So, what's your excuse for not exercising enough, for
smoking, for not watching your diet, for getting fatter every year, and
therefore having high blood pressure, and too much glucose and cholesterol in
your blood?
That's what the American Heart Association has been telling you for
so many years NOT to do. How can I be sure that you, dear reader, are one of
those people who only pay lip service to health? I can't, but as a numbers guy
I go with the statistics.
And when health is concerned the statistics tell me
that there are obviously only two types of people. Those who do enough for
their health, and those who merely think they do. The latter make up 98.8% of
the population [1]. That is, only one in a
hundred meets all 7 health metrics: not smoking, eating a healthy diet, no overweight,
sufficiently physically active, normal blood pressure, normal levels of glucose
and cholesterol. Four out of every 5 Americans meet 4 or less of those metrics.
Actually, only one in four meets 4 metrics. How can that be when having at
least 6 of those metrics will cut your risk of dying from cardiovascular
disease by 75% compared to those who meet one criterion or none? How much more
incentive do you want?
That's the frustrating question I'm asking myself every day.
Because whether it is in the US, in Germany or anywhere else in this world,
maintaining health and preventing disease is a frustrating service to provide.
I used to think this is so, because when you don't feel it, it is health. And
what you don't feel, you don't appreciate. But if that was true, the first diagnosis
of a chronic condition, such as heart disease or diabetes, should surely be a
wake-up call. But it isn't. Only 40% of smokers quit when being told that they have such a
chronic disease, and that smoking will make it worse [2]. That's still a lot compared
to the behavior change in exercise: Nil, no change at all. And for every American who quit smoking in 2011 another
American became obese.
If you have read my earlier blog posts, you'll remember
that I'm a strong advocate of recognizing the autonomic neurohormonal
mechanisms which certainly drive our eating and exercising behaviors. But we
are not exclusively controlled by those. We still have a few brain centers which
give us the abilities and skills that make us human: volition, reasoning, intelligence.
Of course you can use them to find the most elaborate excuses for your health
behaviors, or rather for the lack thereof. But he who is good for making
excuses is seldom good for anything else. That's what Benjamin Franklin said. Are
you good for something else? Make that something your health. And start today.
Here!
1. Yang,
Q., et al., Trends in Cardiovascular
Health Metrics and Associations With All-Cause and CVD Mortality Among US
Adults. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2012.
2. Newsom,
J.T., et al., Health Behavior Change
Following Chronic Illness in Middle and Later Life. The Journals of
Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 2011.
Yang, Q., Cogswell, M., Flanders, W., Hong, Y., Zhang, Z., Loustalot, F., Gillespie, C., Merritt, R., & Hu, F. (2012). Trends in Cardiovascular Health Metrics and Associations With All-Cause and CVD Mortality Among US Adults JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 307 (12), 1273-1283 DOI: 10.1001/jama.2012.339
Newsom, J., Huguet, N., McCarthy, M., Ramage-Morin, P., Kaplan, M., Bernier, J., McFarland, B., & Oderkirk, J. (2011). Health Behavior Change Following Chronic Illness in Middle and Later Life The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 67B (3), 279-288 DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbr103