Health: the (confusing) new religion
February 17th 2007 00:01
Health is the new religion, and the sauciest source for gossip. We have the priests of the various competing religions telling us how to stick to the straight and narrow. (And, scandalously, sometimes not sticking to it themselves). The status of the latest celebrity’s waist line makes the cover of celebrity magazines. Whether the priests are from the highest ivory towers of academic respectability or street level funky, they are all there to preach their religion – and to tell us how to live our lives.
Health is, like the object of the religions, omnipresent. From national politics to the trash mag’s fascination with the latest celebrity’s diet we can’t get away from it.
If only our health was doing as well as the word itself. Our pre-occupation with health is doing much better than our own health. We are growing less healthy. Not a day passes without a story on a health crisis (or the funding of it).
The problem is, we end up so confused. The CSIRO (in their first edition of their diet book) recommends a meat heavy diet to lose weight. Unfortunately they don’t mention that a meat heavy diet has been out of favour with those interested in health for quite a while now – for reasons like it’s being linked to various forms of cancer. There is also the cost – is the diet intended for executive’s weight loss rather than for the likes of the rest of us? They correct this, somewhat, in the second edition. If even our pre-eminent science body is confused, what hope the rest of us?
What is health exactly? Good looks (by the grace of our genes), high achievement (faster, longer, higher – the result of determined self-flagellation: with its accompanying satisfaction of having triumphed over ourselves?), perhaps, living a long time.
The simplest definition of health I know is: living well. And this means every part of us – not just how good looking our body is. And it means you live where you are – all those other people and stuff that we live with is part of our health too. Health is social as well as individual.
The good news is, from all the stuff out there, there is actually lots of valuable information that we can use to live well. This blog is going to be about that information and how we can use it to live better.
Health is, like the object of the religions, omnipresent. From national politics to the trash mag’s fascination with the latest celebrity’s diet we can’t get away from it.
If only our health was doing as well as the word itself. Our pre-occupation with health is doing much better than our own health. We are growing less healthy. Not a day passes without a story on a health crisis (or the funding of it).
The problem is, we end up so confused. The CSIRO (in their first edition of their diet book) recommends a meat heavy diet to lose weight. Unfortunately they don’t mention that a meat heavy diet has been out of favour with those interested in health for quite a while now – for reasons like it’s being linked to various forms of cancer. There is also the cost – is the diet intended for executive’s weight loss rather than for the likes of the rest of us? They correct this, somewhat, in the second edition. If even our pre-eminent science body is confused, what hope the rest of us?
What is health exactly? Good looks (by the grace of our genes), high achievement (faster, longer, higher – the result of determined self-flagellation: with its accompanying satisfaction of having triumphed over ourselves?), perhaps, living a long time.
The simplest definition of health I know is: living well. And this means every part of us – not just how good looking our body is. And it means you live where you are – all those other people and stuff that we live with is part of our health too. Health is social as well as individual.
The good news is, from all the stuff out there, there is actually lots of valuable information that we can use to live well. This blog is going to be about that information and how we can use it to live better.
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