Healthy Street talks

When Mr. Obama is working to improve the Wall Street, Mrs. Obama made an appearance on the Sesame Street in New York this past week. Her mission was to inform the oblivious group about the importance of exercise and good healthy eating habits. She used Elmo as the media, asking him to exercise unless he wanted to turn himself into a fat, hairy alcoholic like Snuffeluffagus. She also insisted that parents should be the role models for their children to cultivate healthy eating habits and exercise routines. To be honest, I have not watched Sesame Street episodes like the kids do here in the US. I am glad that Mrs. Obama made this appearance to cultivate good eating habits and importance of exercise in the show that is most watched by growing kids these days.

I can reword the saying – ‘Good manners start at home’ to ‘Anything good starts at home’. It is true that kids learn from watching what the elders do. If the parents feed their kids from the beginning, with fruits and veggies, kids learn to make it a part of their meal. If the elders stack their kitchen with healthy snacks, that is what the kids get to eat, unless they see otherwise. Let us run the logic through – a kid comes to see what is there to eat in the pantry. He sees a bag of Oreos and a bag of Triscuits – what do you think he will pick up? Splurging once in a while on treats is good but not always.

Mrs. O (new nickname that I bestowed on her) also stressed on exercising habits. Seeing how Mr. President himself works out 6 times a week, plays basketball and sets himself up as a roll model to stay fit and Mrs. O works out 3-4 times a week (one health conscious First family), it is apparent that she would talk about exercising to keep one self healthy. I would not call myself a gym freak but I would end up at the gym at least 3 or 4 times a week for about an hour at the minimum. The days I am hooked onto the right music on my iPod or on the music channel at the gym, I would be on treadmill or elliptical for about an hour and then do weights for another half hour. But that still does not put me in the fit category. The day I would wear my swimsuit and not be evasive about it, I would consider myself fit.

Exercise is for everyone, both for men and women. I do see men workout to build their abs, biceps and triceps but I do think that they need to work on their chest to get rid of their man-boobs. Not all have them, but when they do, it looks ugly. I have seen some have that, and would still wear a tight fitting top without banyan (undershirt). They think that they are showing off their chest while it is actually making the people who see it, sick to their stomach. Maybe they should consider wearing a sports bra, like Homer wears it in ‘The Simpsons’ or try the Mansierre as shown in ‘Seinfeld’. Whether it is wearing tight fitting garments underneath or eating fat burning pills, they are all means to cover-up the parts of our body that are not right. Oldest method is till the best method we have so far – proper eating habits and working out to burn what was put inside our body.