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

By this point it should be clear that turning chronic diseases around is difficult.

Moderate weight loss—not the kind you see on Instagram—is the key to turning T2D, hypertension and CVD around. The most promising approach is a lifestyle change. This includes plant-focused eating of fresh foods, regular aerobic exercising, strength training, and other changes such as stress relief and better sleeping habits. But, a 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 is a struggling and permanently dieting nation.

This leaves prevention. What if  parents could send a child on a path in life that makes it easier to maintain weight and avoid chronic diseases? What if eating healthy foods is not a hardship?

Most parents have good intentions when the baby is born but often don’t know exactly what to do or life gets to busy. What they also don’t know is that giving the child the best possible metabolic start in life will begin much earlier.

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

Prevention starts much earlier than you think.