IN MANY ways health trends have never looked brighter. A 1998 report by the World Health Organization (WHO) says: "More people than ever before now have access to at least minimum health care, to safe water supplies and sanitation facilities." To be sure, much of the world's population still endures poor living conditions, but as the British Broadcasting Corporation reported, "poverty around the world has been reduced more in the last 50 years than in the previous 500 years."
Improvements in the world's health-care systems have added years to the worldwide average life expectancy at birth. In 1955 the average was 48 years. By 1995 it had jumped to 65 years. One reason for this increase is the advances made against childhood diseases.
Just over 40 years ago, children under five years of age accounted for 40 percent of all deaths. By 1998, however, thanks to vaccines, many of the world's children had been immunized against the major childhood diseases. Thus, the number of deaths for children under the age of five has fallen to 21 percent of all deaths. According to WHO, there has been "an unmistakable trend towards healthier, longer life."
Of course, a longer life with little improvement in its quality would be a hollow victory. In a search for better living conditions, many people place great emphasis on material pleasures. Such a life-style, however, can carry its own set of health risks.
A Better Life-Style?
Recent socioeconomic developments have ushered in tremendous changes in peoples' life-styles. It is now possible for many in the developed nations to purchase goods and services that previously only the wealthier could afford. And while some of these advances have increased the prospect of a longer life, many people have been enticed into a self-destructive life-style.
For example, millions have used their increased buying power to purchase such nonessentials as addictive drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. Sadly, the results have been all too predictable. "The fastest growing public health menace in the world isn't a disease," says World Watch magazine, "it's a product." The magazine adds: "Within 25 years, tobacco-induced illness is expected to overtake infectious disease as the leading threat to human health worldwide." Moreover, Scientific American says: "An astonishing 30 percent of fatal cancers can be blamed primarily on smoking, and an equal number on lifestyle, especially dietary practices and lack of exercise."
Without a doubt, the choices we make about the way we live have a major impact on our health. How, then, can we maintain or improve our health? Are diet and exercise enough? Additionally, what part do mental and spiritual factors play in a healthy life-style?
Fruits and vegetables are good for you
Granted, changing your eating habits is not easy. In fact, some may reason that life is hardly worth living if they have to deprive themselves continually of foods they enjoy. But rather than adopt an all-or-nothing approach, seek to find a moderate balance. It's more a matter of cutting back than doing without entirely. The previously quoted Family Medical Guide says: "Adopting a healthy lifestyle does not mean that you have to stop enjoying life."
Dietitians suggest that you can soften the impact of making adjustments to your diet by phasing out unhealthy foods gradually. For example, balance your diet over the course of a week, not just one day. If you presently eat red meat every day, try cutting back to three times a week. The same goes for foods high in saturated fats, such as butter, cheese, ice cream, and high-fat snack foods. The goal should be to reduce your intake of fat so that it represents no more than 30 percent of your total calories.
"Adopting a healthy lifestyle does not mean that you have to stop enjoying life"
Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard University cautions against cutting back on dietary fat and then replacing it with foods high in starches and sugar. This often results in weight gain. A better approach is to reduce both fats and carbohydrates in your diet.
Even daily domestic chores can be healthy exercise
Moderate Exercise
A healthy life-style includes a program of regular exercise. Dr. Steven Blair, an editor of the U.S. surgeon general's report on physical fitness, says: "People who go from a sedentary life style to moderate activity cut their heart disease mortality rate in half." Sadly, many people today do not engage in even moderate physical activity. For example, in the United States, 1 in 4 people is said to be completely inactive. In Canada a study entitled 1997 Physical Activity Benchmarks found that "63 per cent of Canadians were physically active for less than an hour a day," reports The Toronto Star. And researchers in Britain say that one group of children they evaluated were "so inactive that their heart rates are little different awake from when they are asleep."—The Sunday Times.
Previously it was thought that only vigorous aerobic exercise brought health benefits. But strenuous workouts are not necessary to improve fitness. In fact, "burning as few as 150 calories a day [by mild exercise] can reduce the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and diabetes," according to the surgeon general's report.
