Transcripts

Craig Pepin-Donat, author of the book The Big Fat Health & Fitness Lie..

We are working from morning to night, we have endless to-do lists, we've got the pressures of work at home, trying to sustain a relationship, paying the bills, and we've got so much stress we want to escape from reality. And the problem is that that escape is in the form of drinking and smoking and taking drugs and overeating and we spend hours and hours in front of the TV.

Now it may be that your life is just plain stressful and that's fine says Craig but just realize what it's doing to your health. And it's not that way in other cultures.

In Spain, people take two-hour lunch breaks and they take a nap. They eat better foods: fish, lean meats. I'm doing a lot of work right now in Thailand and it's amazing when you walk the streets of Thailand down in Bangkok you don't see the same kind of fast foods that we have here. They're selling in the street carts fresh fruits, they're selling lean grilled meats, you don't see that many fat people in Thailand just because they eat better and they also eat smaller portions. We live in an overstuffed, oversized society here and we think that's normal - but it's just not.

Tomorrow: Is walking enough exercise to make you really fit? I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.