When I was growing up, I remember hearing about Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and fatty liver disease as conditions that happened later in life. They were things your parents or grandparents worried about, not people in their 20s and 30s (or even younger).
Now it feels like every week I hear about someone my age being diagnosed with high cholesterol, prediabetes, fatty liver disease, or high blood pressure. Even if they haven’t received a diagnosis yet, so many people are walking around exhausted, struggling with their weight, dealing with brain fog, digestive issues, or feeling like something just isn’t right.
So what changed?
I don’t think there’s one single thing we can point to. It isn’t one ingredient, one food, or one lifestyle habit. I think it’s the combination of how we eat, how we move, how we sleep, how stressed we are, and the environment we’ve created around ourselves. The truth is, our bodies haven’t changed much over the last hundred years. Our environment has.
We live in a world where convenience is everywhere. Most of us sit for work, spend hours looking at screens, don’t get enough sleep, feel constantly connected with our devices, and have access to highly processed foods every time we leave the house. None of those things automatically cause chronic disease on their own, but when they all happen together, day after day and year after year, they begin to take a toll.
One of the biggest contributors I see is the amount of ultra-processed food that’s become normal in our diets. I’m not talking about grabbing takeout once a week or enjoying dessert with friends. I’m talking about diets where most calories come from foods that are packaged, highly refined, and engineered to be incredibly easy to overeat. They’re often low in fiber, low in protein, and lacking many of the nutrients our bodies actually need. When we’re consistently undernourished but overfed, it’s much harder for our bodies to function the way they’re designed to.
Over time, this can contribute to obesity, but obesity is about much more than body size. Excess body fat (especially around the abdomen) is associated with chronic inflammation and increases the risk of insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. That doesn’t mean every person in a larger body is unhealthy or that every thin person is healthy. Health is much more complex than that. My focus has never been on chasing a number on the scale. It’s about improving body composition, preserving muscle, supporting metabolic health, and helping your body function at its best.
One of the earliest signs that something may be off is insulin resistance. This develops gradually, often without obvious symptoms. You might notice your energy crashing every afternoon, constant cravings for sweets, weight accumulating around your midsection, feeling hungry shortly after eating, or having a harder time losing weight than you used to. These symptoms don’t automatically mean you have insulin resistance, but they can be clues that your metabolism isn’t working as efficiently as it could.
If insulin resistance continues long enough, it increases the risk of prediabetes, Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and heart disease. The encouraging part is that lifestyle changes can have a profound impact. Prioritizing protein, increasing fiber, strength training, walking regularly, improving sleep, and reducing excess body fat can all help improve insulin sensitivity.
Another condition that’s becoming increasingly common is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Years ago, most people associated liver disease with excessive alcohol consumption. Today, many people develop fatty liver despite rarely drinking alcohol. It’s often linked to insulin resistance, excess body fat, physical inactivity, and diets high in ultra-processed foods. Since the liver plays a major role in blood sugar regulation, nutrient metabolism, and hundreds of other functions, supporting liver health is an important piece of the overall picture.
I also don’t think we talk enough about stress. When we hear the word “stress,” we usually think about work deadlines or financial pressure, but your body experiences stress in many forms. Poor nutrition is a stressor. Lack of sleep is a stressor. Overtraining is a stressor. Constant dieting is a stressor. Chronic inflammation is a stressor. Even spending every day rushing from one responsibility to the next without time to recover can keep your body in a heightened state of stress.
When stress becomes chronic, hormones like cortisol stay elevated for longer periods. Cortisol isn’t the enemy (it’s an essential hormone) but when it’s consistently elevated, it can increase cravings, make blood sugar harder to regulate, interfere with sleep, and contribute to fat storage around the midsection. This is one of the reasons I encourage clients to look beyond nutrition alone. Health isn’t just about what’s on your plate. It’s also about how you live your life.
Sleep is another piece of the puzzle that often gets overlooked. We tend to wear exhaustion like a badge of honor, but our bodies don’t see it that way. Sleep is when we recover, regulate hormones, repair tissues, and prepare for the next day. Consistently sleeping too little has been linked with increased appetite, reduced insulin sensitivity, impaired decision-making, and higher levels of inflammation. You don’t have to create the perfect nighttime routine overnight, but getting consistent, quality sleep is one of the highest-return investments you can make in your health.
The same goes for movement. Our lives require far less movement than they did even a generation ago. Many of us work at a desk, drive everywhere, and unwind by sitting on the couch. Our bodies were designed to move throughout the day, not just during a one-hour workout. You don’t need to train like an athlete to improve your health. Walking after meals, strength training a few times each week, gardening, dancing, hiking, or simply choosing activities you enjoy all add up over time. Consistency will always beat intensity that you can’t maintain.
The biggest misconception I see is that chronic disease happens overnight. It doesn’t. It develops slowly through thousands of small decisions repeated over months and years. The encouraging part is that better health works exactly the same way. You don’t have to overhaul your entire life tomorrow. Start by eating a little more protein, adding another serving of vegetables, drinking more water, taking a walk after dinner, or going to bed thirty minutes earlier. Small habits might not feel life-changing in the moment, but they compound over time.
I also think we’ve become conditioned to look for one thing to blame. One ingredient. One food. One supplement. One miracle solution. The truth is that health rarely works that way. It’s the result of many different factors working together, which is why I always encourage people to zoom out and look at the bigger picture instead of chasing the latest trend.
If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this, it’s that your body is incredibly resilient. Every balanced meal, every workout, every walk, every good night’s sleep, and every intentional choice is an investment in your future. You don’t have to be perfect. You simply have to be consistent.
Because preventing chronic disease doesn’t begin when you’re older. It begins with the choices you make today.