Your Health Is Precious, Why Die Prematurely?

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 at 11:33 pm

healthism.blogspot.com

You might think that with all of our scientific enlightenment and advancement, we could assume that we are at the doorstep of disease-free living. I mean, don’t our new wonder drugs and high tech surgeries perform miracles today? Don’t we have the ability to wipe out diseases through new health breakthroughs, scientific advances and studies on the brink of discovering cures? No, that would be a very careless assumption based on nothing less that hype.

In fact, nothing further could be from the truth. Four types of chronic disease – cardiovascular disease, cancers, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes – kill an estimated 153,000 Canadians every year, account for nearly three- quarters of all deaths in the country, and are the major causes of premature death and hospitalization. The biggest killer is cardiovascular disease (heart disease, stroke, and atherosclerosis), which has claimed the lives of untold thousands of Canadians, accounting for about 35% of all deaths. And it doesn’t get better from there. Cancer kills an estimated 62,600 Canadians every year, accounting for 29% of all deaths. And other chronic conditions disable many more Canadians.

If health care technology is more advanced than ever, and sickness and disease keeps increasing, is something not terribly wrong? Why do we continue to deal with the effect instead of the cause? Yet that’s exactly the premise of modern medicine and everyone is buying into it. We can eat whatever we want, whenever we want, right? But statistics give us a more accurate assessment of the state of our national health and quite frankly, they should scare you. If you’re one of the many that takes little care for your health, you will indeed become lumped into the above scenario sometime in the near future. Can you really afford to be ignorant of the basic laws of health operating in your body? Can you trust those who put food on supermarket shelves? We don’t have to be alarmist, but certainly reading the ingredient lists on your food shouldn’t be too much to ask when you go shopping?

The average supermarket has 50,000 different foods, most of which come in bottles, boxes, bags, jars and cans. The modern food supply is booby-trapped in all sorts of very challenging ways. It’s manufactured for the busy person because no one is at home thinking about food and the preparation of it, no one can cook or has time for it. And few believe it is worth the time or effort to make fresh meals from scratch rather than from a prepared source.

We need to recognize that feet, forks and fingers are the master levers of our health. There is nothing modern science can give you that can compensate for their effects. Were we to eat well consistently, we could eliminate up to 80% of heart disease, up to 90% of diabetes and up to 60% of cancer. By eating well, we could drastically improve our lives, the lives of our families and society. Yet, when you consider the lifestyle of most North Americans, it leaves little doubt as to why so many people are overweight and unhealthy. Inactivity and improper eating are a deadly combination.

Obsessed with food

Look, most people are obsessed with food. How else can you explain the fact that they can ignore repeated warnings about cause of ill health if too many cookies are consumed or too much soda is guzzled? Surely even the most uneducated have heard this mantra? On the other hand, there are millions who simply do not know of these laws and drudge on towards obesity and chronic disease by filling their shopping cart with oodles of white bread, sugary and fatty substances and unhealthy drinks.

The aftermath translates into rolls of fat and subsequent panic at their shocking appearance. How many do you know who are on some sort of a diet, or have tried the latest packaged diet foods? They’ll promise results, but none of them work in the long run. Mention consistent effort in conjunction with wholesome foods and you get a drawn stare and curled lip, as if you’ve just spit on someone. No, effort just won’t do because it takes too long or requires too much effort, they say. Give us a permanent solution that’s a quick fix so we can continue our unhealthy habits; so we can continue to indulge our taste buds in a way that pleases, but has no consequence. Here’s a news flash – this pipe dream doesn’t exists and it won’t be invented either. We can’t circumvent laws of health in motion in our body. These laws are as sure as the law of gravity and will exact a toll in as sure a fashion as a thrown rock will eventually hit the ground.

And so, the diets and other approaches fail, while our love affair with food is not only costing us, but it is killing us. And the pounds that hang so precariously over our waistline keep increasing. Many discover that they often gain back double what they originally lost. The war on obesity is being lost through lack of proper education (ignorance of basic health tenets), willpower to implement (through lack of proper guidance), lack of caring though statistics are evident (and caring more for pleasing the taste buds), as well as a tainted (highly processed, calorie rich and unhealthy) food supply.

Why are we not alarmed?

The statistics cited at the beginning of this article should certainly be a devastating indictment of how we think and fail to act as a nation. We’re in the middle of a public health crisis that is deteriorating rapidly, and we’re not treating it like the emergency it is. There should be a definite disaster alarm ringing constantly, yet laws are not enacted to stem the tide of unhealthy foods and lack of education. Poor nutrition and physical inactivity are robbing us of our health, productivity and lifespan.

The good news is that most chronic illness can be prevented by ridding yourself of excess risk factors such as smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition. Excuses are plentiful, but they offer nothing concrete for us. We need to orchestrate effective action into our personal routine to offset our modern, unhealthy lifestyle. Nothing else helps; everything else is hype. Forget the pill, the package and the easy promises. If you don’t work for it, it won’t work for you. And if you believe this wording is too harsh, then likely you’re not ready for the change that leads to improved health, increased vigour and a strong, positive body. And that’s too bad!