As part of the new web series, The Role Model In You — here is the most recent interview. The Role Model In You series discusses how individuals were influenced as a child to lead a healthy lifestyle. It covers who influenced these individuals, the changes they made in their life to be healthy, and the message they would like to convey to the youth of today. Our guests include doctors, soccer stars, Super Bowl champions, NBA players, Olympic gold medalist, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and just regular people looking to share their story. We hope you enjoy it!
1. Your name, title, and age? What do you do (or did you do) for a living?
Dr. Ben Lerner, co-founder of Maximized Living, Maximized Living Health Centers, and the Maximized Living Foundation. Age 46.
Maximized Living is a health and wellness company with franchisees and licensees throughout the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. I have authored nine books on health, wellness and success.
2. Who was the person that inspired you as a child to eat healthy and stay fit? What was their relationship to you?
Both of my parents struggled with their health and their weight for as long as I can remember. My inspiration was more about avoiding the pain of junk food and the sedentary lifestyle.
3. What did they do to inspire you?
They were both smokers, were very focused on food and rarely exercised.
4. How did their lesson change your life?
Watching them struggle inspired me to get–and keep–my act together from a very young age. As early as eight years old, I would go on diets with them, learning the difference between right and wrong when it came to eating.
They were great people, and they didn’t mean harm by it, but they had sort of condemned me to a life of weight problems as well. They would casually say, “When you’re 30, you’ll be fat, too. It’s just the way it is.” I wasn’t committed to proving them wrong. I was inspired to make sure it would never happen.
5. Do you convey their message to kids in your life presently?
Yes! Our family not only practices healthy eating, we educate our three kids as to why getting moving and putting the right things in your body more often than not is the right way to go. I’ve written books and created programs for families to make it easier to do. Keeping kids well in a fast-food, high-tech world can be tough without the right tools.
6. What would be your main message to children today to lead healthy lifestyles?
We hear a whole lot of negative things about the economy, the environment and the fragile condition of the world. Yet, we can still live a great long life and make a difference by simply taking care of ourselves. A destructive lifestyle will cause you to dislike your appearance, feel poorly, zap your energy, and make you look and feel old. If you eat the right foods 80 percent of the time and make sure to step away from the technology to get active every day, your body will take you far.
7. Do you have a web site you would like to promote….web address only?