Life is a broad expression, through which a wide-range diverse denotation is found out due to the cultural, political, religious and social aspects which are involved and affected its meaning throughout variable communities.
The real meaning for life for anyone determines its value and preciosity for her/him. Thus the dramatic and accelerated life alterations are mainly manipulating peoples' constancy and wellbeing.
in this essay a major life amendment will be reflected which is {the contemporary life style}. The negative consequences of the contemporary life style will be discussed. I chose this issue has been chosen due to its massive significance for humans' health, as people overall the world are subjected or already comprised by chronic illnesses that are newly emerged or amplified than there previous cohorts. This may discussed the effects of stress, sedentary lifestyle, hypertension, malnutrition, and obesity.
The Effect of Stress
The first negative factor is 'stress. Stress is surrounding people's lives anywhere they present: at home, work public areas…etc. People are getting busier, no matter how old you are and who you are. You can even see a 5 years old kid will have a schedule for tuition's, learning music instruments, swimming classes. While some adults will be drowning in their jobs to make ends meet.
Stress effects on our health are reflected in physical, psychological, behavioral, social and spiritual forms on our well being, as stressors are perceived as threats and the body prepares to meet the challenges, this perception of threat(stress) "stimulates a physiological pattern of neural and endocrine activation and behavioral changes mediated by the central nervous system"(Bartol & Courts,2000).
The psychological effects of stress (chronic especially) can lead to depression in some conditions. For example, "approximately 50% of all patients with severe depression show hypersecretion of Cortisol." (Price & Carpenter, 1997). Likewise, one of the prevalent effects is physical health problems, since the person will be predispose to develop psychosomatic disorders such as: heart problems, cancer, gastritis, hypertension, diabetes, headache, pain, gastrointestinal disturbances, insomnia, hormonal disturbances, etc. as it is proved by the scientific researches and clinical experts.
The second aspect affected by stress, is the social-behavior effects. In response to stress, individuals often revert to or increase their reliance on less healthy behaviors, such as overeating, excessive use of alcohol, smoking and drug use.
The next effect of stress is the spiritual effect. As a response to stress, people often feel disconnected from life's meaning and purpose, which affects spiritual health and wellbeing. Studies confirmed that prayer can affect healing (Dossey, 1996).
Koenig et al. (1998) reported that "Christians who attended religious services at least once per week and those who read the bible or pray regularly have consistently lower diastolic blood pressure readings compared to people who don't engage in spiritual activities."Research now affirms what nurses have known since the writings of Florence Nightingale over a century ago; that is, helping people use interventions that influence or restore connection with life's meaning and purpose has important health-promoting benefits.
Besides, studies show that environment, overall health, and emotional state all lead to the physical duress caused by stress. By making adjustment to your lifestyle, you can create natural defenses against stress-related backache, headache, irritability, tiredness, and general malaise that will improve your mood and may not have the energy or time in your schedule to focus on; however, there are easy ways to improve your stress busting abilities that won't interfere with your busy day.
Effects of Sedentary Life
The second negative factor of contemporary life is the dominant sedentary life pattern, which resulted from abusing the various inventions of technological revolution. This pattern of life resulted in prevalent chronic morbid lethal diseases such as: hypertension, obesity, colon cancer, osteoporosis, etc. Physical inactivity affects more people in the development of coronary heart disease (CHD) than any other risk factor, it is considered a powerful risk factor. Blair et al. (1989) suggests a "significant inverse relationship between physical fitness and CHD risk". It is considered a major effect of the sedentary lifestyle and comparable to the risk of observed for hyperlipidemia, hypertension and cigarette smoking. A study conducted by Paffenbarger et al (1993) indicated that "the reduction in CHD risk associated with the increased physical activity is equivalent to the reduction in risk associated with the cessation of smoking."
The importance of exercise in the hierarchy of risk factors increases with the knowledge that not only is physical activity identified as a major predisposing factor for CHD can also help, but it can also help modify the negative effects of other risk factors in men and women.
Furthermore, regular physical activity may be linked to the reduction in back injuries. Activity that promote fitness, builds muscle strength, endurance, and flexibility. Moreover, regular physical activity can help maintain functional independence and improve the quality of life. Blair et al. (1989, 1996) demonstrated that "highly fit men and women with multiple risk factors have lower death rates compared with poorly fit people". Thus, a vast informative campaign is highly recommended to convey this imperative message to the community, through collaborative efforts of governmental and non-governmental sectors.
Hypertension
The third effect of the contemporary lifestyle is "Hypertension". It is defined for "adults as a diastolic blood pressure reading of 90mmhg or a systolic pressure of 140mmhg or higher" (US. Preventive Services Task Force,1996) Hypertension is a leading risk factor for CHD, congestive heart failure, stroke, ruptured aortic aneurysm, renal disease and retinopathy. Detecting high blood pressure is a primary prevention strategy for CHD, cerebrovascular disease and peripheral vascular disease. Periodic screening is recommended for everyone 21 years and older. However, control measures especially modifying the mal nutritional habits such as: choosing and preparing foods with less salt (salt contains the mineral sodium, which is affecting blood pressure), avoid/minimize drinking alcoholic beverages; choose a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, are effective measures in prevention and control of hypertension. Besides to be physically active each day.
