Money and Health

I was thinking last night about how interrelated money and health are in the world today. To start with, money gives us options, options we wouldn't have without it. A healthy body does the same, it gives us options. We can literally do things with a strong healthy body that we couldn't do without it. I'm not talking about just sports either but an endless range of activities. We can do everything we do in our daily lives, with more energy, if we keep our selves in good physical shape.

Money is the number one cause of stress in this country. Yep, tons of studies out there to back that up. Husbands and wives fuss over money even more than they argue about how to raise the children. What do people do when they are stressed, they eat or spend money, or both. It's a good bet that if your credit card debt is out of control so is your waistline.

Another interesting fact is that is that when times get tight, the health related stuff is cut back first, expenses like workout clothes, gym memberships and race related expenses are out the window. Then we eat to ease our stress and not the veggie burger either but comfort food. Did you know that since we went into this current economy crisis that fast food places are still doing super. Fast food, ice cream and movie rental stores are thriving, so are the sales of beer and cigarettes. Yep even with the mega taxes on cigarettes they are still selling well.

Now what is wrong with this picture? We are in a budget crunch and we can still afford to go to Wendy's or pick up a bucket of Kentucky Fried, but we can't swing a new pair of exercise shoes to replace the ones hurting our feet. I saw someone at the Minute Mart the other day, looked like a laborer worker of some sort and he was getting a sandwich and a coke then asked for a pack of cigarettes. Well when he found out the price of the smokes he put the sandwich back and just got the coke and the cigarettes.

Right now a lot of us are slapped silly by the economy. But we can't loose sight of what's really important. Remember this mess will end and wouldn't it be nice if it ended with us still having a healthy strong body instead of us weighing fifty more pounds and stressing about that also.

Thanks for reading.