I don’t get the way people invite trouble. Take stroke, for example.
You don’t want to have a stroke if there’s anything you can do to avoid it. I had a hemorrhagic stroke at 61 because I inherited lousy genes from my mother (Protein S and C cause blood clots which promote strokes), and if that’s the reason, there ain’t nuthin’ you can do to improve that situation.
But there is something you can do about an unhealthy lifestyle that suggests a stroke may be a-comin’ if it’s not inherited:
–Do you have high cholesterol?
–Do you have high blood pressure?
–Are you an alcoholic?
–Do you have diabetes?
–Do you have sleep deprivation?
–Do you smoke?
–Do you not exercise?
–Are you obese?
I have a friend, more like a daughter, who checks every box. Once I’m done this post, I’ll read it to her. It may make a difference–or not. It’s hard for people to change.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), “60% of related factors to individual health and quality of life are correlated to lifestyle. Millions of people follow an unhealthy lifestyle. Hence, they encounter illness, disability and even death.”
A New England Journal of Medicine study “analyzed over 50,000 people and found that for those at high genetic risk, not smoking, avoiding obesity, regular physical activity, and a healthy diet were associated with a nearly 50% lower relative risk of coronary artery disease than those at high genetic risk with an unfavorable lifestyle.”
Yet more. In an exhaustive and often-quoted study of 3,637 adolescents aged 11–23 years in Zhengzhou city, China, unhealthy lifestyles such as unhealthy dietary habits, hypertension (high blood pressure), and sleep deprivation and excessive screen time (the latter two co-exist together) remain prevalent among adolescents in China.
Conclusions centered around the fact that families and schools need to work together to improve the lifestyles of adolescents. China has set the goal of “Health China 2030,” which will further strengthen health education for adolescents.
Maybe the United States and other countries around the world will follow China’s mission. “Health China 2030”– there’s something about deadlines that assert definitiveness.
Perhaps my friend will sense the deadline.
