Evolution of Wellness Part 2

Evolution Part II

In ancient times of the early Greeks, wellness was highly recommended and practiced.  Preventative medicine was heavily utilized prior to the 20^th century.  Many early physicians such as Hippocrates(460 -370 BC) and Galen(AD 129 – 217) wrote about and advised people to be proactive in their wellness and hygiene.  Not only did hygiene entail cleanliness but it also required a significant regimen of diet and exercise principles.  The Greeks term for wellness was regimen.  

This wellness was not done in the pursuit of luxury but out of necessity.  The Greeks understood that lifestyle choices would affect their health.  In ancient times, the consequence of irresponsibility in our own hygiene would often lead to death.  They could not be kept alive through the technologies or medications we are so lucky to enjoy today.  The consequences were felt more immediately and because people lived in a small community everybody saw the error of the ways of the socially negative deviants.   When someone was sick everyone had an opportunity to experience it.  There is an obvious incentive.  If you knew a person that was sick it would only make sense to not do what they did to make themselves sickly. Today people can avoid being around sick people.  In fact children are rarely exposed to the real reasons why people are sick and most adults live in denial that poor behaviors and decisions lead to chronic disease states.  They do not spend time in hospitals and they do not draw the connections with many of the subtle yet negative behaviors their family members and friends make to propel them towards chronic disease.  We caudle our children so much today that we do not tell them the truth even though it is what is best for them.  When someone gets cancer or has a stroke or heart attack, it is preventable on many levels.  

For many people , their answer is genetics, God, or fate.  Many people do not realize that the chronic diseases plaguing our society today are almost entirely preventable.   Many people do not understand and recognize the fact that these people made conscious choices to end up where they did.  Some of them, however, were unaware of the harmful effects their behaviors would have on them in their future.  These people are typically doing what other people around them do and were not asking questions of contemplation.  We do not have to have the same fate.  There are some aspects that we cannot control and these should not waste our attention.  However, there are aspects which we can control and should control in order to save our quality of life. 

At the end of the 19^th century significant changes occurred in the way we approached health and wellness.  The invention of the microscope allowed us to identify compounds which could destroy bacteria and combat diseases.    This was a great time in our history but just like everything else, our human nature has once again spoiled the technology.  

• Dynamite was originally created to help with mining and was then utilized to kill people.  

• Priests were created to spread the good word and hold up the principles of the bible.  Then human nature caused them to be corrupt, greedy, abuse power and molest the youth.  

• McDonalds created fast food to help people get their meals more quickly and over time the food has become full of more and more harmful products and assisted with ruining the diet of people in the U.S. and is now growing throughout the rest of the world.   

• Gas stations meshed with convenience stores to provide a quick one stop shop to refuel our cars and our bodies.  Unfortunately the gas prices continue to rise and the food they provide is primarily of an unhealthy variety that should not be consumed on a consistent basis.  In fact, I cannot remember seeing one wise food choice in the last gas station I went into during my travels this weekend.  The gas was $2.89 a gallon and provided cakes, candy, chips, chocolate, cigarettes, soda, energy drinks, and many other unhealthy choices.  At least they had water, maybe the only consistently consumable product provided.   

• The microscope, although greatly beneficial, caused a cultural shift in the way we approached medicine and health.  Medicine as a science relies on evidence to determine best practices.   Physicians and scientists now had a tool which allowed them to see the effects of chemicals on microorganisms.  This creates a significant conundrum.  On one hand we can now affect harmful microorganisms in order to cure diseases and heal the sick.  On the other hand, if something could not be seen by a microscope, it could not be studied and evidence could not be created.  Therefore science was completely reliant on a tool that could not answer all of the questions that were being asked.  None the less, for nearly a century, small substances such as vitamins have not been able to be studied in terms of their beneficial effects.  Medicine and science shifted from being preventative to searching for a pill or chemical we could place in side of the body to alter a disease state or control someone’s symptoms.  As we can see today, medicine and pharmacology are not solving our problems and may even be perpetuating the current state we are in today.  

Every time we go to see our physicians, we expect them to use their high levels of understanding, knowledge, education and experience to do the best things for us.  We end up getting little or no access to their knowledge of healthy behaviors, spend less than a few minutes with them, and leave the office with a prescription for a medication or to make an appointment for some invasive medical procedure. 

We now know today that many, but not all, physicians do not know how to help people without giving them a pill.  For example, when a person is diagnosed with a chronic disease such as high blood pressure, type II diabetes, high cholesterol, or obesity, the most effective treatment is through a slow process of lifestyle modifications, proper nutrition, exercise, and more daily physical activity.


The cause of the problem was not initially a chemical or hormonal imbalance that can be fixed with a pill.  The cause is our behavior, our culture.    


I have never seen a representative from a broccoli company marketing to physicians.  In fact, I  have never seen a commercial for broccoli either.  If we want health, not sickness, we must take some of the control and responsibility.  No one is going to look out for you better than you!