Editor's note: Americans may be living longer and even exercising a tad more, but they're not necessarily healthier, a study released Wednesday shows. Myriad reasons exist: too much bad food, too little good food, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, drinking and just plain living in the wrong area of the country. Yahoo asked readers: What is your biggest obstacle in the way of a healthier you? Here's one response.
Tell us in the comments about your biggest health hurdle.
FIRST PERSON | I think it's a pretty common thing for people to blame their drinking on a lack of social options. But being from Peoria, Ill., it's hard for me to really empathize with those people -- unless they're also from somewhere in central Illinois.
On a typical Saturday night, what should be the pinnacle of a person's weekly social interaction, I have one of two options: go to a movie or drink (alcohol). Unfortunately, I find both activities equally enjoyable, so whenever I'm not simply drinking, I'm drinking at a movie theater. Of course, you're probably thinking, "Well, that sounds pretty awesome;" and it is. But such awesomeness sadly comes with a consequence: bad health.
Alcohol is unarguably bad for you. It fattens you up, riddles your organs with all kinds of nasty things, hinders your memory -- I think -- increases your chances for a whole host of terrible diseases. As I'm writing this, I'm wondering how the stuff is legal. It's really just a bad substance. Now, as I'm sure many of you are now saying to yourself, some alcohol, when imbibed in moderation, isn't so bad and can even have a few positive effects. For me, however, that's impossible. You see, I have no self-control.
Greasy pizza, chocolate bars, those long strings of cherry-flavored taffy, doughnuts and pretty much every flavor and brand of small cheesy crackers -- my mouth is actually watering -- if any of these foods are placed in front of me, or within a reasonable radius, I will devour them in the most literal sense of the word. I will eat every crumb, empty every package, no junk food is beyond me so long as it's not actually beyond me. I remember as a kid my parents would occasionally bring home a box of these tube-like chocolate cakes filled with swirls of pure white cream… um… I'm sorry, what was I saying? Oh, yes. So my parents would bring these cakes home, and at night I would slip out of my room and creep into the kitchen -- I, of course, had memorized exactly where my mother had "hidden" them -- and inhale the entire box as quickly as I think is possible for a boy of 13.
Thankfully, I had this high-octane metabolism that kept me thin throughout my more formative years. But as I've gotten older -- I'm 25 now -- I've started noticing the candy and pizza lingering in my mid-section a bit longer, staring at me in the mirror… mocking me. A few years back I picked up running and became a vegetarian to help reign in the excess, and it's worked to an extent, but I fear it's only a matter of time before it all catches up with me.
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