Obesity crisis widens….

The Adelaide Advertiser recently reported on the concerning rate of Australian waistlines growing 1.9cm in the past 4 years with 2 million people now classified as overweight or obese. The debate still rages on the what the key drivers of this statistic are but common themes seem to be sedentary lifestyles where we simply don’t move, the increasing ‘pace’ of life where we don’t have time for exercise and home cooked meals and accessibility to cheap, convenient foods which contain a large amount of energy in the form of sugar or fat.

If this sounds familiar, what can be done?

• Awareness and planning is the first step – identify the key areas that you find a challenge and acknowledge them
• Look for opportunities to incorporate more movement into your daily life – stand rather than sit, walk rather than stand.
• Consider adding in ‘artificial movement’ aka ‘exercise’ – work out when, where, how and what your support structure will be
• Allocate time in your week to plan and shop for meals and to cook. Try and eat ‘real’ food, not products synthesised by a machine and highly packaged. No Masterchef meals required – just good wholesome home cooking with natural foods!

-Kristin Lewis