I am utterly sick of the myth that living a healthy lifestyle will prevent illness.

• Granted, eating a balanced diet of nutritious food is better than grazing on ice cream and bon-bons all day.
• Getting regular exercise has distinct health benefits; moving as little as possible has a detrimental impact on people’s health.
• Is there anyone who isn’t aware of the health ramifications of smoking?
• Excessive alcohol consumption is another no-no.

The story goes that if you exercise, eat right, refrain from smoking, and drink moderately, you’ll be healthy.  That’s a lie.

Those claims need modifiers.  Living a healthy lifestyle can lessen one’s chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and some of the other chronic diseases, but there are no guarantees.

The prevention protocol only goes so far.  Ancestry is also a factor.  Luck plays a significant part, too.

Autoimmune diseases really don’t care how you’ve lived your life.  If you eat right, refrain from smoking/drinking, and exercise, you can still have crummy genes and lousy luck.

When I was a kid, my mom was careful about planning nutritious meals.  My dad worked too hard and grabbed fast-food for his meals, and his waistline showed it.  My mom was determined that her children not suffer the same fate.  She planned menus and we kids learned how to do it, too.  We learned how to cook so we’d always be able to eat healthily.  I still try to plan good meals.

Exercise?  I was an active kid.  Everyone ran around outside and played.  When I was old enough, I played softball and soccer in the youth leagues, and took swimming and gymnastics lessons.  This was back when schools still had recess and PE classes.  In junior high I continued to play soccer during the summer, then during the school year I played volleyball, basketball, and ran track.  And still we had PE classes.  Junior high PE was interesting; due to a scheduling mix-up, I and one other girl were assigned to the boy’s class.  While the rest of the girls were in the gym doing jumping-jacks, we were outside in the rain playing real sports.  After PE, when most people went to math or history, I got to change into dry workout clothes for my gymnastics class.  There was no question that I got plenty of exercise.  In high school, I had to drop volleyball since it was the same time as soccer, but that doesn’t mean I exercised less.  The basketball coach made a point of tracking me down and asking me to turn out for the team.  I continued to run track for the first two years of hs.  My junior year I started dating a body-builder, so we’d go to the local gym and I learned to work out with weights.  In college, I was glad for that time in the gym.  It gave me a chance to continue exercising even when my organized sports dropped to just summer adult-league soccer.  I started swimming more.

Once in the workforce, I wasn’t nearly as active, but managed to make it to the gym four or five times a week (and I was dirt-poor, so had to walk everywhere).  Exercising came to a grinding halt when I was put on bed-rest with my first pregnancy, and I never quite resumed the same intensity.  I maintain, however, that if gardening and other yard work can be considered exercise, then chasing toddlers definitely counts.

It drives me crazy when people act as if having a chronic disease is my fault.  I exercised.  I ate well.  I didn’t smoke.  Yet here I am.

“WarmSocks” blogs at ∞ itis.

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