Archive for January, 2012
A friend of mine whose business is helping people understand and conquer their particular eating demons noted in a recent blog that we make at least 200 different food decisions each day. That’s a lot of thinking – except all too often we make these “decisions” automatically, without thinking at all, which is the problem. But if you flip this around, you realize that it’s also many different new beginnings, opportunities to start over and change the trajectory of your health. And that’s true not only of what we put in your mouths (or, more to the point, don’t) but also relevant regarding most aspects of our health.
For example, here’s a smattering of recent research findings – each demonstrating the power of making many little, good, health-supporting decisions as we go about our day:
Drinking enough water reduces risk for diabetes by 30%. Exercising just 15 minutes/day adds, on average, three years to your life expectancy … up it to 25 minutes a day and you can cancel out a genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
Flossing your teeth – yes, you read that right – protects against heart disease and pneumonia
We live in an age of miraculous medicine – face transplants, artificial organs and surgical robots, for instance – but the truth is, most of us can make ourselves healthier by making a few good decisions better most days of our lives. The challenge (and this isn’t hard either, it’s what we do every day at Balance Health Communications) is for those of us in the business of communicating health information to do it in such a way that people not only understand what it takes to get healthy but also want to!
Sunday’s New York Times featured a front page story following an obese New York City teen over a year in which she had bariatric surgery, lost a whole lot of weight and then put half of it right back on. It’s a cautionary tale from many different angles but my conclusion after reading the story was that she was just too young and ill-equipped to succeed. This young girl thinks and acts like a teenager, and an immature one at that — and I mean that kindly, in that she simply doesn’t seem capable of controlling her impulses or considering the consequences of her actions. She needed to have grown-ups in her face every single day … several times a day … to even have a chance at meeting this challenge.
I have four kids –three now in their 20s – so I know of what I speak. Kids need to be told what to do and why and they need to hear it again and again and again.
So that brought my mind to yet another story I read a couple of weeks ago about a study involving teenage binge drinkers, reporting that when their doctors sent them supportive text messages (asking them how much they were drinking and, if it was excessive, urging urging them to drink less – it worked! Dramatically well, in fact – the kids cut back an average of 2.4 drinks/day.
Messaging – text, email, social media – can be an effective and inexpensive way to support healthy behaviors in people of all ages and perhaps most especially teens.
