Why Each Generation is Sicker Than the Last – and How to Reverse It
- Lucy Bassett
- Aug 18
- 3 min read
Each generation should be stronger, wiser, and healthier than the last. That is how nature intended it. Yet, when we look around our streets, schools, and communities today, the opposite is happening. Our children are struggling with health challenges that were once rare in adults – autoimmune conditions, obesity, anxiety and depression, metabolic disorders – all showing up at younger and younger ages.
This isn’t just something the statistics tell us. We can see it. It’s in the school playgrounds, at the park, in the supermarket queue. Our modern way of living is not serving us, and it is certainly not serving our children.
For too long, we’ve been told to blame “bad genes” for poor health. But genes do not change in a generation – lifestyle does. It is the food we eat, the way we move (or don’t move), the air we breathe, the light we’re exposed to, and the connections we nurture that shape our health. And these are the very things we can change.
Our ancestors, whether they were farmers, hunter-gatherers, or traditional village communities, understood this instinctively. They ate nutrient-rich, unprocessed foods from healthy soil, spent time in nature, lived in rhythm with the seasons, and passed down knowledge of how to raise strong, resilient children.
Dr Weston A. Price documented this in the 1930s when he visited indigenous cultures around the world. He found people with broad faces, strong teeth, and robust health – until processed foods like white flour, sugar, and industrial fats entered their diets. Within one generation, their health began to decline.
Around the same time, another researcher, Dr Francis Pottenger, conducted his now-famous 10-year study on cats. He found that cats fed nutrient-rich, raw diets thrived with excellent health and behaviour. In contrast, cats fed a diet of cooked, processed foods began to develop chronic illnesses, allergies, reproductive issues, and behavioural problems. Most alarmingly, the degeneration worsened with each generation:
The first generation on the deficient diet showed some illness and behavioural changes.
The second generation experienced more severe disease, skeletal deformities, and reduced fertility.
By the third generation, many could not reproduce at all.
When the diet was corrected, it took several generations to restore full health.
Pottenger’s cats are a sobering warning — and they mirror what Weston Price observed in human communities. When nutrient-dense, traditional foods are replaced with processed, industrial products, degeneration sets in quickly.
The good news? The human body is extraordinary. It is designed to heal – but it can only do so when given the right building blocks: nourishing food, clean water, sunlight, movement, sleep, and community.
The question we must each ask ourselves is:
Do you want to thrive, or just merely survive?
We can choose to change the direction of our family’s health story. We can break the cycle of degeneration and start building a legacy of vitality for future generations. It starts with the everyday choices we make – because those choices ripple down through time.
The future of our children depends on it.
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