Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
June 2008
Motivational speakers that challenge their audience to perform to their full potential urge them not to "settle for" an ordinary lifestyle, to set high goals and to make changes in their behavior that will take them out of the rut of mediocrity. It's time that we, as a nation, should adopt those principles to our personal health.
As if the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes were not already straining our healthcare dollars, Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia are rising even faster than our aging population. Because of their dietary and lifestyle habits the generation that follows the Baby Boomers will carry the additional burden of osteoporosis. These four conditions are long-lasting and expensive to treat. The advances in medicine that postpone dying add only a little to the quality of life but a lot to its cost.
Government analysts predict that the cost of healthcare will double between 2007 and 2016. Estimates for the collapse of Medicare vary widely but no one doubts that it will eventually be unable to cover its obligations to an older and sicker population. Are we going to settle for that?
More than two-thirds of Americans have already settled for excess weight as a natural effect of getting older. We only need to glance at a photograph taken during the pre-World War Two era to see that that just isn't so. It was that mid-point of the 20th century when creeping obesity sneaked onto the American scene. Stunning advances in war machine technology brought us labor-saving devices that Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (remember them?) could not have imagined. We became two-car families because we needed another vehicle to live in the suburbs. We used more gasoline and electricity but fewer calories. And we settled for a weight gain of about a pound per year.
By the 20th century's three-quarter mark processed food and microwave ovens left mom free to drive to a job and to sit behind a desk. We settled for high-fructose corn syrup because it was cheap and we could afford 32-ounce drinks instead of a 6-ounce Coke.
The typical American eats 44 percent of his or her meals away from home, working folks even more. So it's reasonable to settle for fast food, high in fat, high in salt, high in calories and low in vegetables.
Kids can get hurt during play so we settle for eliminating tag, dodge-ball, jungle gyms and touch football. Schools settle for industry handouts in exchange for soda-dispensers. Parents settle for obese children who become hypertensive in middle school and diabetic in high school. In fact, parents don't even consider overweight a problem unless their child is unable to take part in play activity or is subject to ridicule from his or her classmates.
The government at every level is going to settle for this degradation in the nation's health until insurors and healthcare facilities collapse.
Someday we won't "settle for" anymore. Are we there yet?
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D. is the author of Health Secrets of the Stone Age, Better Life Publishers 2005. Contact him at drphil@stoneagedoc.com.