Health & Fitness
Can Self Identity Affect Health?
A new grant is going to help Arlington residents combat obesity and smoking. Will it play out in a meaningful way?
The news in today’s Patch that which was awarded to the Massachusetts Department of Health to combat obesity and smoking through education and other means is a welcome one. These are serious issues that our community as well as our country are dealing with.
A recent article in Employment Benefit News (“Ailing and overweight Americans cost billions in productivity”) cites a study by Gallup-Healthways of 110,000 U.S. workers in which the amount of lost productivity related to overweight workers and the commensurate illnesses they face is staggering. Staggering to the tune of $153 billion annually!
The financial loss, though immense, pales by comparison to the lives that are destroyed, suffering endured, and “collateral damage” to the families involved.
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The planned educational component of the grant is exceptionally important. I’ve blogged in Patch about my own in which education was the primary element for my overcoming that problem.
But here’s the thing. The education wasn’t about a prescribed model of any particular diet, exercise regimen, drugs, supplements, or possible surgical procedures. It didn’t involve tactics designed to frighten me into a change of lifestyle.
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Instead, it was a shift in my thinking about my identity—a shift that caused me to realize more fully that the answer to the questions “Who am I?” or “What am I?” were one and the same. I glimpsed that I was fundamentally spiritual and didn’t have to continue in the same old model or to accept the premise that this was an unfixable hereditary/physiological problem.
The result?
I gained hope. The desire to overeat simply left me. I became more active taking daily walks or going cycling. I lost 80 lbs. in a span of about 2 years and my weight has remained stable.
But of greater significance for me was that the emotional scars of the stigma of being overweight—scars that had affected so many aspects of my life since childhood—were completely eradicated when I gained that deeper understanding of my identity.
A more spiritual thought. A thought that can impact our health and well-being.
A thought that can benefit all aspects of our lives as valued members of our community.
