Not All Is Wellness

Wellness revolves around how good you feel. Obviously, exercise plays a key role in having this great feeling, and so does eating the right stuff. Often, the lack of exercise and proper nutrition transform wellness into sickness.

One knows about or have heard about the CICO dictum (Calories In, Calories Out), but how many people care about it? To have a clear idea let us see through a simple example, if a person consumes some known toxic substance he may immediately feel nauseous, but the effect will take days or even weeks to show up if one is eating a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts daily!

And when the effects come to the fore, people tend to blame it on something else!

This explains the obesity of America although experts discovered it as an epidemic for the last few years. For decades, United Nations has been raising alarm bells for the growing weight and underbelly of developed and the developing nations. Through its health arm, the World Health Organization (WHO), the world body has been equally concerned about the burgeoning malnutrition in underdeveloped countries. In a January 2005 report, WHO emphasized that "one billion people--one sixth of the world's population - live in extreme poverty, lacking safe water, proper nutrition, basic health care and social services needed to survive. Almost 11 million children die each year, six million of them under five from preventable diseases."

Health seems the major concern for the WHO as the organization in its 2015 development blueprint (aka the Millennium Project) on January 18, 2005, highlighted the need to give a thought on this aspect of life. The concern was shown in the words of WHO when it asked the world to immediately and massively increase the investment in health programs.

In its recent report WHO indirectly admonished America that proven solutions are likely to turn the tide towards achieving health goals, adding: We have the means to achieve those goals. We have the technology. What we need are the resources and the political will. We cannot wait any longer to do what we have promised to achieve in the coming decade.

It is interesting to note that such admonition of the world body rings a bell in the solutions recommended by both the American Institute of Food Technologists and the American Institute of Medicine towards combating the obesity epidemic in North America. Both organizations chorus on the need for the government to intervene and look or change its infrastructure policies towards food distribution and production. One quick way that the U.S. can get moving along these lines is to balance its subsidies towards farm products in a way that vegetables, fruits, and whole wheat production are given their due importance in the food chain.

This will have the powerful impact of making these staples more affordable for the working masses. The government can also mandate schools to bring back Physical Education in the curriculum, ensure that bike routes and parks are properly integrated into housing plans, and that national advertising focus on healthy eating instead of fad snacking.

In the present era around 20 percent of Americans are malnourished and obese. Non access to healthy foods is a major contributor for malnutrition in poor communities, affecting some 33 million Americans nationwide. These stats show us that wellness for at least 33 million Americans remain a dream. Proper nutrition and adequate exercise is the key for feeling good. Despite the Abs and the Carbs images portrayed on American television during sitcoms huge number of people are unwell. Or is there a truly stubborn virus involved, immune even to the Baywatch culture?