Did you ever think that our society’s sickness, poor health, and chronic disease actually benefits so many people, that if we became significantly healthier, a large segment of our society would actually suffer. Maybe those “fighting for our health” really don’t want the fight to ever end.
We’ve created a complex system that pays tremendous amounts of money for the treatment of sickness and the rescue/heroic repair of those on the brink of catastrophe. This massive institutional machine is dependent on a need for a never-ending supply of sickness and injury to survive, much less grow. Manned by people that don’t want to lose their jobs, don’t want to lose their homes, and genuinely want to financially take care of their families, it’s a system that can’t really want you to be healthy…for it’s own survival.
There are hundreds of organizations across the country that receive donations and grants to help find the cures for chronic diseases. Among the largest of these are the American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and the American Kidney Foundation. In 2009 they took in $1.8 billion (in one year!!). Are we any healthier? While their intentions are good, if we all became healthy, how many of these folks would lose their jobs?
What about university research programs around the United States…dedicated to battling obesity, finding cures for diabetes, and trying to figure out a way for us to be healthy? What happens to the funding of these programs if we just start eating well and getting healthy? Isn’t it in their best interest to maintain a continual search, yet not find an answer that makes us healthy? Of course.
And, how about our hospitals? What do they want? A healthy society? Of course not. As a business that needs the payments from the ill to survive and grow, they need sickness. There’s no money in healthy people and there’s no money in dead people.
If we all get healthy, what happens to hospitals? If heart disease was cut in half and the need for medical treatment was significantly reduced, what would that mean to the “business” of the hospital? Layoffs? Staff reductions? They simply need a growing population of sick people. Llike any other business, they suffer if the demand for their services drops significantly. Healthy hurts.
Even our massive government Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) doesn’t put the “P” in their self-references, logos, initials and materials. Why not!!?? If “prevention” was really a priority, wouldn’t it be the CDCP or the CDC&P? Why don’t they?? How many researchers would they need and what would happen to them if we all got healthy? The truth is, if we all got healthy and chronic disease never happened, an awful lot of people would be out of work.
I could go on and on and on. The point is — there is a very large machine in place (1/6 of our total economy) that depends on us NOT being healthy. If you throw in those that profit from MAKING us sick by producing cheap, highly addictive, calorie-dense, unhealthy food, you can begin to see that the deck is stacked against us.
We know the BEST and CHEAPEST way prevents disease and deliver good health (fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, exercise, adequate sleep and not smoking). We just don’t have the political will to truly fight for good health and make the appropriate policy changes. And, until we have a system that rewards, reimburses, and pays for good health, we’re destined to get more of what we do pay for…sickness, treatment, and repair.
Good luck. I’m fighting for you!