Malnutrition
The fourth effect of the contemporary life style is the mal-nutritional habits junk food. Nearly, everyone of us fond of eating junk food, which is high in calories, sugar, fat, and carbohydrate although it is poor in vitamins, minerals which are important for our health maintenance and proper growth and development of children and adolescents.
Junk foods have numerous harmful consequences, for example: lack of energy, as junk foods don't provide the essential nutrients, even though they can be very much sufficing, you feel weakened. An additional harmful consequence is poor concentration, this effect is traced to affect in immediate and medium term periods.
When you have a sumptuous junk meal rich in oil, you feel drowsy and fail to concentrate, over sustained periods of junk food eating, blood circulation drops due to fat accumulation, lack of vital oxygen, nutrients and proteins particularly can stale the grey brain cells temporarily. Moreover, junk food diet is a major cause of heart diseases; myocardial infarction due to plaque formation in arteries which demands heart to put in extra effort to pump blood on the down stream and on the up stream, there is lack of returning blood to heart. This causes two damages to heart-hear fatigues by the continuous extra effort it makes and it suffers oxygen supply. The onset and remedy both take a long time and great determination to win. Last but not least, junk food leads to high cholesterol, apart from forming plaques and constructing arteries. Cholesterol also affects liver where it is metabolized. High cholesterol from junk food and diet strains liver damaging it eventually.
Clever junk food advertising and the lure of convenience in addition to taste, get people to junk food addiction. Awareness on junk food facts is lacking dramatically in every corner of the society. Some useful tips to avoid junk foods are: junk food and children have a strong affinity to each other. This is partly so owing to junk food advertising, so don't let children to get habituated to junk foods. Also, controlling children from eating junk foods in schools. School administration along with parents has a responsibility to educate children about junk foods in schools. In addition, junk food, the name itself is tempting enough. Eliminating the temptation is one way to avoid it. Keeping good food nearby and having meals right on time may help in this direction. Moreover, develop awareness for fitness. This helps you separate junk food and diet from your regimen. Finally, not all foods are junk; moreover, our bodies have enough stamina to take care off occasional junk food eating. However, beware the lure is strong enough to get you addicted. It is in your hands choose junk food or health.
Although it is indicated (according to the Food Guide Pyramid) that food containing fats, oils and sweets, make up the smallest area of the pyramid which indicate that fats and sweets should be eaten in small quantities as compared with the amounts of food from the other food groups. A burger in fast food restaurant basically contains more than 1000kj. Of calories, while that's exceeding half of our body needs for a day! , of course, the burger will not be alone in the diner's hand, a cup of vanilla or coke will be in the other hand. So, where do you think these extra calories will go inside your body? They will change to become fats in your abdomen and that's what you usually can see down the street, there are uncountable fast food lovers with a fat bellied.
Obesity
The epidemic of obesity throughout the world represents the outburst of unhealthful diet consumption habit. This is a modern life style tax, which encouraged the use of easy and fast prepared food instead of fresh healthy food, such as vegetables, fruits and milk.
The newly emerged problem" obesity" related to malnutritional habits; burden the health care agencies as approximately 280,000 adult deaths in the United States each year are attributable to obesity. Almost one quarter of the nation's adults are obese and over one half are overweight.
Obesity not only makes you dare to stand in front of a mirror, it's not just simply an eyesore to the public as well. in fact, obesity is the major cause for some chronic diseases such as high cholesterol, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and many other types of cancers. This explains why the age group of people in getting chronic diseases is showing wider range nowadays. Who want to go on long term medications and run in and out to the hospital forever? In this case, you always have the choice to choose the way you want.
Our brain is the organ which is affecting how we think and move. Fast food and junk food are very low in nutrients; instead they are full with coloring, flavors and preservatives. You won't want to know how the unhealthy ingredients could lead to some severe mental disorders. Researchers have shown that junk food might cause dyslexia, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and worse is autism. An individual's mood and attention are highly influenced by the food taken, which means it will affect the student's concentration in school. As parents, we won't want our children to be called as stupid in school, don't we?
However, that doesn't mean that we can't have fast food and junk food at all, we just need to reduce the amount and frequency of having them in our diet. To begin with, we could offer home- cooked food to our children to take school. Of course, bacon, sausages and canned food shouldn't be the choice. We still can have our favorite fast food not too often; with the condition of drinking a lot of water and exercise regularly.
In conclusion, the contemporary life style has harmful and constructive components. The wise person will select and adopt the advantages of this life advances and avoid those which are destructing his spiritual, physical, psychological, and social health integrity. This is a key message to convey for our children to pass it on to the next future generations, which we wish them a healthy and joyful long life.
