I was recently at the gym and running on the treadmill, one of my favorite activities! Not that running in place is such a turn-on, but I love the fact that I sweat a lot and can watch all of the people around me including the occasional TV channel.  At any rate, I was watching a news station that reported that over 1/3 of Americans are overweight! And worse, almost 30 million Americans have weight-related diabetes!

I am stunned by this and saddened at the same time. It is truly without judgment that I feel for people who are doing injury to themselves physically, emotionally, financially, and most likely spiritually. Naturally, my first question is to ask “why?”

I intuitively know that the myriad of answers are too numerous to address and are no doubt very personal to most. In a moment of clarity, I realized that I too suffer from body image issues and one of the very reasons I’m running to my hearts limits on a treadmill is to counter the emotional effects of my body dysmorphia. Is it possible that everyone suffers from some aspect of insecurity or poor self-esteem which manifests in one destructive habit or another? Considering the number of people who are on antidepressants and antianxiety medications, I would safely surmise that many people old and young are not coping with their issues.

So, as Americans eat themselves into disease (which is the bodies way of reacting to our dis-ease with ourselves and our lives), doing so while wasting almost half of the food that we produce and buy, it is truly time to put on the brakes of consumption and ask ourselves “why are we not content, why are we not happy?”.  If you are able to say emphatically “I love myself and my life”, I applaud you! And if not, if you are one of the many who over-satiate or over-medicate or if you are just like me, not satisfied with what I have been given already, then it is truly time to stop and reflect. You are not alone; I am one of many who are right alongside looking for a deeper meaning and grasping for self-love and compassion. You can do it, WE can do it!