We’ve lost our understanding of the natural ability of the human body to thrive…
Most of today’s humans are a sad reflection of what we once were. Our modern life, ultra-processed food, the ability to sit on our butts too much, the furniture we lounge and sleep on, the chemicals we’re exposed to… All have come together to create modern humans who are generally weak, fat, under-muscled, slow and relatively pathetic creatures compared to our strong, resilient ancestors.
I recall when we were travelling around Western Australia, reading a story and gazing at old photographs in a small historical building (an old jail cell, from memory) located somewhere north of Perth. The story was of an Aboriginal man who easily outran the horses ridden by the men who were trying to catch him and take him prisoner. I don’t recall what he’d done to deserve a jail sentence, but the story of his athletic ability stuck with me. I remember his photograph showed a strong, muscular physique (very unlike most of the modern-day Aboriginal people I’ve seen in Australia), and the fact that he could outrun a horse on a beach amazed me.
Apparently, there are races around the world today where athletes compete against horses (like this one), and the consensus seems to be that the occasional human can outrun a horse only over a short distance. The articles I’ve found about this explain that some well-trained humans can run faster for longer than horses, so they can beat them in a marathon, but not in a sprint.
However, our Aboriginal friend of many years ago was outrunning horses on a beach that were trying to chase him down. That’s a whole different feat that today would be considered impossible.
But it’s not. Or it wasn’t…
The Problems with Modern Man – and Woman
In today’s world, we face many things that contribute to undermining our health and reducing our physical potential.
Things as simple as sitting and sleeping on furniture, rather than squatting or sleeping on the ground; using vehicles to get from A to B rather than walking; and the ability to avoid lifting heavy things or doing hard, manual work mean that most of us are far less physically strong, fit or agile compared to our ancestors. Even those who go to the gym regularly are generally not anywhere close to sharing the physical capacity that the humans of yesteryear would have enjoyed.
Then there are the chemicals we are exposed to, in our workplaces, in shopping centres, in our clothing, in our cars, in the air, in our food and water, and in the personal care products we’ve been convinced we need to slather over our bodies each day to keep us looking and smelling good.
These chemicals can affect all systems of our body, causing not only symptoms and/or disease, but potentially creating changes to DNA that may be passed down to offspring.
