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Chronic Illness is Everywhere
Do me a favor and think about all of the people you know and think about this question: do you know anyone that is 100% healthy? Truly. Do you know anyone that has absolutely no chronic complaints, no diagnoses, and looks completely healthy? I’ve asked myself this often in the last few years because the answer for me is a huge NO!
Why is EVERYONE dealing with something these days? How is it that nearly everyone deals with some sort of chronic health issue, whether it be mild or severe? It really doesn’t have anything to do with what some people think about how things are just “better diagnosed”. I call complete BS on that one.
It is because our environment SUCKS. We have had horrible nutrition, more exposure to toxins, and it is even worse over the last 2 decades because 3 main things happened in the 90s that have changed things for the worse: the introduction of GMOs into the food system, the MASSIVE increase of vaccines given to kids, and the increase of use of artificial sweeteners (because of our horrible craze of diets!). People are much sicker now in 2017 than people were in 1990s because of this- and this is why I have such a vastly different approach to health: we are different so we NEED different things!
I was 17 when I was told I had a chronic illness. These days, kids are even younger and dealing with even WORSE issues that I did and I find this absolutely unacceptable. We need to be the change in the world if we want to do better by the future generations. You can read my whole post on the issues that kids are dealing with these days right here.
Let’s go over the causes of our poor health!
Bad Nutrition
In the 1990s, the food supply got so much worse than it used to be. First, GMOs were introduced into the mix. Read more on GMOs here.
Artificial sweeteners had already been around for several decades by the time the 90s started, but they became much more common as more and more people were jumping on the diet bandwagon: the low fat, low sugar, low calorie trend has been one of the most dangerous ones that we’ve dealt with. The theory that the less calories we consume, the better led to the increase in use of artificial sweeteners. These days, we know that many of them are linked to cancer, neurological issues, behavior issues, and more. You can read a full list of artificial sweeteners here, as well as what you would usually find them in and why we should avoid them!
Basically, this list below is ALL of the main things that we’ve been eating that have contributed to poor health. It’s best to make adjustments and avoid as much of these things as you can:
- Genetically Modified Foods
- Artificial sweeteners
- Food dyes
- High Fructose Corn syrup (and I’d stay away from Corn syrup too!)
- MSG
- Read why we should avoid the above mentioned here.
- Packaged foods labeled as “low-fat” (AKA filled with sugar!)
- Avoid as many boxed foods as you can
- Non-organic sugars
- Oils from soy, corn, safflower, sunflower, canola, and peanut
Increase in Toxin Exposure
Toxins are everywhere these days: foods, personal care products, electronics, cleaning products, vaccines, and even the air are just some of the main things that expose us to carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and more. There are about 82,000 known chemicals used in everyday household items, and most of them have never been tested for safety.
These chemicals are cancer causing, hormone disrupting (especially causing infertility), and skin irritants. The skin is the largest organ in our bodies and using these harsh products on our skin daily is truly wreaking havoc for our health. The more we are exposed to, the more likely we will absorb in the body which can lead to a stressed out liver and a tendency to gain weight (as we store toxins in fat when the liver cannot keep up with metabolizing these toxins). Read more here about environmental toxins!
The vaccine schedule has been another issue that has gotten out of hand. No matter what your stance is on vaccines, I can only hope that we can all agree that the amount of vaccines given to children these days is asinine. When I was a kid, there were about 11 separate shots given from birth to age 5. Now kids are getting close to 20 in just the first 6-12 months of life! They ARE contributing to issues with kids: seizures, strokes, type 1 diabetes, and more are incredibly common in children these days, and all of these symptoms are listed in the package inserts. Vaccines are NOT one-size-fits-all. Find a pediatrician willing to be open and honest to talk about this with you and read this: *Institute for Vaccine Safety – Package Inserts *.
Other common toxins we are exposed to:
- Pesticides and herbicides (hello, Round-up! About 2 years ago the WHO declared that Glyphosate is a probable carcingogen, yet it is still being used everywhere)
- Heavy metals in dental fillings, vaccines, the water supply, etc
- Second and third hand smoke
- Paint, carpet, and other things that homes are built with often contain toxic chemicals
- EMFs
- Household cleaners (bleach, windex, etc)
- Pollution
- BPA (and other plastics)
- Parasites!
- Other chronic infections like Lyme
- Our water supply: Fluoride, heavy metals, parasites, and even traces of pharmaceutical drugs can be found in tap water. Learn how to get clean water here.
- Furniture! Most furniture companies still use toxic chemicals as a flame retardant. The furniture off-gasses, and it gets worse the older it gets. Mattresses tend to be the worst!
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; National Institutes of Health; National Cancer Institute; and the National Institute of Environment published a 46 page booklet to talk about the environmental causes of cancer. The booklet says that a LARGE number of cancers are in fact preventable, and *at least* two-thirds of all cancers can be linked to environmental issues. Whatever toxins we are exposed to in our lives have the potential to be passed on to our children too. Our goal should be to do as much as we can to limit our exposure to toxins.
The more that people wake up, the more things will change. Things are slowlyyyy making a shift these days as we get back into common sense health and nutrition. Vote with your dollars when it comes to foods, household items, clothes, furniture, and more. WE HAVE TO CHANGE. Period. If we don’t, then our kids are the ones that will suffer, and their kids will be even worse off.
The body is a whole and we must treat it as such! I have my Bachelor of Science in Natural Health Sciences, certificates in Herbal Studies from Herbal Academy, and I am constantly learning more about health to help my clients and followers.
My goal is to help you unleash your own inner healer! You already hold the power to heal inside you. My role is as a guide to help you realize this potential.
