Sugar and spice and everything nice… that’s what little girls are made of. Thus goes a part of an old English nursery rhyme, intended to suggest that little boys, who are correspondingly made of snips and snails and puppy dogs’ tails, are somehow less pleasant.
However, in the current state of peoples’ health, being made of sugar is not the better of the two alternatives.
It’s hardly a new idea, but a programme on the TV just the other night was emphasising how sugar is bad for you.
I was left with a feeling of déjà vu, I confess, as it is really quite old hat.
The depressing thing, though, and I’m as guilty as the next person, is that we don’t seem to do much about it.
We continue to eat food which is ludicrously rich in what has long been seen as ‘hidden’ sugar.
There’s an old adage in the grocery trade: packaged food is packed with sugar.
I clearly recall giving my son and daughter ‘healthy bars’ as part of what I thought was a ‘healthy’ snack during the day and thinking that yoghurt and fruit juice were healthy.
I’m sure many people still avoid the obviously sweet, guilty pleasures, such as chocolate but continue to eat, for example, dried fruit as a healthy alternative.
It really is the creeping, silent, hidden killer as it has an increasingly sinister part to play with the incidence of type 2 diabetes in the Middle East.
Bahrain is in the 10 countries with the highest diabetes prevalence rates in the world.
Many are linking the development of type 2 diabetes, which has an alarming array of unpleasant consequences, with an increase in wealth and a change in lifestyle.
The programme went on to highlight the dreadful synergy which exists with a sugary diet and a sedentary lifestyle.
Together, they are the driving force behind the rise of type 2 diabetes.
There is, though, it appears, a solution. No, don’t panic; it’s not going for a long run or walk every day, although that wouldn’t hurt, of course.
It seems that a very short period of incredibly intense activity can have a real benefit. This too, is old hat, I’m afraid. We have known for a while that HIT (high intensity training) is beneficial and especially so for type 2 diabetes.
It seems that just a few minutes of really (and I mean really) intense activity will bear fruit (not the dried variety, remember!) and is easy to fit into our busy schedules.
So, at this traditional, ‘let’s make a new start’ time of year, why don’t we all actually decide to do something about it?
Stop buying sugary fizz for the kids; drink water.
Make food yourself and you’ll know what’s in it!
For just five minutes every day (with medical advice if you need it, of course) really ‘go for it’ exercise-wise, so that your heart is beating out of your chest and your breath comes in great whoops.
You’d be surprised at the effect; drop me a line in six weeks; I bet you’ll feel better.
* Mike Gaunt is a former headmaster at St Christopher’s School, Bahrain
- mikegaunt@gmail.com