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eastchance.com essay feature
Author: Olga Stamatova
Health, Wellness, Diet.
HEALTH, the most contradictive issue in present time, has a huge impact on our lives. It affected affects and will affect the humanity for many years causing it to become more and more vulnerable. There are plenty of various things in this world that people do not understand completely or simply do not want to comprehend. Everything: cultures, traditions, customs, languages, histories differ each of us from others. But there is always something that connects people and all living beings together. This something, a very important thing that changes our lives daily is Health. It makes us happy, brings joy in our families. On the other hand, health also brings tears and ruins our life in a minute if we do not take care of it properly.
In my opinion, precisely health is one of the most significant things that connect humans between each other. It is an important part of our existence. From the beginning of evolution people have been tending to be as healthy as possible. We strike to live as full as possible, to achieve as much as we can. Health is responsible for wellness of our population. But we, primarily, are truly responsible for our health. It depends on us how we are going to end up in our lives: successful, happy people enjoying every day or disabled at the age of 30, not capable of performing anything useful, because of “old teenage mistake”! I think that we can not just let health go along with our lives, just relying on foolish chances such as good or bad luck. Health is not a lottery. People that think this way are mistaken and I guess immature. I am pretty sure nobody wants to be betrayed especially by his/her own foolishness. Unfortunately, that’s what happens if we do not care about anything.
Nevertheless, I can not deny that there are numerous factors influencing our condition of health. They are minuscule but…. if we do not take them into consideration they can turn into a “big trouble”. Social classes, medical care and proper treatment, discovering new diseases and new medicine, environmental issues, cultural traditions and beliefs- all this mentioned- has a huge impact on our health. To examine better the similarities and the differences of this influence we can take an example of evolution. I think we do not have to go far away. If we begin our research from Middle Ages, about 1600-1700y.A.C., we can follow a thread of differences and similarities pretty clear.
At the very beginning of the era called Middle Ages people just tried to make the world better. At that time people did not pay attention at such things as education. In their opinion, it was not worth spending time on it. They considered it unimportant. So, as a result there were plenty of uneducated people. Those courageous people who tried to change this belief and become intelligent were considered ‘weird, devil’s children. Their life was not happy as they tried to convert others in their researches and ideas. Their destiny was decapitation, execution or death from poverty on streets or in jail. People of those times were concerned only about two things such as wealth and social position. Well, truthfully, I can understand them. Having enough money and being a member of a higher social class automatically guaranteed you all the best the world possibly had at that time: best food, best care and treatment. Unfortunately, we have the same situation right now in our “modern” society. Poor people can not afford a lot, considering food, education and many other things. It is not even necessary to talk about health. It is the last thing you think of if you have a family to feed, children to educate and business to care about. Nowadays people try as hard as they can, to achieve that minimum in order to visit a professional and make some very “important changes’ in their health. At least, I would say we do not face such problem as lack of professional doctors. This was the most widespread problem during Middle Ages. Even being wealthy and powerful people were not able to get the appropriate care taken of them because there were no educated doctors around that time. People tended to become more proficient in the field of medicine but there were no examples to follow. All of the first intelligent people were considered heretics so were burnt because they preferred new phenomenal ideas that would change our future. But traditionalism, foolishness, and fear of innovation dominated and people suffered from their own decisions. Citizens, poor or rich, would rather go to shamans with their supernatural powers of healing than to a doctor.
Shamans-this was and still is a problem which brings our population down every year. Even in the third millennium we still possess the examples from different cultures that worship shamans and their powers. I, personally, do not know what the reason of being afraid of visiting a qualified doctor is. But it is not up to me to decide that. Nevertheless, there is a good side of this rather strange phenomenon. Since 1600-s people tried to find cure in nature itself, testifying natural resources such as water from springs, animals’ organs or simply herbs. This extremely helped newer generations in finding the harmony and balance in nature. Now we possess an enormous invaluable treasure, knowledge of almost all herbs the nature has, that can help us in different situations. Going camping, if we accidentally injure ourselves we know what to look for. Something that will always exist and not in vain! Our Mother-Nature created a perfect balance so we could examine it more and gain more “wisdom”. It gives us more power if we know different ways to heal others.
The other thing to consider is that we can not survive only on herbs, on shaman’s powers. Unfortunately, such fatal diseases like Leprosy, Syphilis, and Ebola have been discovered that we can not be cured with new technologies. As you can see, herbs here give us little help. Again revisiting the Middle Ages we all have an idea about Plague……How devastating its results were, how many people died from it. I would say such things happening are “beyond the human power”. Now, we are lucky, we can prevent those diseases from spreading but the first minute they are free we can not do anything to save the population. Nature still gives us a hint that we know so little about it and ourselves. Fortunate we are, having more knowledge to admit that we are humans possessing the advantages and disadvantages. At the same time some of those disadvantages cost us lives.
