Prevention is Your Health Goal

I don’t need to tell you that as people get older they begin to have health issues. The question is, can those issues be prevented or delayed?

There is a very clear answer to that question, of course delay is possible, and very often prevention is also possible. in this blog entry, I want to focus on PREVENTION.

There are certain industries where the focus of the industry is on the prevention of accidents or injuries. Commercial and military aviation, the nuclear power industry, the maintenance of the electricity grid, or the safety of submarine crew. Of course in every industry there is a requirement to provide a safe workplace. So how successful is the effort to prevent accidents and injuries?

These are rather old numbers from the USA, (2004) recording injury accidents causing time off work per 200,000 work hours.

Nuclear industry 0.25

Electrical Grid 2.1

Manufacturing 3.4

We can understand that in the Nuclear industry, the focus on prevention is very high. There is a plan to prevent problems, and everyone understands how critical that plan is to the future of the industry. There is strong engagement in the plan by the people in the industry.

The safety industry also generates a lot of data on the “cause of accidents” which to the casual observer may seem obvious. Individual failure, someone didn’t follow the plan, or the rule or procedure. That call, to blame the person most closely involved, could be used cover-up the real CAUSE of 90% of all accidents. BUT, the safety industry also tells us that almost always there was a systematic failure, perhaps long before the actual incident, that was the real CAUSE of the problem. Individuals are seldom to blame.

His condition is NOT his fault. The sickness he has is “normal” in our society, so normal that he is probably completely unconcerned about it. He’s lost muscle, he’s obese, he probably already has a diabetes diagnosis, he might be able to shuffle along, but the ability to run has gone. I suspect that the feeling in his toes is diminishing, replaced by some tingling sensations and sometimes pain in the toes. The image below is his entirely preventable future.

In modern society this “normal” situation caused by preventable Type II Diabetes, should never happen, it can be PREVENTED.

Type II Diabetes is now common in our society, while 100 years ago it was very uncommon, the real CAUSE of the illness is in our society, not in the individual. Commercial and lifestyle and employment conditions have changed, and that creates the conditions where Type II Diabetes is likely. More than 80% of us are diabetic, or pre-diabetic. However, getting society to take responsibility for this disaster, is mission impossible. Far too many people profit from the process that causes Type II Diabetes, and the procedures to diagnose and medically treat Type II Diabetes. There are a multitude of people who have vested interests in not recognizing that they play an active part in the SYSTEM that’s CAUSING Type II Diabetes.

We do know how to PREVENT accidents in industry, and our success in the nuclear industry or in aviation demonstrates that the best way to do that is change the system, that trying to change the behaviour of individuals is to place the blame in entirely the wrong place. But in Health that isn’t possible. (We don’t want a nanny state.)

Your own life is like the nuclear industry, PREVENTION of future accidents or health failures is mission critical for YOU. Since you and I can’t change the way modern society has developed, since we can’t change the system that’s making us sick, we have to take strong personal action not to be trapped in process of being like everyone else. You don’t need to live on a one-way track to poor health. Being “normal” in our society is to become unhealthy far too early and to die 15 years too soon.

You have to take action to escape that trap. How do you PREVENT future ill health? That’s the topic of the next post.