The Health Decline of the New Generation

By Christopher Brandlin

This book is an explanation of how our nations health has deteriorated over the years due to the rise of obesity, which has resulted from industrialization, advanced technology, the fast food industry, and the increase of sedentary lifestyles. The main purpose of this book is to open everyones eyes to the harm we are causing not only to ourselves, but to others, which includes our future generations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465350565

Christopher Brandlin

Christopher Brandlin is an attorney who is licensed to practice before all courts in the State of California as well as the United States District Court. Prior to passing the California Bar Exam, Mr. Brandlin ran his own personal training business during college and law school to pay his tuition costs. While attending law school, he competed in All-Natural Bodybuilding competitions in order to challenge himself and increase his self-discipline. In between reading his law books, he studied under a dietitian and learned the specific details about nutrition that are not explained in the typical fitness certification courses. Although his new career steered him away from the fitness industry, exercise and nutrition are both still part of his lifestyle. While he is not practicing law, he studies various books and research which pertain to our nation´s health.

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Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Brandlin.

ISBN: Softcover    978-1-4653-5055-8

ISBN: Ebook         978-1-4653-5056-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

1. Introduction

2. Comparing Past Generations

• Effect of Industrialization

• Childhood Obesity

• Decrease of Physical Activity

• Global Effects

• Lack of Parenting

• The Ineffectiveness of Medicine

3. The Lack of Physical Activity

• Simple Ways to Burn More Calories

• Defining One’s Metabolism

• Benefits of Simple Activities

• There’s Always Time for Exercise

• Excessive Amount of Inactivity

• The Infomercial Schemes

• Importance of Being a Role Model

• Additional Recommendations to Burn More Calories

• The Need for a New Trend

4. Dietary Habits

• Increase in Calorie Consumption

• Calorie Intake Recommendations

• Under-Eating Decreases One’s Metabolism

• Effect of Insulin Levels

• The Increase of Alcoholism

• The Lack of Snacking Throughout the Day

• The Lack of Preparing Personal Meals

• Eating Out Hurts Financially and Leads to More Fat

• The Truth About Carbs

• The Lack of Dietary Fiber

• The Lack of Dietary Protein

• The Failure From Low-Fat Diets

• The Increased Consumption of Processed Food

• The Rise of the Fast Food Nation

• A Dehydrated Nation

5. The Need to Prioritize Health

• Financial Problems

• Outliving Our Children

• Obesity is Costly for Americans

6. Motivating America

• Failed Attempts From Prior Weight Loss Methods

• Achieving Euphoria From Better Health

• An Attempt to Motivate the Nation as a Whole

Chapter 1

Introduction

If you truly open your eyes, you will see the reality of our nation everyday. Americans are not only becoming severely overweight, but they are becoming lazy as well. You will notice an individual drive their car to a fast food restaurant, which is directly across the street from their home and even sit at the Drive Through. You will notice everyone waiting for the elevator to get from the first to the second floor at a building, when the stairs are right next to them. You will notice many individuals at a grocery store riding a seated electric scooter to get their groceries, when they actually have full use of their legs. You will notice that on a bright sunny day, individuals would rather drive their convertible around the beach, rather than taking a nice walk or using the bicycle on the bike path. You will notice everyone using new technology gadgets and staying indoors, rather going outdoors and doing a physical hobby. You will notice other co-workers at your place of employment go out for lunch everyday and constantly eat from the vending machines, rather than make their own lunches and bring healthy snacks. I could continue to list every aspect of the everyday American citizen, and how they allow their health to deteriorate, but I only pray that you begin to see my point.

Our nation is on a downhill track to a devastating epidemic, and many of those individuals are taking the next generation with them. But how can we attempt to change someone’s free will? Has creating any new healthy items in the past decade, or putting calorie counters at fast food restaurants really changed anything? The results vary depending on numerous factors, but the true fact is that the government’s attempt to alter the nation’s outlook has failed completely. The purpose of this book is to open everyone’s eyes to the harm we are causing not only to ourselves, but to others, which includes our future generations. Unfortunately, many of the individuals who are at the greatest health risk will not realize what they have done to themselves until their doctor advises them that their heart is failing and it is too late for any remedies.

If you have already read my previous book, Modern Common Sense on Health and Fitness: With 20 Additional Recipes to Reduce Your Calories, you will notice a similarity in my tone and my attempt to fully inform the reader of the need to prioritize your health. Although many of the points in my previous book will have similar sections to the some of this content, I will do my best to not be redundant in this book. My former book had a great focus on tactics in exercising with Strength Training, Cardiovascular Training, and nutritional ideas, but this book will have a slightly different aiming point. Instead, this book is intended to inform the reader of the negative aspects of our behavior, with an attempt to alter everyone’s lifestyle, and most importantly, protect our future generations.

As an experienced Certified Personal Trainer with multiple national certifications and former All-Natural Bodybuilder, I have struggled greatly when attempting to change others by introducing healthier habits, and it becomes very frustrating. Although many tactics have worked in certain situations, the majority of the time I will see that my attempts will be inevitable. The reason for this is my belief that most of the individuals’ motivation is actually internal, and you can only bring this motivation out of them, rather than trying to motivate them by your own accomplishments. I will discuss this more thoroughly later on in the book. In addition, it gets very frustrating when many clients will try to save money by postponing fitness training sessions for a month, when you notice that they are spending money on useless other tools, like a brand new car they don’t really need, or by continuing to go out to dinner every night which cost over $100 each bill. This shows a lack of prioritizing their health, and one should never put a dollar amount on that necessity.

Also, it becomes almost embarrassing, when third parties see your clients in public and notice that they aren’t making any great physical changes, and question your knowledge and experience with health and fitness. The only answer I can give through a simple hypothetical: if you only train someone 2-3 times a week, that’s 2-3 hours out of the week to control them, but the rest of the 165-166 hours are given to the client, which they can choose to control their diet and do their required cardiovascular training, or resort to their original habits.

When I discuss this problem with a few other trainers, they laugh in surprise and say, Come on, those are the perfect clients! When I ask why, they state, That’s job security! They’ll always need you since they keep getting fat. There is some truth to those statements, however I feel that I should not encourage one to get fat for my own income. Instead, I believe I can still accomplish many other things while the client continues to lose weight. I believe that every person should exceed their expectations. Rather than trying to get to an acceptable body fat percentage, many clients should get to an athletic body fat percentage and feel the ultimate confidence from the accomplishment. In addition, even if one get’s to the lowest body fat percentage for health purposes, one can still improve their strength, coordination, balance, and even rehabilitate certain injuries from personal training.

But a bigger problem is present outside of my personal training, when I experience heartbreaking scenes while walking through my neighborhood or going to a local supermarket. I am seeing many more children gaining substantial amounts of weight. It almost seems that some children nowadays are so overweight that they will have knee problems at a very