People learn what to care about and how to care about those things from others, with the most impact coming when they're young.
Many of today's parents already missed the boat on learning self-care, and don't even have the insights to share with their own children, who become even more detached from it.
They don't know how to cook food that isn't either prepackaged or some ornate gourmet meal that takes lots of work, they don't know how to eat for their health in a way that's satisfying, they don't know how much to eat, they don't know what it means to be active throughout the day, they don't know how to rest without constant stimulation so that they're emotionally and physically refreshed, etc etc
We can point them towards some study or a bit of blogspam that asserts some narrow claim about what's optimal, but that's not the way that most people learn self-care and never has been. So they mostly keep doing what was actually taught to them, which tends to bias strongly towards sedentariness, overstimulation, and indulgence these days.
and of course, school plays a large part. most of the school experience involves sitting very still, and the cafeteria menu is selected more for cost than anything.
Combined with frequent treats brought in by coworkers (a colleague of mine likes to bring in breakfast bagels from McD for my small team...hard to resist lmao)
I do wonder how much influence your parents have on you living a more sedintary lifestyle in life. My father was sedintary his whole life (later in life he broke his hips numerous times) while my mom was a Jane Fonda zealot and much older now is still active. Both my sister and I have followed in my mom's footsteps tho myself much more due to my lifestyle and who/type I want to attract for partners. I use chatGPT to count my daily calories, exercise daily and gym visits two or three times a week.
People learn what to care about and how to care about those things from others, with the most impact coming when they're young.
Many of today's parents already missed the boat on learning self-care, and don't even have the insights to share with their own children, who become even more detached from it.
They don't know how to cook food that isn't either prepackaged or some ornate gourmet meal that takes lots of work, they don't know how to eat for their health in a way that's satisfying, they don't know how much to eat, they don't know what it means to be active throughout the day, they don't know how to rest without constant stimulation so that they're emotionally and physically refreshed, etc etc
We can point them towards some study or a bit of blogspam that asserts some narrow claim about what's optimal, but that's not the way that most people learn self-care and never has been. So they mostly keep doing what was actually taught to them, which tends to bias strongly towards sedentariness, overstimulation, and indulgence these days.