John Stanton has a cure for what ails this country.
It's a simple solution actually, one that would ease the strain on the country's health care system simply by walking or running every day.
"With today's technology and poor nutrition choices, we're putting a tremendous strain on the health care system in this country," says Stanton, founder of the Running Room chain of stores and an avid believer in walking and running as a form of exercise that leads to better lifestyles.
"Exercise has that empowering effect on us," says Stanton, in Mississauga yesterday for the opening of the company's latest store beside the Square One Shopping Centre.
"People can become athletic any time they want to," says Stanton, who is 60 but doesn't look a day over 45. "There's a little athlete hidden in all of us."
Stanton, who has written four books on running and has a book on walking that's due to be released in a couple of months, knows what life is like on the "other" side.
He once was a self-admitted couch potato who didn't eat well and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. He was in his 30s at the time.
"I was 238," says Stanton, who is from Edmonton. "I didn't know that fun and run could be used in the same sentence."
He took up running and admits that after his first three-kilometre run, it gave him a wake-up call.
He stopped smoking and it wasn't long before he was running in 10 kilometre events and than half-marathons.
"I would never tell people to quit smoking," he says. "It's an addiction. None of us really know why we smoke. What I tell people is cut back and then find a substitute addiction in life.
"I guarantee that if you were to take up walking or running, it wouldn't be long before you'd give it up. Exercise is a lifestyle change."
onlinenews@mississauga.net