2. A Healthy Life Starts Earlier Than You Think: Pre-Conception And Pregnancy

By this point it should be clear that reducing the risk (and damage) of chronic diseases is difficult.

Moderate weight loss—not the kind you see on Instagram—is the key to turning T2D, hypertension, and CVD development around. The most promising approach is a lifestyle change. This includes a plant-focused diet of fresh foods, regular aerobic exercising and strength training, and other changes such as stress relief and better sleeping habits. Even with these lifestyle interventions, lower weight is enormously difficult to maintain because obesity changes the metabolism so profoundly. It is much easier to gain weight than lose it. Proof of this concept can be seen in America, a struggling and permanently dieting nation.

This leaves prevention. What if parents could influence a child’s ability to maintain weight, avoid chronic disease, and eat healthy foods? Most parents have good intentions when the baby is born; however, many don’t know exactly what to do, or get too busy to keep up healthy habits. What most also don’t know is that giving a child the best possible metabolic start in life begins earlier than you might think.

During the next chapters you will see that lifestyle choices parents make—even before the fetus is conceived—can make a big difference.