When one boy has a solution

Slightly over 10 years ago, I had this boss who subscribed to a philosophy that went something like: ‘Since you are the one who knows least about this (the assignment at hand), you are the best person to do it.’

I never quite understood his rationale but there is something to be said about looking at issues from fresh pairs of eyes.

Normally, when the issue of health costs is reported in the media, the news is about how they are rising and why or people's complaints (often with valid reasons) or the problem of affordability, etc. In a TODAY article on 12 July, the young columnist Jeremy Lim provides his SOLUTION to that problem:

‘… we can arrest the rising medical costs if we take responsibility for our health. If we do not take care of our body, we must be prepared to pay the price.’

What Jeremy means by taking care of our body is: ‘Adopt a healthy lifestyle, go for regular medical checkups and take our medication when we are not well.’

So simple, and yet, it takes a child (sorry, Jeremy, I consider 16-year-olds still ‘children’) to remind us to live healthily. I’m sure in our heart of hearts we know that we should, but my point is that his is one of the rare articles that looks at the issue of high health costs from that perspective. I think his is a really constructive point of view because we can argue or complain all we want but health costs (like transport costs, petrol prices, uni fees, etc) will still go up.

So, if we know we should do our best to stay healthy, why don’t we? One reason is that we don’t care enough to.

Let me just focus on the matter of food. (There are too many aspects of healthy living to go into in just one post!)

Eating out seems to have become unavoidable for many Singaporeans. Faced with mostly unhealthy food choices at food centres, we invariably ingest more oil, fat, sodium, MSG, sugar etc than we should. When we want to eat out as a ‘treat’, the choices we make also tend to be fairly unhealthy. Think buffets, dim sum, seafood and fast food (common treat for kids).

There was this 20/20 show about how even ‘healthier choices’ on restaurant menus contain hidden health threats (such as high sodium levels in low fat dishes). The doctor who tested the food realistically said that we can’t do anything about the food we eat in restaurants, but we can control what goes into our mouths at home. Well, maybe I’m wrong but I have the impression that many Singaporeans are not very careful about eating healthily even when they eat in. Thus, levels of oil, fat, sodium, MSG, sugar, etc at our private dinner tables may not be too healthy either.

Here are a couple of other areas where I see this lax attitude towards food:
GM food
Singaporeans seem to have embraced, rather than kept at an arm’s length, GM food – people don’t blink an eye when buying vegetables with leaves twice or more times larger than normal, or chicken parts from hormone-injected chickens. ‘Sweet’ oranges and ‘seedless’ grapes and watermelons are popular. All this when in other countries people are opposed to, or at least apprehensive about, GM food (no doubt also for reasons other than health).

Food colouring
Artificial food colouring is liberally used and consumed. It’s not only found on brightly-coloured children’s birthday cakes but also in all sorts of things we don’t think twice about, including biscuits, ice cream and even fruit juice (the ones sold in cartons). In some countries, some of this kind of colouring is banned.

too colourful for our good?

In general, I think there isn’t enough attention given to, and therefore not enough awareness about, going natural as far as possible. That's why people think that those who choose to go vegetarian (i.e. not for religious reasons) are crazy. Healthy food is ‘boring’ or ‘tasteless’. It’s like the more processed it is, the better it is. But logic will tell us that the more natural it is, the healthier it is.

Therefore, we need to be re-educated about what’s good for our bodies. Generations have been told the wrong things about food. An example would be how some of us face fierce opposition when we choose to breastfeed our babies. I put it down to the highly successful campaign years ago that persuaded people all over the world – erroneously of course – that formula milk was the thing for your child. In other words, processed is better than natural.

So, we should really take heed when people like Jeremy remind us to take care of our bodies. No doubt, as he concedes, doing so might not necessarily help you to ‘fight off’ genes programmed with certain medical conditions. However, who knows, living healthily might delay the onset or reduce the intensity of these illnesses. And if we do indeed have some recalcitrant gene in us, his advice about going for regular check-ups - which, however, don’t seem very popular - and taking our medication seriously is pertinent.

So there you have it. Jeremy’s solution to rising health costs: take care of yourself and shrink your medical bills.

Now, remember to check food labels and also to look for hidden health threats even when the pack says 'less than 10% fat only, baked not fried, trans-fat free, no cholesterol'

Congratulations, Jeremy, on yet another commendable essay.
I hope he gets an A1 for English and the marker doesn't say 'out of point!'