World Health Day on April 7th passed without much of a whisper, oddly enough. I suppose it had to do with all of the hubbub in the United States over the Healthcare bill. Then again World Health Day is a movement that was begun by the World Health Organization, not the US and so sometimes we are slower on the media pickup. This year's theme (for 2010) was 1,000 cities, 1,000 lives

The idea is to engage city areas in health and highlight 1,000 people- "Urban health Champions" and how they have improved the health of their city.

Last year I penned a guest blog for the PQ Nation (Original article here)

"Healthy Living is more than diet and exercise"

Everyday we find ourselves bombarded with advertising for the latest exercise machine or diet programs. I know I do. The media at large wants us to believe that living a healthy life simply means to eat better and exercise.

I have found myself wondering why advertising makes it seems so easy, and yet for me it is so hard. Even when people succeed, the cruel fact is that the success is short lived.

A few years ago, I took a health and wellness class assuming that it would be all about diet and exercise. I began the class thinking  I would hear the same thing I have heard many times from nutritionists,diet counselors, doctors, and personal trainers.

I was wrong, and I found out how unbalanced my life was in respect to health. I was surprised to learn that health means every facet of my life.

There are personal aspects of health that we all face but probably do not consider, and within those health aspects, we also have levelsof change.

The personal aspects of health that I learned about were:

Environmental - how healthy am I in respect to my environment, do I recycle? Am I involved in conserving energy, water?Do I buy local and organic foods whenever possible?

Stress – Do I know and practice stress relieving techniques? Am I aware of my stressors and how to counter them?

Sexual health- Do I practice safe sex, am I in a monogamous relationship?

Emotional health- Do I think in a healthy fashion? Do I pursue happiness or have I fallen into a place of negative thinking?

Social- Am I involved in my community? Do I have a set of close knit friends? Do I have a support group? Do I allow othersto be there for me? Am I there for others?

Intellectual- Do I make an effort to increase my knowledge? Am I aware of my surroundings? Am I aware of what’s going onin the world, and how it affects me?

Spiritual – Do I have a spiritual basis or belief system? Am I comfortable with it?

Physical- Do I eat right, at least five fruits and vegetables a day? Do I limit my sugars, salts, and saturated fats? Do I drink water ? Do I weight train for muscle and bone mass building? Do I do at least 45 minutes of cardio most days of the week? Do I stretch?

Oddly, there are levels which we all must go through in our pursuit of change in order for the change to stick.

Precontemplation- when we are either in denial or have no desire to change

Contemplation- We’re thinking about what might need to be changed, but we’re really not ready to do anything about it

Preparation- we are taking the steps toward making a change

Action- we have begun to make a change

Maintenance- when we have been consistent for 6 months

I am in a rut. It’s easy to do, a change in routine can easily push me back from action to contemplation in every aspect of my health. Life consists of upheaval and changing routines, so I have allowed my rut to become my routine that I cling to.

I hope to change that. April 7 is World Health Day. While the World Health Organization has their own theme for this year, my choice is to go back and look through my Behavior Change Contracts I wrote for myself with every aspect of my health that I felt needed attention. I have been ignoring not only my physical health, but also all the others in some way. My main problem is support, so today I am hoping I can begin achieving a better social health by inviting you to join me.

What about you? Do you have aspects in your life that may need change aside from the physical changes the media encourages us all to make?

Would you like more information on how to write a Behavior Change Contract, or where to begin?

What is lacking in your health arena? What is working for you?

The original article can be found here, thanks PQ and Courtni for inviting me to write it.

My personal goals are a little bit less ambitious than those of World Health Day.
Personal physical health and fitness are going to have to be my main focus at this time. It seems that I have been stockpiling products for fitness and health and I have vowed not to let them go to waste.
So... I have created a new sub-blog: The TV Makes My Butt Look Big.

Join me there for product reviews and a general overview of the journey and struggle.

        

The over the top outrage and insanity over this healthcare bill that few have taken the time to read (I haven't yet, but here's a clue, I plan on it) and instead are rallying around a fear of raised taxes (do you make over 250,000 a year? If you don't then you are panicking for no reason at all)  (I love how people with lotsa kids and under 50K a year are yelling about this. Hi, you will get a tax break, YES ANOTHER ONE- you don't pay any taxes at all, as a matter of fact the government pays you from socialized coffers for your EIC.  Single people should be more outraged than you.) and enforced insurance holding (Hi, stop driving your car if you have a problem with that line of thought) political voiceboxes like Beck and Limbaugh  who say what they say in the way that they say it FOR RATINGS-- has made me want to RIP off my ears and eat them and then take a hot poker to my eyeballs and eardrums to drown out the insanity. (Hello run on sentence, glad to see you joined the party early).


