I consider my mom a healthy person. She gardens, hikes, and goes for jogs. She also eats a salad for lunch everyday and drinks something like vinegar for her stomach. She always has hand-sanitizer with her and takes a shower every day. She loves to do lots of stuff that makes her happy and sleeps a good amount for someone with really long work hours. She is always ready to be up on her feet and does not play any video games. She makes healthy living look easy. It looks easy if you follow certain guidelines, but being healthy in today's world can be extremely difficult.
To be healthy people, we must think about our mind, body and spirit. UCSF Health suggests that we, “Be physically active for 30 minutes most days of the week. Break this up into three 10-minute sessions when pressed for time. Healthy movement may include walking, sports, dancing, yoga or running.” Being physically active helps you clear your mind and can lower stress levels. It can also get you outside, be fun, and generate endorphins. Being physically active doesn’t only help your body, but also your mind and spirit. UCSF also suggests that we “Eat a well-balanced, low-fat diet with lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Choose a diet that's low in saturated fat and cholesterol, and moderate in sugar, salt and total fat.” Eating healthily can help your mind and spirit while helping your body. Eating too much sugar can plummet your energy. It can also make your moods erratic. Fast food restaurants like McDonalds are high in sugar and saturated fat. If you have a full meal at McDonalds, it can make you feel good in the moment, but it can also lead to long-term and short-term problems like a stomach-ache. When you think about being healthy, you think about exercising and eating good foods. But being healthy also involves wearing sunscreen, caring for your hygiene, and consuming things like alcohol, sugar and fried foods in moderation. These methods are familiar but can be very hard to follow in the modern world.
Modern life makes being healthy extremely difficult for many people. One reason is that being healthy can be very expensive. Mintel.com found in a survey that “Seven in 10 Millennials (69 percent) agree living a healthy lifestyle is expensive (vs 58 percent of consumers overall).” Young adults in particular are finding being healthy very difficult. Buying organic foods is much more expensive than fast food places. Buying your own ingredients can be a lot more expensive and time consuming than going to Chipotle. Therapy and doctor visits can be a lot of money but are essential to being healthy. Mintel.com also found “Additionally, Millennials (53 percent) are overwhelmingly more likely than consumers overall (37 percent) to see if health problems will resolve themselves rather than seek medical attention.” Rather than going to a doctor, young adults wait to see what will happen. If it’s something that needs to be treated immediately, it can be dangerous and they can get sicker. Even if it’s something like a shoulder injury that hurts a lot, they often wait to see what happens, which can lead to it getting worse and those people needing something even more expensive like surgery. It’s healthier to live without pain because you’re more comfortable and less likely to be unhappy. It’s unhealthy to cross your fingers and see what happens.
In addition to good health being expensive, working too hard can be unhealthy and possibly lead to death. An article called Working Less Is a Matter of Life and Death from the New York Times quoted a new study by the WHO and the International Labor Organization that says that “working 55 or more hours a week is a ‘serious health hazard.’” It can be unhealthy to work too much because working too much can lead to having no free time. Without free time, people have less time to relax, make healthy and organic food, or spend time with their families. All these things are really important if you want to minimize stress. The study showed that “Risk of a stroke rises by 35 percent and of fatal heart disease by 17 percent for those who can’t or won’t pry their nose from the grindstone, compared with people who work 35 to 40 hours a week.” People who work too hard have to neglect their health to a point where they suffer bad medical problems. Modern life can be very expensive, which can force some people to work more hours. For people who work at home and stare at a screen all day, it can be especially hard to distinguish free time and work time, which can lead to working too much. But whatever your situation, workers have to be careful about how long they work.
In my life my mom has been a model for healthy living. She shows me how mind, body, and spirit are all key parts to being a healthy person. Exercising, having a good diet, and having love in your life, these are all important. As a kid, being healthy means having free time, having friends, and feeling cared for. But it’s not that easy for everyone. Getting by in today’s world is already hard, and being healthy can be an additional challenge. It can make you work harder, which can be even worse for your health. Individually, we can all strive to be healthy people, but as a community, we need to make it easier for everyone to be healthy.