Eat Better and Save Money

Everyone needs to eat better, not just dancers and athletes. The old saying, you are what you eat could not be truer. Good eating isn't just for producing slim, trim coordinated entertainers. It is to stave off illness, injury, and increase longevity for everyone.

Eating better may cost more in the grocery store, but it reduces higher priced medical expenses. Processed and junk foods are cheap in price and can appear to be a good way to fill shopping carts and stomachs; but alas, they are also cheap in quality and contribute to a myriad of health problems.

From teaching dance for over thirty years, I have seen a rise in allergies, acid reflux, and bone fractures. I have seen a decline in emotional stability, immune responses, and muscle tone over the decades. While not all of this can be attributed to our diets, much of it can.

Living in the USA where the quantity of food is at its highest and the quality of food is at its lowest, it is a struggle to teach my students and their families to eat better. When the peer group is eating a compromised diet filled with refined grains, sugar ladened yogurts, over salted restaurant meals, topped off with daily treats, few see the correlation between the dip in society's emotional well-being, the softening of the public's muscle tone, the increase in annual viruses, and so on.

Improving eating habits includes changing our language surrounding food. We can talk in ways that create interest in better eating. Instead of boasting, I'm a meat and potatoes person, or pointing out in a derogatory tone that some one eats rabbit food, we can talk about fruits, vegetables, and whole grains with a positive spin. Instead of begrudgingly vocalizing compliance with healthy eating in order to eat junk, make the healthy food the treat. Changing the way you talk about food will change the way you think, behave, and ultimately how you feel. Eating better will make you feel better and save money in the long run. Begin today!