Another important issue which I neglected to mention is food. From my point of view, imagining for a minute that everything I said before: social class, poverty, poor environment, diseases, etc. would not exist; there always will be another reason for health problems. This reason is food, food, and food again. Diverse cultures, diverse customs and cuisine cause different things to happen. On this matter I have my personal experience to share. Being a foreigner I came to the USA as an exchange student 2 years ago, in 2004. My weight at the beginning was 95 pounds at the age of 16. In my country, Moldova, it is considered a normal weight for a teenager. I have never been anorexic or starved myself to death. I guess it depends on food that I ate in my motherland. As living in the agricultural state, food predominantly fruits, vegetables and juices, is homemade. The other thing worth mentioning is that I consumed a lot of bread. I would say that it is in my blood, like pizza in the USA. I love bread more than anything. I can not imagine a meal without bread on the table. Nevertheless, I have never practiced any sports, as I did not have the opportunities, have been just studying and reading books, although I almost walked everywhere around the city. My family does not have a car. So as a result everywhere I went I walked, but otherwise, I was a “potato couch”. After living in the USA for 8 months I gained 38 pounds!!! Imagine that and consider that I was on the school volleyball team, swimming team and by the end f the year I joined track and field. I do not watch as much TV as I did before I came here. I tried to be in every sport I was useful at, but I still gained 38 pounds. My question is: Is it mainly because of the food I ate here? I guess the answer is “Yes, but partially”. Food in America is drastically different and new for me. So much candy and sweet stuff as doughnuts you can buy cheap, that basically you get hooked on them. Also pizza, chicken wings (as I live in Buffalo) can not be forgotten. After the first slice comes the second and so on, so forth until you are done with large pizza. Fast Food such as McDonald’s and Burger King unfortunately can not be forgotten also. In all my life before I have never seen so many fast food places along the roads. You can visit a Burger King every mile. Willingly not to become influenced by those things, we are unwillingly forced to buy these products. The fast, crazy tempo of American life affects you and as a result you make your choice in favor of McDonald’s and Burger King places.
Here comes my full answer: Along with the food the main reason of American obesity and overweight problems is American lifestyle. As I experienced here, American life moves so fast that it is unbelievable. People have so much going on in their lives, on which their children, carrier, parents, spouses depend, that they do not pay attention on their health as much as they should living in a stressful society as the US. Exactly stressful, because life here is like “a fast waterfall, boiling, swirling and immersing everything it possibly can”. There is no time for being lazy. This rule I learned here. Being a scholar in Moldova is easier regardless our education system being tougher. Here is just more of a social pressure to keep up and never give up, because then no one will be relying on you as a trustworthy person. Life in America never stops, even if you stop doing something. Later you will regret and will definitely learn how to manage your time wisely in order to make use of every minute you have. That’s why I think people are forced to bye coffee in “Starbucks” and have lunch in “Burger King”. Isn’t life easier when you can do your work and at the same time eat pizza because there is no time to do it separately? I understand those people who unfortunately become “victims of their own lives”. There are moments when you do not care about anything except to get over with work you have! Such a common feeling I will tell you. I consider this issue the main problem existing in present time in the USA. Medical care and treatment are excellent here, regardless the class. The environment issues are known to be taken into consideration. So the remaining part is food. But as I think crazy tempo of American life creates this “food is the main reason for obesity” status. Despite the idea that “America is a melting pot” (it contains descendents from different cultures) they all suffer from the same problem as lack of time. People try to protect their health as much as they can but it just happens sometimes when something pops off in your life more significant than your health. It sounds sad but that is reality. I, as a foreigner, experienced this bitter reality and I have nothing to say except just one advice: People! Please, stop for a second and think, whether you want to live in such a hurry and stress or not. I am pretty sure Americans would be glad to live more calmly, enjoying life in the full meaning of it.
Regarding other cultures, I would say we all have to try giving reliance and trust in these poor people’s souls that technology and medicine make no harm. They are developed to protect and save the humanity. Also we all must think about our environment, because it, undoubtedly, affects our health. We should understand that polluting it and not taking care of our planet will harm not only us but also our next generations. We all must consider that everyone has his/her own dream. Some of us dream about a happy, calm life in countryside, others think more about becoming successful and being wealthy. In spite of the differences in dreams, they all depend on one thing, ability to make them alive. To tell the truth, it is very hard for a dream to come true if “it” does not have a support from a person, and unfortunately, it will not have, because the person is sick or dying. Then our dreams just never find “a light at the end of a tunnel”. We “burn our candle from both sides” and we end up being a retarded person or worse, dead at the age of 30. I hope none of us desire such results!!! Health is a very broad aspect of our life to be discussed. There are more things that refer to health than I mentioned. However, there is something connecting them. All of them depend primarily on the man. It is our duty, responsibility to care about our bodies if we want them to serve us for the rest of our lives. We have no rights to fault anyone for our mistakes, foolish errors that we have done before. So let’s not make them anymore regarding the health issue and everything else that influences our lives. As Voltaire said: “Health is the biggest wealth a man could possess in his life!”
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