By: Dr. Tamara Kung at MCC Health Study
Less than 3% of US adults are happy & healthy, and only 1% are on track to stay that way.
xAlt.fit Pillars of Health – Fitness/Movement, Diet/Nutrition, Stress/Happiness, Sleep/Recovery, Community/Engagement, Energy
The rapid change, and shift in our environment = environmental mismatch where we become discombobulated, ineffectively reactive, desperate and miserable.
50% of US adults are diagnosed with chronic illness (many have more than one). CDC https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdsease/overview
68% are overweight or obese. Https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm
70% are taking at least one prescription drug. Https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(13)00357-1/abstract
80% are mentally or emotionally “Not flourishing”. Https://www.ncbi.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477942
97.3% of us are unhealthy and unhappy. Meaning not maintaining healthy habits like decent nutrition, adequate exercise, not smoking, not having a healthy body composition, not participating in community, not sleeping and recovering and not managing energy.
Less than 3% of US adults are happy, healthy, and only 1% are on track to stay that way. 97.3% = http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26906650
What kind of society makes being happy and healthy this hard, and to cause most of us so much suffering?
Breaking up from this societal tribe, becomes a biological red flag as we need community to survive. But what if our tribe is harming us, and going out on your own is the only way to truly survive and thrive because you realize that we’re all living this crazy, experimental trap?
We are living in a very real experiment where we are the first humans in history to undergo life that is not aligned with our genetic and biological needs.
For 4 million years, humans adapted behaviours, skills, neural and physical functions to coincide with our environment. And up until the equivalent of 46 minutes ago (relative to a human’s lifespan) [A special thank you to Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Yuval Noah Harari], our situation has completely changed. (Imagine trying to change lifelong habits in 46 minutes! That would be absurdly frustrating.
For most of our human life, we’ve hunted and gathered untampered, unprocessed, un-poisoned (for the lucky ones) foods from nature. We worked together as a community to nourish, shelter, to build and create things that protect ourselves , we enriched each others lives, for betterment of our society. For instance, a berry foraging member would benefit from NOT eating the entire bushel of berries on their way back to the tribe for not just fear for social repercussions, but we received more benefit when everyone in the society was nourished, healthy and strong because we depend on them for safety, shelter or whatever valuable skill each member has to offer. (selfish people were always asked to leave the tribe as they were not contributing to health and fitness of tribe) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuclear-family-was-a-mistake/605536/
For most of life, our activities were governed by the light and dark of day. We had more time then for leisure, although life was not without difficulties and challenges (like animal predators). The point is not to say life was good then, we sure do like our flushing toilets! But this is the lifestyle our body’s and minds are tuned to, being super fit and flexible and eating a broad and complex variety of 100% natural food. Our DNA, the stuff that governs every process, action, and stability in our body takes a long time to adapt.
When we compare the time spent in our previous modes of life with the drastic changes of today, on a relative basis to an average person’s lifespan, everything we knew changed very recently. Specifically, within 46 minutes of our life, EVERYTHING flipped. We are now suddenly plunged into an experiment of living in an environment that is completely opposite to what our biology and DNA knows, and have been given no time to adapt or evolve.
No longer are we cued by daylight and nightfall. We are flooded by light and screens at all times of the day. No longer are we spending focused time on an activity that was indispensably meaningful to our society. We are flitting, often highly distractedly between tasks that are meaningless and that leave us feeling devoid of purpose or real value.
No longer do we have real choice over our food, because they are painstakingly curated to be addicted to sugar and the concept of apparent convenience. We live in an experiment where our policies and government are partnered with industries that profit off the most toxic foods created (e.g.,. The CDC with Coca Cola). Where the leaders in our society are not here to protect us, rather to profit from us. They mostly are not doing this from malice, rather each one appears to be mostly craving their next bonus.
This cruel experiment is the reason why 97% of us are unhappy and unhealthy. We are living in an environment that is totally mismatched with our biology and the result is depression, isolation, anxiety, chronic stress, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, cancer… This is an experiment gone wrong, and the creators are not jumping to stop this or save us. It’s become embedded into the fabric of what we call culture.
We are trapped in our society’s culture and overarching demands for conformity. Here are some examples (problems):
- Newer, faster, bigger, more, cheaper (except with luxury or exclusive products, then expensive is better) are better
- You’d be happier if you were more attractive, had the right body shape, were rich and or famous
- Rich, famous and attractive people are better and happier than you
- You are at risk for disease
- You can have it all
- You’re only as good as what you’ve acquired
- Everybody is looking at you, assessing you, judging you
Yet, we’re always being asked to change, being offered ineffective and absurd solutions like:
- Buy more
- Money can fix most of the things wrong with you
- You just need to work harder, do more things, get more things, fix more things
- Quickly fix your visible flaws, or at least hide them
- Eat less, exercise more
If you are unhappy that 97% of your friends and family are struggling with mental health, physical health and lack of community engagement, join xAlt.fit today and get them to join as well. xAlt provides the platform to make incremental changes to Fitness/Movement, Diet/Nutrition, Stress/Happiness, Sleep/Recovery, Community/Engagement and Energy, one day, one week, month and year at a time, with a coach that will motivate you to grow your health and take you towards a life of prosperous longevity.
