes available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in any city across America.

There are several reasons that this skill should be passed along to young women as well as the young men. In the United States today, we have a serious over weight and obesity issue. The CDC as well as the United States Surgeon General has been tracking the steady increase of obesity and has sounded the alarms at the rate at which we have seen societies weight skyrocket over the last 20 years, bringing it to the forefront of healthcare. Being overweight or obese brings on many diseases such as heart problems, diabetes, back and knee injuries. That is only mentioning a few of the documented results of being overweight. The latest number of Americans that are without health insurance varies slightly, depending on which statistical sources you research. The numbers are staggering either way and all sources agree that the number is well over 40 million uninsured. In order to assist in the process of protecting our children from unnecessary health issues, we need to encourage healthy eating.

A basic skill that will be overwhelmingly helpful to our young people and encourage them not to become a statistical number in the obese and overweight category is the ability to choose healthy fresh food and have the knowledge to prepare it. An encouraged shopping trip to the supermarket may be just the beginning. Farmers markets are readily available on street corners this time of year for the purchase of fresh produce. Encouraging the young adult to ask questions of the farmer and inquire as to how the food is grown is another viable option that may spark an interest in healthier food and encourage weight loss. Smorgasbords of recipes for any type of foods are readily available on websites and only a quick stroke of the fingertip away. Treating the palette to something new, fresh and tasty may be just the jumpstart needed to begin a lifetime of healthier living.