Because each of us is biochemically and bioenergetically unique, each of us reacts differently to the toxic burden inflicted upon us by a polluted environment. But all of us benefit by both cleaning up the environment and otherwise addressing issues of public health, including how we all suffer from the poor lifestyle choices we, as a society, have made.
The costs of not doing so can be enormous, as evidenced by the ever higher percentage of income spent on medical care for chronic illnesses. We can also calculate the cost of work days lost due to such illness. But economics are just one part of the issue, as a recent San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece points out:
These days, the health of our youth is more compromised than ever – and this prevalence of chronic illness may very well jeopardize kids’ ability to learn or change how students learn or in what kind of environment.
Because of asthma, for example, children in the United States ages 5 to 17 missed 12.8 million school days in 2003. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that asthma “steals the breath” of about 10 percent of children nationwide. In Denver, it is estimated that asthma affects nearly 19 percent of students.
CDC data also show that the proportion of young Americans who are overweight has tripled since 1980. At the current pace of weight problems, 75 percent of adults and nearly 24 percent of U.S. children and adolescents will be overweight or obese by 2015.
The author – Monica Martinez of KnowledgeWorks Foundation – goes on to describe a number of different initiatives aiming to create classrooms and schools that support healthy lifestyles and positive life choices, for
Just as we design classrooms to promote effective teaching, we must design learning experiences that promote good health. Individual teachers, researchers, foundations and nonprofit organizations have developed simple yet creative responses that encourage physical activity in an attempt to reduce obesity and increase overall fitness.
Education of the general public may also prove effective – at least when it comes to nutrition and diet, which is an excellent intervention indeed, considering that 75% of all diseases are preventable through diet. This was just one of the discoveries included in a landmark 2006 study from the Netherlands, Our Food, Our Health (PDF), which also showed how poor food choices are just as bad for one’s health as smoking.
Now a more recent study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior shows that for every dollar spent on educating people about healthy food choices, about $10 in future care costs were saved, as measured through health benefits in quality adjusted life years. As expressed in the paper’s abstract, “Outcome data indicate that food and nutrition behavior changes resulting from the Program are likely to improve future health and reduce health care costs. Cost-effectiveness is estimated to be as great as for many current health interventions.”
Image by val’sphotos, via Flickr (CC)