When you select an exercise activity, it is important to choose something that you enjoy doing. Otherwise, you will not make it a part of your life-style. The key is not so much what you do for exercise but how often you do it. The U.S. National Institutes of Health suggests that as a general guideline, "children and adults alike should set a goal of accumulating at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, and preferably all, days of the week."
What kind of activity is considered to be of moderate intensity? Swimming, brisk walking, riding a bicycle, washing and waxing the car, climbing stairs, and cleaning up the yard. You don't need to join a gym or a health club to safeguard your health. However, there is one note of caution: Medical authorities recommend that if you have a history of cardiovascular disease or if you are a male over 40 years of age or a female over 50, you should be sure to consult your doctor before starting any exercise program.
What About Smoking, Drugs, and Alcohol?
Smoking: Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 health-threatening compounds, of which 200 are known poisons. Regardless of the number of toxins, however, there is little doubt about the devastating effect smoking has on one's health. Few other consumer products come close to tobacco in the number of deaths they cause. In the United States, for example, ten times more people die from tobacco-related illnesses than from automobile accidents. The World Health Organization estimates that on a global scale, smoking claims three million lives annually!
In addition to an increased risk of cancer and heart disease, smokers suffer more frequently from colds, gastric ulcers, chronic bronchitis, and higher blood pressure than nonsmokers. Smoking also diminishes one's sense of smell and taste. Clearly, giving up smoking is one of the most important preventive health measures an individual can take. But what about drugs and alcohol?
The World Health Organization estimates that smoking claims three million lives annually
Drugs: Drug abuse has taken an enormous toll on human life worldwide. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says: "Each year, drug abuse kills 14,000 Americans." But illicit drug users are not the only ones affected by the drug trade. In order to finance their habit, many addicts turn to violence and a life of crime. The Sociology of Juvenile Delinquency says: "Rivalries in crack [cocaine] distribution networks have turned some inner-city communities into urban 'dead zones,' where homicide rates are so high that police have written them off as anarchic badlands."
Drug abuse, of course, is far from being a problem only in the United States. According to one estimate, every year anywhere from 160,000 to 210,000 people worldwide die from injecting drugs. In addition, millions use other types of harmful drugs, such as khat (a green-leaf stimulant), betel nut, and cocaine.
Alcohol: While hard drugs like crack cocaine and heroin capture public attention, the abuse of alcohol inflicts even more damage. Alcoholism "affects one in 10 Canadians," reports The Medical Post, "and costs the health care system $10 billion a year." It is estimated that in the United States, alcohol is a contributing factor in 50 percent of fatal automobile accidents and fires, 45 percent of drownings, and 36 percent of pedestrian accidents. Alcohol abuse is also implicated in many violent crimes. Those committing murder, assault, rape, child abuse, or suicide often have alcohol as a silent partner.
"There's room in a healthy diet for what you love, in some amount, virtually every day"
THE challenge today is to decide what will have the greatest impact on our health. The media have flooded the marketplace with information on dieting, exercise, nutritional supplements, and a host of other health-related matters. Unfortunately, much of it is contradictory. Says science writer Denise Grady: "Advice to the public about what to eat, what medicines to take and, basically, how to live, seems to do an about-face every time a new study is published in a medical journal."
Some doctors advise that sticking with the basics is a more sensible approach than experimenting with every new health fad that comes along. For example, The American Medical Association Family Medical Guide says: "You can stay healthier throughout your life by making positive lifestyle changes and by having regular checkups, so that any disease that develops can be detected and treated early." But what sort of "positive lifestyle changes" are the most beneficial? Let us consider three of them.
Choose Healthful Foods
Medical authorities recommend that we eat a wide variety of foods, with the largest portion of our calories coming from complex carbohydrates, especially those found in whole grains, beans, vegetables, and fruits.* However, our health is affected not only by what we eat but also by how much we eat. It is important to eat in moderation. Regularly taking in more calories than our body can burn leads to obesity. This, in turn, can cause strain on the heart, weaken the body, and make one "more susceptible to heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and many other disorders," says one medical guidebook.
In recent years much attention has been given to the matter of dietary fat. Many health professionals state that a diet high in saturated fats raises the risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer. This does not mean, however, that we need to eliminate all fat from our diet. "There's room in a healthy diet for what you love, in some amount, virtually every day," says Mary Abbott Hess, past president of the American Dietetic Association. The key is to keep portions small and restrict other sources of fat.
