Olympic nosh musings

I find the Olympics very boring. All the media hype about posh Britons winning medals in sports with fairly small global playing populations, hype about pumped up sprinters running at high speed and then being revealed somewhere down the line as being drugs cheats.

One thing the media really hyped this time is the unhealhty or junk food diets of Michael Phelps (huge fry-ups and refined carbs galore) and Usain Bolt (chicken nuggets). The producers of low-grade food must love it and also those on poor diets growin obsese and shortening their lives.

'See, I knew all that healthy eating was nonsense! My diet's the same as top athletes!'.

It's not just Olympians that superficially thrive on bad food. Many people eat stellar diets and constantly battle their low energy levels. Quite often stress or mental outlook is a factor. A thoughtful, sensitive person in a boring job they don't enjoy, or carrying - to use that horrible word - 'issues' may be more lethargic than the paunchy sales rep high on sugary coffee, Mars bars and junk who basically likes the thrill of sealing a good deal and any stress can be dealt with by a round of golf or an episode of Top Gear. He's happy until the heart attack, the cancer scare, the diabetes. Meanwhile the person with an enviable 'great career job' might feel thoroughly miserable, feel stressed and worn out just at the thought of a job they don't enjoy to any degree, and no amount of healthy food or yoga can fix the fact they can't stand their life as it stands. They dream of escape.

Michael Phelps has a young, powerful body and a single-minded determination to succeed in his present career. He's got the mind and the spirit in the bag and - presently - the body. But for how long? Will he be swimming the the top level when he's 45 or 55? What's his health going to look like then if he keeps eating rubbish?

Kids and young adults, like the seeds of plants, are supposed to be hardy and have a fighting chance at growth and survival. Although I always liked fruit and veg and wholegrain bread as a kid I didn't half eat a lot of utter garbage including aspertame lemonade and day-glo sweets with who knows what in them. If I ate the diet did when I was 12 for a week or two now, I'm sure I'd be very sick, very fast.

Bad food choices can be cumulative and show up years down the line, although now even hardy kids are coming down with middle-age lifestyle disease like Type 2 diabetes. Young people tough, but they're not that tough. How much can a body take over time?