Lifestyle and their impact on health

Introduction

Poor lifestyle choices are key contributors in the development and progression of Chronic diseases now a days. We often see people who have poor lifestyle choices such as smoking, overuse of alcohol, poor diet, lack of physical activity led to various diseases like obesity, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, depression, Blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes & several types of cancer which are affecting people on a major scale. Most patients understand the reasoning behind a healthy lifestyle even if they don’t understand the disease processes that can occur when they don’t maintain healthy habits.

What’s our problem?

According to a study we tend to spend outlandishly on developing fancy drugs and other treatments for diseases, rather than on trying to prevent them. This is a big problem. Despite of knowing the fact that they may suffer people generally keep going with the same imbalanced lifestyle. Despite an understanding of what constitutes a healthy lifestyle, many patients lack the behavioral skills they need to apply every day to sustain these good habits.

Meaning of Healthy Lifestyle

1. Healthy diet- which is calculated and rated based on the reported intake of healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, healthy fats, and omega-3 fatty acids, and unhealthy foods like red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, trans fat, and sodium.

2. Healthy physical activity level-  which is measured as at least 30 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous activities daily which includes yoga, gym, cycling, swimming & various sports activities

3. Healthy body weight- defined as a normal body mass index (BMI), which is between 18.5 and 24.9. People must maintain and monitor their BMI. As it reduces the risk of obesity which itself a root cause of various underlying diseases.

4. Moderate alcohol intake- which is measured as between 5 and 15 grams per day for women, and 5 to 30 grams per day for men. Generally, one drink contains about 14 grams of pure alcohol. That’s 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.

5. Awareness- People should be given awareness about diseases, lifestyle choices and diet knowledge and promote the benefits of physical activities from the beginning only at every level i.e. Educational, Family & societal  level. So that a healthy and diseases free environment can be created.