Choosing Optimal Health

Today I was giving a speech entitled It Pays to Be Healthy to a group of professionals and entrepreneurs. The point of my talk was about making our health a priority. As entrepreneurs, our health and our bodies were important assets. I endorsed the concept of investing in our health, as our bodies were great assets.

I acknowledged that there are some genetic predispositions that may make achieving optimal health more challenging. Nevertheless, what we can take responsibility for, we should do so. Given that there are some things that we cannot control, we should focus on the ones that we can.

A woman in the audience came up to me and told me an amazing story. She is an active, busy professional. She has been "into health" her entire adult life. She is trim, active, energetic, and she relishes all of the rewards she reaps for having chosen to make her health a priority.

As an adopted person, she always knew that without any knowledge of her family health history, living in her body as healthfully and responsibly as possible was the smartest path.

Well into her adult years, she met for the first time her birth mother and her sister. They are both morbidly overweight and have diabetes. She shared with me her own discovery of how much at risk she could have potentially been in had she grown up in that family with their values.

Many people buy into their family health history as if it was a done deal. This has certainly been my experience as a health coach. People often say that their mother, their aunt, their grandmother and other family members have had XYZ disease (cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes for example) so they figured that they would too.

I have often believed that what people inherit in addition to the genetic factor, are habits and beliefs. This woman today showed me a glorious illustration what can happen when we choose health, in spite of our family history.

Rosie Bank is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Consultant (AFPA) and maintains a practice, counseling groups and individuals in person and via webinars. Rosie's monthly webinar is entitled Feel Great Lose Weight.