Hi we haven't met.
I am an independent thinker.  I am an independent person, and therefore my political stance should be no different. I do not subscribe to party lines and I do not let people tell me how to feel or what to think. The key word here is THINK. I pay attention and I THINK, A LOT, some would say too much.

And my observation is that people have gone crazy.  CRAZY.

The Healthcare rabid fervor in shorthand- Hi pot? This is kettle... shall we discuss greed and irrationality over lunch? Thanks. Pot Don't forget to bring your death threat letterhead, and kettle will bring the bill signing ink pens.

To those people threatening the lives of our leaders and their families, their children?!? (That story link is right here.)You can't go around threatening the lives of people and their families over religion and politics. Stop for a minute and think about how unreasonable you're being. There's no sense in attempting to start a revolution or a coup, because that line that seperates you from the terrorist organizations we all rallied to stand against after 9/11... you just crossed it. Welcome to the land of Al Qaeda thought process and the KKK.


Jesus wept (John 11:35).
(I am now awaiting backlash for that one.)



Do me a favor, stop for a minute and think for yourself. Have you read this bill?

I know it's really really hard to be quiet and listen to what other people may have to say.  We, as a civilization, have forgotten how to have healthy debate and polite discourse. The art of listening has been lost to the practice of 'waiting until it's my turn to talk.' I know it's hard to do when we are all so very passionate about our money and our own personal interests and how it all effects 'me.'

Stop and ask a person whose child is battling cancer what they would do if they did not have health insurance.
 Ask a person how they would pay for healthcare coverage if they lost their job, or their employer dropped the coverage because of the economic strain and they got a life threatening illness.
Talk to a mother who is now single with children and whose father left or died and he was the provider. Her kids may or may not have healthcare coverage, but she definitely doesn't, and she can't take off from work to go wait at the 'free clinic' that may or may not exist in her town.
Talk to a person who had to move to keep their family together, who has children, but cannot get a job in the new place because hiring is at a freeze, and they do not qualify for any public assistance because they are doing the right thing, and have a savings account that is depleting. Ask them about their child with the preexisting condition.
Talk to the MANY service members who would have walked away from the service after the third year long deployment in less than 6 years, but have remained because they have healthcare and a job. Nevermind that even then the cost seems too high because their families are falling apart or heartbroken, their children growing up without them. (Nevermind that in the time that they had the choice to walk away, they were often stop-lossed and held to their stations.)

So take good long look at your anger.
 Take a good long look at your reasoning.
Take a good long look at the Christian values you, and our nation are supposedly founded upon and that you are supposed to be embodying.

(...and if you are an angry atheist republican or conservative atheist, well... it's OK it will all be over when you die, we're all just a bunch of matter anyway...if we exist at all... so why get so stressed?)
(...if you're an angry conservative satanist... you're an oxymoron to the nth degree and I am sure you do not exist, but if you do, it's your own damn fault for not reading that fine print when you signed the contract with the devil.)

What about compassion?
What about humility?
What about respect and dignity for your fellow human being (Love your neighbor as you love yourself (Mark 12:31). Love one another as I have loved you (Luke 22:1-38; John 13)?
What about your God being the only judge? *

When healthcare became a business and not a vocation, when it became something you had to insure to make sure you could keep going or that your doctor had to insure so that he could see you, that was when it became a problem for the people of this nation. When we became a commodity to the industry of being able to live. (What ever happened to the 'every man created equal with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?' Are those truths no longer held to be self evident? Or is it only when the American people feel like tossing a few dollars to charity cases? Is the truth only available to those who deem themselves worthy because they are already a member of those who have  be it money, a job, or insurance? What about the loyal hardworking Americans who lost their jobs after years of dedicated service? What of the millions of people who lost their retirement savings when the economy fell and are now looking for work because medicare will not cover their prescriptions?)


Civilization is fraying at the edges and mob mentality is reigning supreme.



*  I want no part or claim to a people that use 'God' as a means to threaten, terrorize, or legitimize their hatred for their fellow man. THAT god, as I recall, his name was Ares, god of War.

        

First, because of many of your representatives, the plan that was hoped for was not the plan brought to fruition regarding healthcare reform. No one is really fully happy with it. By the way, it was not 'the president' that passed this law, it was congress. How many of you voted for your congressional representatives? How many of you got the word out about them and informed yourself on who they are, and the job they would do in Washington?? The president may have pushed for it, but it was CONGRESS and YOUR VOTING OR LACK THEREOF that got us here. Spending time on your farm in Farmville or playing your Mafia World is MUCH more helpful than actually being an active part in your political process or exercising your political voice.

