Talk to most people over 40 and you’ll hear the same comments: “I just can’t eat, drink, run, stay up all night, read the fine print like I used to”. Youth is forgiving but after 40-something years of moving, breathing, digesting and gravity, our body starts to show signs of wear and tear. We’d expect it with any other machine. But most of us are still shocked when our body can’t keep up with what we think it should do. Some desperately grasp at supplements or surgery to retain their youth while, at the other extreme, some passively resign themselves that their bulging tummy and shrinking calves are just part of getting old. Aging happens. But how fast it happens is up to us.

Over the next few posts we’ll look at some common problems that hit the 40-something age group.

Middle age spread

Why it happens

Hormones, hereditary and lifestyle are the culprits in middle age spread. For women, the years leading up to menopause see a gradual drop in oestrogen levels. Oestrogen encourages fat to be stored around the hips and thighs but with less oestrogen fat tends to accumulate around the tummy. We transform from ‘pears’ to ‘apples’ – just like the men.

When I first visited Thailand in 1989 there were no fast food chains – and no overweight Thai people. Twenty years later there are loads of fast food chains and many overweight Thais. It’s a tragedy that the worst of our western food habits has infiltrated this amazing culture.

‘Better to live on the corner of a roof than with a nagging wife’

I can see more than a few blokes out there vigorously nodding their head in agreement at this proverb. I’m by no means the perfect wife but I have taken this proverb to heart and try really hard not to nag. There are so many things that us wives would like to nag our husbands about: help with the kids, help clean the house, go for a medical check, watch less sport on TV, come home early from work, help with the cooking…

Until a few weeks ago cooking in our home was solely a female job – apart from tea and toast which I greatly appreciated in bed on a lazy weekend. But that has all changed – without even one tiny nag.

I don’t buy crisps and hardly ever feel like eating them but put me in front a bowl of them and I can’t help myself! It’s even worse with a glass of wine and a few friends around. The ambiance, the conversation… before I know it I’ve mindlessly gobbled up hundreds of kilojoules and a few good spoonfuls of fat. It’s all to do with proximity.

So if it works with crisps, why not vegetables? This is the question that researchers at Cornell University recently answered with a resounding YES. Move the salad bar so it’s more ‘in your face’ and the kids eat more salad. Such a simple move, and not a mention of 5-a-day, antioxidants or any other cleverly crafted health coercement (not sure if that is a word but it sounds good!)

But hold on, don’t us mums already do that at home? We innately understand proximity. We chop an extra carrot, a few extra vegetables and pop them in front of the kids to allay the pre-dinner whining. We chop up fruit and put it on the table – and it gets eaten. If we told our kids to go eat an apple or a carrot, they would hardly jump at the idea. But when it’s placed in front of them most kids gladly eat it – especially if there’s nothing else on offer. I’ve found it works with husbands too.

So before the researchers and big business spend any more millions on working out how to get kids to eat their food, perhaps they could leave work early and see how it’s done in their own home!