What’s the toughest thing to do: quit smoking, get exercise or eat fruits and veggies?

For cancer survivors, folks who have stared down death and won, there’s nothing tougher than eating right.

Only 1 in 6 cancer survivors are able eat five servings of fruits and veggies according to a new study in May’s Journal of Clinical Oncology.

They had better success rates quitting smoking or exercising regularly than making healthy food choices!

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Surprised? Most people are. So why exactly is it so hard, for any of us, to eat right?

First off, a good number of folks simply can’t cook. One recent study found that over 8 out of 10 adults couldn’t boil an egg – almost equal rates among men and women.

And most of these folks aren’t relying on family members to do the cooking – they’re simply eating out – eating a lot of fast food. Most studies put the average American eating 3-4 meals at a fast food hut every week.

For folks who can cook, it can be tough to figure out what’s healthy and what’s not. Salads can have more fat than deserts – almost every product says low fat or organic and most of them don’t agree.

Even when people are highly motivated to eat better because their life or recovery depends on it, a good number simply have absolutely no clue where to begin.

So what to do?

We need support systems for basic lifestyle changes. We need personalized tools that empower us to make everyday, practical healthy choices that we need and want to make.

Tools that:

1) Recommend personalized recipes for you based on your preferences, the number of folks in your household, how much you want to spend, how tough a dish is to make, and what percentage of the ingredients meet the healthy nutritional standards. Give people something like this that shows them what’s healthy and how to make it – something that saves them time by learning what they like and recommending those things – something that’s fun and lets them explore.

2) Have nutritionists giving tips and basic how to.s – and recommends those links along with the recipes. Connect folks directly with nutritionists allowing them to see someone’s resources – what they’ve been reading, what’s they’ve been making, what they like and what works for them.

Stay tuned…

Photo courtesy of Gak, used under this Creative Commons license

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