Are you feeding your pet a diet that's healthier than your own? We all love our pets, but we need to make sure that we're eating a healthy diet as well. (As a side note, we did stop offering the Juice Plus+ for pets product, as many people are still asking about it.) It's absurb to think that so many people will take care of their pets better than they take care of themselves. (Ok, it may be easy to believe when you have that little face staring at you!). But, seriously, we can't neglect the good nutrition that our bodies so desperately need and the vitamins and nutrients that are deficient in our diets.
Jennie the German shepherd-heeler mix had always been an agile dog. So when Maribeth Ashley, the owner of the 6-year-old rescue dog, noticed that Jennie was having trouble getting in and out of the car for trips to the park, she was worried. Then Ashley noticed that her other dog, Pickles, also a 6-year-old shepherd mix, needed help jumping into the car, too. Ashley scheduled a visit to the vet. When she got there, she got bad news. "The vet told me that they were so fat they were going to have hip dysplasia in their old age and coronary problems and all kinds of things," Ashley said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 34.2 percent of Americans over age 20 were overweight as of 2008, and another 33.8 percent were obese. As human waistlines have ballooned, so has pets' girth: A 2009 national survey of veterinarians by the Association for the Prevention of Pet Obesity found that 45 percent of dogs and 58 percent of cats were overweight or obese. Those numbers revealed a 2 percent increase in dog weight problems from the year before, and a 5 percent increase for cats.
The upsurge in pudgy pets has the same roots as the human obesity epidemic, vets say. Nutritionally unbalanced diets, too many treats and too little exercise all conspire to fatten up Fido. Thanks to these common causes, it's perhaps fitting that new pet weight-loss techniques, from interactive weight-monitoring tools to exercise equipment, are modeled after those meant for their two-legged companions.
Counting canine calories
Someone who stumbled upon the website of the company Nulo could be forgiven for thinking they'd taken a wrong turn into WeightWatchers. The site is brimming with weight-tracking and meal-planning tools, fitness logs and the promise of "tasty, nutritious food" delivered "to your door." The only difference: Nulo is for pets.Nulo founder and CEO Michael Landa launched the company in August after noticing an uptick in the requests his Los Angeles-based pet-care business was getting for medically qualified staffers.
The reason? Landa's clients' pets were getting fatter — and sicker. "Over the last four to five years in particular, we've really noticed an increase in our pets that were coming down with things like diabetes, respiratory disease, kidney disease," Landa said. "It really started to put a strain on our pet-sitters."
Just as in humans, extra weight in pets increases the risk for arthritis, joint problems, cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, diabetes and certain cancers. One 2002 study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association found that Labrador retrievers fed restricted-calorie diets had a median life span 2.5 years longer than non-dieting Labradors. The leaner dogs also stayed healthier in their old age. (source)
Comments: So you want to keep yourself and your pets healthy, then eat the foods we were meant to eat and stay away from all the processed foods - those are the ones contributing the most to the poor health of us and our pets. Your furry friend(s) will appreciate you more in the long run and won't become conditioned to look forward to seeing you just because she needs to satisfy the craving for those unhealthy foods. For both you and your pet, add life to your years and years to your life with plenty of natural foods.
The Health & Wellness Institute, PC
Official Juice Plus+ Independent Distributor
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