While You Obsess About Your Business, Don't Forget About Your Body Even busy entrepreneurs need to make health a priority. After all, more than half of Americans who consider themselves to be in 'very good' or 'excellent' health are either overweight or obese, according to a new survey.
By Catherine Clifford •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
When you are launching or growing your business, it can feel like nothing else is more important; not even taking care of yourself, the human being behind the entrepreneur. Exercise quickly gets moved from the "necessary" column to the "only when there's time" column.
What happens, inevitably, is that there is never time. For entrepreneurs, there is always more work to be done. Always.
The risk of not making your health a priority is that, bit by bit, you forget what it feels like to feel good. Instead, you keep moving along, convinced that you are fine. But that kind of thinking can catch up to you. Big time.
Related: Reality Check: You Need to Care About More Than Your Business
Nearly six in 10 Americans overall consider themselves in "very good" or "excellent" health and yet more than half of that group is actually overweight or obese, according to the newly released International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation's 10th annual Food and Health Survey.
"What I fear is that we've reset the bar, in that some people actually don't know what feeling good is like, but they think they feel pretty good," said Dr. Jim Hill, executive director of the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado, in a statement released with the IFIC Foundation's report. "So we've almost lowered the bar in defining what good health is."
Related: Feeling Overwhelmed? Here's How These Entrepreneurs Stay Productive.
One of the biggest reasons Americans say they don't take care of themselves is they don't have time. If given an additional four hours of free time per week, 36 percent of those surveyed say they would spend that time on exercise.
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While there's no doubt that it's often hard to step away from the desk and get some exercise, if this report is any indication, more business owners and entrepreneurs need to make it a priority. The thing about exercising and eating well is that it can improve how you feel, how you think and how well you can focus. That's good news for your heart, but, it's also good news for your business.
Related: Unhappy Workers Cost the U.S. Up to $550 Billion a Year (Infographic)
