Do your chores.

You can abuse your body up to age 35. After that, it abuses you.
Chinese proverb

Being Healthy is a culmination of the myriad of choices you make every single day. In America, making good choices daily is a chore. It's a chore because we have a McDonalds on every corner. It's a chore because of the availability of processed food. It's a chore because our mother's forgot to teach us how to cook, Finally, it's a chore because the meat industry, the dairy industry, the chemical industry and the tobacco industry have very very powerful voices and deep wallets that bombard us with misinformation.

This weekend I was struck by what a chore it is to be healthy just because life is so busy. Saturday I worked half the day and ran to get my daughter from a birthday party to run to my son's lacrosse tournament. She had eaten pizza and cake the night before and donuts for breakfast. It was lunch time and we went through Wendy's. There, she downed some masticated chicken things. Seven hours of lacrosse in the rain later she had eaten skittles and a mountain dew...or was that me? Driving home late from lacrosse, son starving, we ordered pizza. All this was easily preventable. All I needed to do was plan a little better.

Laying in bed Saturday night, I was horrified by our day. I envisioned my daughter going off to college where I will have no say, input or control over her food choices....the dreaded freshman 15. Worse yet, my mind reeled over the chemicals she had consumed. What were they doing to her as she slept? My mind turned to obesity, diabetes and cancer. Finally, I drifted to sleep to dream of swimming in a tortured ocean with my daughter surrounded by sharks.

On Sunday I asked my daughter what she wanted for breakfast. She looked at me straight in the eye and said, "an orange". From the mouth of babes.....

Make good choices every day. Do your chores.