Are you more health conscious than you were 4 years ago? Are you more aware of what it is you eat, what the ingredients are and what impact they can have on your body? Are you more "green" minded? Do you have a preference for organic over processed? Do you have an appreciation for the medical risks of smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and other lifestyle traits? If you are, then you pretty much validate a recent survey by HealthFocus Inc a medical research organization.
According to the survey, consumers are slowly moving toward healthier products.
The health areas that are of most interest involve:
Omega3 and probiotics were measured as the rising stars of consumer health interest.
It was also noted that consumers are demanding from producers to give them healthier products without sacrificing taste and convenience.
In essence they are voting with their grocery money.
Sounds like a good healthy trend right? Unfortunately the facts don't bear out what would seem to be the natural result of increased health awareness which would be an overall increase in actual wellness.
As a matter of fact, the state of health in America is declining and has been for the past four years according to the United Health Foundation.
This four year decline follows 15 consecutive years of improvement in U.
S.
health.
Obesity leads the way with a 26.
3% increase since 1990.
Further, our aging population is not aging all that well.
The survey found that for persons 50 to 62 years of age, greater than half of them suffered from one or more conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, cancer, diabetes or some form of cardiovascular disease.
So if there is an increase in awareness, why is our overall health as a nation going down? One reason may be that 95% of public health care spending went on sick care with only 5% going to prevention and education.
This is kind of like having a leak in a dam and spending all your money to buy sandbags to protect your house rather than fixing the leak.
Another reason, and probably a big contributor, is that we continue living unhealthful lives even knowing the risk.
We are waiting for someone else, say like food producers, to come up with the healthy products that taste and satisfy just like the unhealthy products.
In other words we do not have the discipline to take responsibility for our own healthy well being.
Both these trends, increased health awareness and a decline in overall wellness, are on the same upswing.
It's a paradox but one this country needs to resolve.
Billions and billions of dollars are spent on healthcare.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like chump change in comparison.
If resources are not brought to bear to fix or prevent core causes of illness, then we will continue to build sandbags until we run out of money.
There can be a lot of money in sandbags when you have millions buying them.
It cost a lot less to just fix the leak in the dam.
According to the survey, consumers are slowly moving toward healthier products.
The health areas that are of most interest involve:
- Stress
- Brain Conditions
- Muscle and Bone Wellness
- Skin Conditions
- Heart Disease
- Fatigue
Omega3 and probiotics were measured as the rising stars of consumer health interest.
It was also noted that consumers are demanding from producers to give them healthier products without sacrificing taste and convenience.
In essence they are voting with their grocery money.
Sounds like a good healthy trend right? Unfortunately the facts don't bear out what would seem to be the natural result of increased health awareness which would be an overall increase in actual wellness.
As a matter of fact, the state of health in America is declining and has been for the past four years according to the United Health Foundation.
This four year decline follows 15 consecutive years of improvement in U.
S.
health.
Obesity leads the way with a 26.
3% increase since 1990.
Further, our aging population is not aging all that well.
The survey found that for persons 50 to 62 years of age, greater than half of them suffered from one or more conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, cancer, diabetes or some form of cardiovascular disease.
So if there is an increase in awareness, why is our overall health as a nation going down? One reason may be that 95% of public health care spending went on sick care with only 5% going to prevention and education.
This is kind of like having a leak in a dam and spending all your money to buy sandbags to protect your house rather than fixing the leak.
Another reason, and probably a big contributor, is that we continue living unhealthful lives even knowing the risk.
We are waiting for someone else, say like food producers, to come up with the healthy products that taste and satisfy just like the unhealthy products.
In other words we do not have the discipline to take responsibility for our own healthy well being.
Both these trends, increased health awareness and a decline in overall wellness, are on the same upswing.
It's a paradox but one this country needs to resolve.
Billions and billions of dollars are spent on healthcare.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like chump change in comparison.
If resources are not brought to bear to fix or prevent core causes of illness, then we will continue to build sandbags until we run out of money.
There can be a lot of money in sandbags when you have millions buying them.
It cost a lot less to just fix the leak in the dam.
Source...