Yegparian: A Healthy New Year

We all wish one another, at least in English, a “happy” new year. But aside from the resolutions attendant to this time, we forget that a major component of happiness is another “h” word—health. So let’s take a look at some not-so-obvious health issues, with thanks to the LATimes for, over the last three years, providing the fodder for this piece.

“Study: Prevention saves lives, money” a front page title announced (Oct. 3, 2007). What a stunning revelation! Who’d a’ thunk it? A graph showing the potential annual savings in direct costs and indirect effects of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, mental disorders, diabetes, pulmonary conditions, and stroke, totaled $1.121 trillion in 2023 in the U.S. The key here is prevention, and not just treatment, and we all know the way to do this—eat less, eat your veggies, get exercise, go easy on the flesh consumption—hence our new-year-diet-resolution mania. The article cites the question: Who’s to pay for this? Seems simple to me. Rein in the obscene advertising of pseudo food, heavily tax it (“Junk-food tax idea is gaining weight,” Aug. 23, 2009), and eat like your grandparents did. You might also check out what seems to be a pretty interesting new book by Mike Pollan, Food Rules, which he promotes in the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-pollan/food-rules-a-completely-d_b_410173.html). He gives a few examples. My favorite is: If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t. But if this kind of common sense is insufficient to the task of getting you to reduce your McDonald’s, Coke, Cheetos, and frozen processed food (Swanson Hungry-Man dinners anyone? Are those even still available? Happily, I don’t know the answer to that question!) consumption, and increase your tomato, “organic” flesh, fresh food, and homemade intake, then maybe this title is: “Study links maternal obesity, birth defects” (Aug. 7, 2007).