A vast global problem that has taken over the world is “lifestyle diseases,” which span from poor diets, sugars and fats, physical inactivity, alcohol misuse, and smoking. With current trends, societies will be gravely damaged by the combination of a growing, ageing and chronically sick population, with a less productive workforce to support it. Only a concerted, "all-of-society" approach that brings together government, business and civil society has any hope of tackling the underlying complexity of this threat. As talked about in my previous post, which also resides in this article, the cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes, are the world’s greatest killers with about 36 million deaths a year. This is 63% of all deaths globally. Despite the severity of the threat, chronic diseases also known as “life style diseases” are some of the most preventable. This article blames a lot of the causes on jobs being desk oriented and stressful along with video games and sitting down leisure activities. According to the article the only way to achieve the necessary fundamental shifts across society is to bring together the power and reach of all societal sectors: government, businesses, civil society, and non-government organizations. There already seeing considerable strides being made by many companies, and there a number of examples of strong collaboration with the health community. However, the battle against chronic disease requires a major increase of such efforts on all sides. It is not a battle we can afford to lose.
When it comes to analyzing how these lifestyle diseases became such a huge problem, a light bulb went off in my head about how all this took place. On the surface it is obvious that cheap food equals not healthy food, and that sugars and fats are delicious and well-advertised. Also smoking and drinking are fun. But this doesn’t really answer our problem. Why do people buy cheap foods and is smoking and drinking really that fun or is it a stress reliever. This was not a major problem 60 years ago and you have to wonder why that maybe. Yes the economy is bad and that is one major factor of why people buy cheap foods and they feel the need to drink and smoke. But I think it’s something a little more isolated than just the economy even though the economy plays a role in it. I believe a main reason for these life style diseases directly corresponds with higher education and the pursuit for a better job. Let’s take me for example, I am a junior here at UNCG and I work a part time job. I am 21 years of age and make an ok amount of money; however I spend about 25 hours a week in school, 20 hours outside of school doing school work, and about 24 hours at my job. There is 120 hours in a normal 5 day week and I am sitting down doing work about 70 hours of that time, which leaves me 50 hours of free time. In those 50 hours of free time, I sleep about 35 to 40 hours of it. So I have about 10 real hours of free time which I want to spend relieving all my stress. So as we see I have no time for exercise, no time to cook and eat right, and in my spare time I sit around with my friends drinking beer to calm down. More people are in college now than 60 years ago and that is why more people are experiencing these problems. I have gained 10 pounds since school started back and I feel a lot sicker. Luckily for me I spent every day in the gym all summer but some people have jobs, kids, and school during that time. People just do not have time even after college to eat right, exercise, etc. If we were to take it a step further and ask why we are so busy, we might say it is because we want to make more money, have a better life, some people might say it is because they have so much free time and they want something to do. Never the less even if the economy was good people would still have to go through college to get a better job because things have changed and they still would be too busy and stressed to do what they need to do to prevent this problem.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/blog/role-business-reducing-lifestyle-disease?INTCMP=SRCH
No comments:
Post a Comment