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Maintain healthy lifestyle in 2014

 

It is very common to hear a patient defer their appointment to see a health care provider for reasons such as funerals, family celebrations and marriage ceremonies.

Often, their role in such activities is so insignificant that those ceremonies can actually go on minus their presence, but they surely must be there to make issues complete and as it were fulfill all righteousness.

It is with great awe that I watch patients who default on their treatment and only return to me some time later to give me some of the aforementioned as their reasons for not being unable to come for reviews.

It baffles me since I stand at a place where my view of the possible outcome of their condition is really not a thing to joke with. It even becomes worse if it is an appointment with the dietician.

Some say after all, we have been eating for so many years and are still alive. Many also, realising that they can hardly do anything about their current eating habits, whimsically resort to the popular saying "all-die-be-die." My brothers and sisters, "all-die-no-be-die" oooo; visit the mortuary and see.    

Prevention is a possibility

Elsewhere, there is growing concern about the dangers that current eating habits pose to the very survival of the active workforce of nations.

There is much more commitment as well from governments and civil society to save the lives of the many unsuspecting youth and young people who risk falling prey to non-communicable diseases due to bad eating habits, lack of exercise and lack of knowledge on preventive health practices.

For those in our part of the world, the burden of disease becomes double since people will be hungry due to lack of economic empowerment and at the same time they will be sick due to the kind of foods they eat.

There is also going to be lots of confusion on the minds of many people since what they eat can cause them problems. And at the same time, when they are not able to eat too, they will have problems.

There is a way out of this if we are going to be able to help our people. Government should confront the issues well; this country cannot continue to concentrate on curative health care alone and relegate preventive health care to the background.

It is hard to find a properly functioning dietetic unit in major hospitals in the regions of Ghana.

It is about time the government took a look at increasing the workforce in this aspect of healthcare so that more and more of our people could be helped out of preventable diseases.

This nation is looming for some sort of danger if all government keeps doing is to buy paracetamol, malaria tablets, diabetes medicines and hypertension medicines, among others.

It will get to a time when the national coffers will not be able to afford these drugs anymore because there will be too many people who need them.

A stitch in time, they say, saves nine. A bold step has to be taken towards helping people prevent these lifestyle related diseases as well. Prevention is better than cure.

Help yourself in 2014

We can help ourselves by setting our priorities right. If you have the opportunity to take care of yourself, do that and do not use time for your health-check on funerals and naming ceremonies.

Give healthy eating a chance, I beg you. You do no one but yourself so much good by exercising daily. Some people have to follow certain exercise regimes daily in order to give living a chance.

If you are not there yet, you can prevent getting there by starting some regular exercise programme now.

Make Christmas and the New Year season a time of renewal of relationships with God, self and man.

Use this period to reflect deeply on how well you are taking good care of yourself and those around you.

It is time to set goals for the future as well. If you are lucky to get some holiday from work, make use of it by exercising some more.

Do not forget that your work schedule prevented you from exercising all year. Now that you are free from that bondage, I guess the time is ripe for some serious workout now so keep moving, exercise is medicine.

I wish you a Happy New Year. God loves you.

The writer of this article is a Dietician at Trust Hospital & Clinics.

 

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