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Over the past two weeks, an attack seems to have been launched on medical science. There would be too little focus on the value of a healthy lifestyle, and doctors appear to know little about nutrition. Gradually, it becomes clear that we fitness enthusiasts are not crazy; the rest is crazy.
Lifestyle is Undervalued
The first attack came last week in the NRC with an interesting article about ‘lifestyle medicine.’ Research shows that with a healthy lifestyle, for example, many of the effects of type 2 diabetes can be reduced. Other benefits include lowering high blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Medical science would have too little focus on this. Research is insufficiently focused on the effects of dietary patterns and exercise. ‘Because you can’t patent that.’
The second attack came today in the AD. The Association of Physicians and Nutrition points out the undervaluation of knowledge about nutrition among doctors. In medical education, only one percent of the curriculum is dedicated to the influence of nutrition and exercise. The association points to the large number of studies that have demonstrated their great value. However, these studies are not being read enough. Patients are also increasingly asking what they can do to improve their lifestyle.
I sincerely mean it when I say that adjustments in our lifestyle are the solution
Tamara de Weijer, chair of the Association of Physicians and Nutrition
Lifestyle Medicine
In the article in the NRC, a large part of the problem is attributed to a lack of (financing for) research. Due to the current system, researchers reportedly struggle to find funding for clinical research. A medicine can be patented, and research into it may potentially pay for itself. A better lifestyle cannot be patented. I have no idea how much research has not been conducted because of this. However, for almost 8 years, I have been writing about studies on the effects of lifestyle that have been conducted. I therefore recognize the words of Tamara de Weijer from the Association of Physicians and Nutrition, who says that this information simply does not reach doctors enough.
It is much more than a problem of research funding. We can read in both articles that many doctors themselves would like to devote more attention to lifestyle.
But waiting until someone presents complaints to the doctor before paying attention to lifestyle seems rather reactive to me. Not only reactive, but often also very late. Why wait until someone is forty years old with signs of diabetes? It’s called ‘lifestyle’; you don’t start with that when half your life is over, do you? It’s great that Hippocrates and ancient Chinese say that food is like medicine, but you need medicine when you are already sick.
I think ‘lifestyle medicine’ is a beautiful concept, but why don’t we pay more attention to lifestyle before it becomes medicine?
Lifestyle Must Be Learned
Now, we fitness enthusiasts are often called obsessive when we deal with things like BMR and macronutrient distribution. We may be sighed at by friends, for example, when we are briefly distracted during lunch to read the label of a jar of jam. The goal may be different. Some of us may be concerned only about appearance when we closely monitor our diet and exercise a lot. You don’t have to understand that.
But isn’t it a crazy idea to be aware of what your body needs? That you know what you are actually giving your body and what the consequences of this could be? That should actually be mandatory, shouldn’t it? Especially when the food industry often makes it impossible to rely on your natural needs. Listening to your body can be annoying when it screams for an XL bucket of chicken wings.
How crazy would it be, for example, to have more attention for this in school? If lifestyle lessons could increase the average lifespan of your children and lower your insurance premium, that seems worth something to me. As part of Biology, for example. Studying fat cells instead of dissecting frogs. Or as a separate subject. I would be willing to trade an hour of geography for that. Especially since I am sure that you can apply those lifestyle lessons for the rest of your life. No offense to geography teachers. They will probably say that this part of education is the parents’ responsibility.
Schoolstyle or Homestyle?
Then it would be handy if those parents themselves have the right knowledge and/or maintain the right lifestyle in family life. In that respect, given the figures on issues such as obesity and the number of people with diabetes, you can judge that many parents belong to a ‘lost generation.’ Living in an obesogenic world where they may already have all the trouble themselves. Parents who, for example, start complaining when a primary school decides that only water can be consumed, as happened last year in Tilburg. The school saw it as necessary to counteract the increase in sugary drinks (often brought by parents). There were parents who compared this to a prison regime, or said that water is for dogs. I think that proves my point that unfortunately, you often cannot leave this to parents.
We must of course also tackle this obesogenic world ourselves, more on that later in the article about the recent action of the Diabetes Fund. However, as long as we are surrounded by visible and hidden temptations, we will have to arm ourselves against them. The sooner the better.
