Just Because You're Active...

..doesn't mean you're healthy.

This goes out to all my friends (and readers) who are dancers, athletes, and gym-buffs. Pay attention.

We are so blessed. We stay fit, we have very very low body fat content in our bodies, we sweat out the toxins that we unconsciously take in, and we have all the right bulges in all the right places. And we can eat anything we so desire at any given time or day. Why not? We deserve that. Consider all that fatty foie gras and grease-smothered barbeque a reward for all our excessive physical activity. Eat whatever you want. You'll burn it all anyway on your next show. Or dance class. Or game. Or gym session. That's the way to stay healthy. Right?

Wrong.

Let us not forget that exercising is not the end all and be all of staying healthy. It is just one of the many ways to boost one's immunse system, keeping his body toned, and possibly guaranteeing him a good lay whenever he wants one.

Let us not forget that the genes that have been embedded in our system even before our parents thought we have been conceived, serve as a curse --- a health curse --- that we need to constantly battle against. And being negligent about our diets won't help --- no matter how many pounds of weights, or how many miles, or how many plies and grand jetes, or how many goals we are able to conquer in a day.

Believe me. That's what happened to Antonio Puerta, a Spanish international football midfielder who played for Sevilla FC in La Liga.



He collapsed in one of their biggest games on August 25 and was diagnosed to be affected with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (What that is, don't ask me. Just click on the medical jargon to follow the link). He died three days later, after suffering a series of cardiac arrests that followed after the said league game against Getafe CF.

He was 22. An athlete.

..