But since we just have to complain, let me go ahead and offer some solutions that will balance the budget and make you happy (supposedly).

First, if you are in the military, go ahead and give back your Tricare coverage, it's socialized medicine paid for by the taxpayers.

Also, go ahead and give back your housing allowance, it's socialized housing. Same goes for paying your own power, moving your own stuff whenever you get stationed elsewhere and pay for it out of your own pocket.

If you are on or have ever received Medicaid, or Medicare, go ahead and contact your representatives and tell them to take that off of the table too. It's a social program that taxes pay for, and a huge bite of your paycheck goes towards it. Who cares about getting reduced medication fees or making sure granny gets her heart pills?

Also, if you were a child on medicaid because your mom was a single mom and your daddy was an irresponsible ass and could not/ would not pay your hospital bill... go ahead and make sure to let the government know you need to be billed for that. Also, make sure you yell at your mother for doing the best she could by taking medicaid to make sure you lived in this country that fills their guts with overprocessed foods, overpriced coffee, and driven by people who don't have time to exercise or plan good meals because they are too busy working. You should have been born by a tree, where your mom could squat and push you out then pack you in her backpack and be on her merry way foraging for berries and nuts, because you should have been homeless.

By the way, go ahead and take fair wages and a minimum wage pay scale off the table too. That was a social reform effort.

If your kids go to public school or a charter school, pull them out immediately or figure out your budget so that you can pay to homeschool them or pay for their education, because that too was a socialist provision. Send them to work in a factory, because if we are tired of government 'interference' then there is no need for child labor laws.

While we are at it, the FDA can go away too. They were instituted to maintain government control over the food and drug industry, as a part of a social reform effort and for better living conditions for our people.

As a matter of fact, military, go ahead and call all of the contractors who are bleeding the military budget dry... let them know we do not need clothes washing services, clean water, food, force protection, new weapons, better FLAK vests, better armored vehicles... none of that, because tax dollars pay for our defense, we'll turn them away with sticks and war cries, maybe even some guns of our own. Oh, wait... we DO want our defense paid for. But let's not let the families of soldiers have any sort of support or medical care or anything of that nature. It's socialized medicine and social community health!

Also, let's make sure our intelligence organizations all get privatized because mercenaries and intel for hire works so much better than those who have to follow government regulations.

I am very sorry to say that minorities need to give up Equal Opportunity Employment. Women too. We all should get the wages that your boss thinks we deserve based on our 'wrong' skin color or our lack of possession of a penis. We should all be in the fields working or barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making a sandwich.*

What I am trying to say here is, you can't have your cake and eat it too.



*(Oh the sarcasm, it burns!)

        

They really do.

As a military family, you have two choices: To sink or To Swim

And often you have to just suck it up. After multiple deployments, you know what to expect and do what you can to deal with it, but that doesn't  make the heartache and frustration of living apart any easier.

While there may be support networks out there, they still don't really support the marriage. How can they? You live apart. After you do it multiple times, the only thing you can do is hope that the emotional distance that naturally grows due to the miles and the mission will improve once the mission is complete.

There comes a point where you get sick of missing one another. You get sick of living apart, living separate lives. That point is the point I choose to power through. But it doesn't make it any easier.

That's all I have to say about that right now.

        

I must be a glutton for punishment, seeing as I am in college, and have been on and off for the past 13 years. That being said, I still don't understand the rational hell that is math nuances of number manipulation.

SO I do what any intellectual would do... I try to contract out the work. These attempts are weak, lack power due to inherent morality, and somewhat laced with whine, mainly in the general vicinity of where ever my husband is at the moment.

Tonight we had a conversation that lets me know, should the mathematical gestapo show up or there is a tear in the time space continuum and the world can only be saved if I learn how to manipulate matrices and determine everyone's half life, well, I am on my own.

Setting: Living Room 8 PM
UFC fight is playing on the television
I am up from the table with my daughter, both of us working on math
Gunny is laying on the couch, zoning out

Me: Gunnnnyyyy...do my math!
Gunny: Uh, pass
Me: Whyyyyy? You know I would take a bullet for you, and you won't even do my math
Gunny: Oh I'd take a bullet for you too, but math... well that's a different story.

I get the feeling that I will be asking my daughter for tutoring one day.

And with that, I am off to finish the paper that has refused to write itself.



What would your personal hell be?