“You’re such a health nut!” Yeah, shame on me, right? All I want is to be healthy. You know, feel good, have lots of energy, get sick less often, live longer. Silly old me. Well, if I’m a health nut, what’s does that make the people who aren’t health nuts? Unhealth nuts? Death nuts?

(Before I go any further, I’d like to admit that I stole the whole “death nut” thing. I’m not positive, but I think Chris Shugart wrote about that on T-Nation a few years back. He used to (probably still does) have regular posts in a section of the T-Nation forum called “Shugart’s Hammer”. There’s a lot of good reading there, so I suggest you check it out.)

Back to the point! Why exactly is being a “health nut” a bad thing? Why is taking pride in your body and well-being something we should feel ashamed about? On the list of “most important” in our lives, isn’t health pretty high up there? For me it’s #3, right after a relationship with God, and my family. (Yes, I would put my family before my health. How altruistic of me.) I argue that what we say is one of our highest priorities really isn’t. In fact, it’s probably pretty far down on the scale.

I understand God being #1 in people’s lives. (I also understand God not being on the list. I really don’t understand God being somewhere in the middle.) I also understand family and close friends being high on the list. After those two, what else is usually next? For myself, and for a lot of other people, it’s health. Our health is more important than our jobs, it’s more important than our houses and cars, and it’s more important than money. That makes sense. You can survive in a crappy house, but you can’t survive (at least not for long) with a crappy heart.

So, we say health is more important than our jobs, but be honest with yourself. How often do you eat a quick crappy lunch, probably from some fast food joint, just so you can get back to work in time. That 30 minute lunch break doesn’t allow much time for cooking a healthy meal. So, instead of staying at work longer to make up the time, or just asking for a longer lunch break, we put our jobs first, and shovel poison into our mouths. (That’s right – poison. Call it like I see it.)

Is your house more important than your health? Of course not! No point in having a house if you aren’t alive to live in it. Sure, it might be nice to die in, but that’s a rather negative view on what a house should be for. So we buy a house that might be a little more than we can afford. Not to worry; we’ll cut back on other things. Like… Food? Gym memberships? That healthy grass fed beef is too expensive; those cage free chicken eggs are too expensive; those organic vegetables are too expensive. You know what else is expensive? Heart surgery. Cancer. Diabetes.

Take a close look at your priorities. We may say one thing, but what do our actions represent? The health of our nation is absolutely embarrassing, and there’s no excuse for it. We go in debt for just about anything else (cars, houses, clothes, electronics) but how about we put that money where it matters. Do your priorities match your budget?