Fitness Master

Time tosses aside the trivial. That's why you should pay particular attention to sayings that take on a life of their own, especially ones that outlive three different speakers in three different countries and pertain to your health.

"You are what you eat" is one such statement. First expressed by the French food critic Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1826, the sentiment was then written in a philosophical essay by the German philosopher Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach 37 years later.

If you immerse yourself in the ocean of presently available health and fitness information, you'll find the waters something other than smooth. The Internet and all the technology it has spawned not only delivers research results faster than ever before, but it has also sired what Marco Bertamini of the University of Liverpool and Mangus Munafo of the University of Bristol call in the January issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science "bite-size science," a trend towards smaller research papers based on fewer studies.

Food choices are exactly that. Choices. Which means you get to decide.

But what you are deciding is more than a matter of taste or even if you'll gain a couple of pounds. More and more evidence suggests that, to some degree, you could actually be determining your fate.

Or your child's. Especially if you're a pregnant woman.

Research now suggests that when a pregnant woman picks a food she may be doing more than consuming calories or satisfying a craving. She may very well be determining her unborn child's food preferences.

A half-truth can do just as much damage as a blatant lie. Especially when it comes to your health and fitness.

That's why last week's article stressed the importance of critically reading health-and-fitness related information while being on guard for what I call "misinformation," information that's not really false, but is to some degree deceptive.