Nurses and teachers tend to be very “nurturing” professions. Although many other people need to “nurture” others as part of their jobs, for nurses and teachers, these positions often include a whole lot of nurturing. Do these professions turn people into nurturers or do these lines of work attract those with nurturing personalities?
At home, no matter what the profession, we all turn into nurturers as this relates to what we do for our children, spouses, parents, grandparents etc. Sorry fellow XY colleagues (meaning men) but women tend to be more of the nurturers in the family unit. When you look at other species of animals, the same concept prevails: females are most often the nurturing parent.
A component of nurturing is providing comfort to those we care for. However, comfort often translates into “comfort food”, and this in turn, may lead to weight control problems in the person(s) receiving the nurturing. Parents feel that their children must have “sweets, treats and goodies”, grandparents will often bring lots of high carb treats to the grandchildren and spouses will often nurture their loved one via the use of food and drinks.
The workplace often will attempt to make the day a bit easier for their employees/colleagues by providing/bringing in donuts, candies, chocolates etc. Getting back to teachers and nurses, what does the break room look like? There is a great chance that there is an abundance of baked goods and a bunch of other weight control derailing items.
Then, there is that person at work that I refer to as the “Candy Jar Person”. For whatever reason, this individual believes it is her/his duty to have a big jar of small candies on the desk for anyone to reach into while at work.
With 70% of our population being overweight, it is not too ballsy to ask your co-workers and family members to not tempt/derail others. The break room should have hard boiled eggs as opposed to donuts and the candy jar person needs to keep that job in his/her own desk, not on top for public consumption.
Let’s all nurture each other in ways that do not involve calories. This is true nurturing…helping someone to better health and happiness.