OUR physical health is dependent to a large degree upon what we take into our body. If a person lives on a regular diet of junk food, his health will eventually suffer. This same principle applies to our mental health.
For example, you could liken the things we take into our mind to a type of mental food. Mental food? Yes, the information that we absorb from books, magazines, television shows, videos, video games, the Internet, and song lyrics can affect our thinking and our personality just as literal food affects our body. How so?
Former advertising executive Jerry Mander wrote regarding the impact that television has on our lives: "More than any other single effect, television places images in our brains." Those mental images, however, do much more than entertain us. The Family Therapy Networker magazine says: "The language, images, sounds, ideas, characters, situations, values, aesthetics of mass media become the stuff of our thoughts, feelings and imaginings."
Yes, whether we realize it or not, our thoughts and feelings can be subtly swayed by what we watch on television and by other forms of entertainment. And therein lies the danger. As Mander says, "we humans slowly turn into whatever images we carry in our minds."
TV violence is like poison to the brain of a child
Poison to the Brain
Many people who may carefully monitor their physical diet indiscriminately gobble up whatever mental food is served to them through the media. For example, have you ever heard someone say: "There's nothing good to watch on TV!" Some seem to be mesmerized, endlessly flipping through channels in the hope that something worthwhile will turn up. The thought of turning off the TV never crosses their mind!
In addition to consuming so much time, many shows feature themes that Christians would want to avoid. "Besides profanity," says arts writer Gary Koltookian, "controversial and sexual topics are making more appearances on screen today than in the past." Indeed, a recent study in the United States found that scenes with sexual references appear an average of 27 times per hour during prime-time viewing hours.
"Many children are unable to distinguish fact from fantasy in television programs"
One is left to wonder about the effect this has on people's thinking. In Japan one popular television drama captivated so many people that the nation's media said it provoked an "adultery boom." Furthermore, authors of the book Watching America say: "Today most forms of sexual behavior are . . . treated as legitimate choices of personal life-style."
Nevertheless, TV programs that tout sexual themes are only part of the problem. Graphic depictions of violence are also common. Of particular concern are the damaging effects that violent TV programs and movies can have on young, impressionable minds. "When young children see somebody shot, stabbed, raped, brutalized, degraded, or murdered on TV," says David Grossman, a retired army officer and expert on the psychology of killing, "to them it is as though it were actually happening." Commenting on this same problem, The Journal of the American Medical Association said: "Up through ages 3 and 4 years, many children are unable to distinguish fact from fantasy in television programs and remain unable to do so despite adult coaching." In other words, even though a parent may tell a child, 'Those people didn't really die; they were just pretending,' a child's mind still can't tell the difference. To a young child, TV violence is very real.
Children sometimes imitate the violence they see on TV
Summing up the impact of "media violence," Time magazine said: "Few researchers bother any longer to dispute that bloodshed on TV and in the movies has an effect on the kids who witness it." What kind of effect does it have? "Decades of violent entertainment have succeeded in altering the public's perceptions and values," says movie critic Michael Medved. He adds: "It is hardly a positive development for a society when it loses its ability to feel shock." Little wonder that one writer said that taking a four-year-old to violent movies "is poison to [his] brain."
This, of course, does not mean that all television programs are bad. The same holds true for books, magazines, videos, computer games, and other forms of entertainment. Clearly, though, much that is called entertainment is inappropriate for those who desire to maintain a healthy mental outlook.
The Nutrition Action Healthletter suggests the following steps to help you lower your risk of heart disease.
Stop smoking. Quitting today can cut your risk of heart disease within a year, even if you gain weight.
Lose weight. If you are overweight, losing as few as five to ten pounds can make a difference.
Exercise. Regular exercise (at least three times a week) helps to lower bad cholesterol (LDL), keep blood pressure from rising, and keep off excess weight.
Eat less saturated fat. If your LDL is high, switch to leaner cuts of meat and try 1-percent (low-fat) milk or skim (fat-free) milk instead of 2-percent milk.
Limit alcohol consumption. There are indications that those who drink red wine in moderation may reduce the risk of heart disease.
Eat more fruits, vegetables, and other foods rich in soluble fiber.
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