 At an early age, my father stressed the importance of cardiovascular exercise to me. He was looking out for me, both as a physician and as a father who likely passed on his high-risk genes for cardiovascular disease. He ensured that my brother and I were physically active and getting our heart rates up every day, which mostly consisted of running or biking, or cross-country skiing in the winter. As I grew older, I kept this tradition of daily cardiovascular exercise in my routine so that I can hopefully continue to fight my higher genetic risk of cardiovascular disease.
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 “Are there nuts in that?” was a phrase that I heard over and over again throughout my childhood. My best friend (and current roommate) is allergic to peanuts, tree nuts like walnuts and almonds, and soy. She thinks about and questions every bite of food before it is deemed safe. She finds going out to eat, which for most people is a fun and relaxing social activity, to be frustratingly limiting at best and dangerous at worst. More people now know someone with a food allergy, but are we aware of the mental burden of chronic food avoidance and fear?
 In America, pregnant women receive a great deal of advice: Eat fish, but only the right kind and not too much. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink alcohol. Don’t take certain over-the-counter medicines. The implication is that by taking these and other steps, a pregnant woman can ensure that her baby has the best possible start in life. But just how much can a pregnant woman do? How much responsibility does she bear for her uterine environment?
 When we think about poverty and hunger, many of us immediately picture the tragic scenes from areas afflicted by famine –people too weak to walk with ribs that can be counted and children with the skinny limbs and swollen bellies characteristic of kwashiorkor. However, in the US, and many other settings, the face of hunger is much more likely to have chubby cheeks.
 What if your experiences as a baby – even before you were born – helped determine whether you were overweight or obese later in life? There is evidence to suggest that this may be the case, and that the prenatal environment and the first two years of life are very important in the development of overweight and obesity. Our early life environments help determine our biological make-up for the rest of our lives. Some of this programming may occur in the bacteria in our stool, also known as the microbiome.
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