I’m a family doctor. Like my colleagues, I have and do prescribe Ozempic and similar medicines. These are potent drugs that have helped many people to lose weight and control diabetes. For the right patient it is a very effective drug. That said, it’s a drug. That is precisely the problem. True, it does have some rare but potentially very serious side effects. That’s the problem you’ll hear most medical experts warn about. But that is not the main problem. Let me explain to you what the real problem is.
Managing Chronic Disease vs Healthy Living
As I mentioned in Health in Flames, I fully anticipate that we will get to the point of not just being able to manage obesity with medications like Ozempic, we may eventually go on to find a cure for it. Likewise, we’ll do the same for diabetes, hypertension, Alzheimer’s, colon cancer, and other chronic diseases. What’s the big deal then? Why am I pushing for a big change in the way we live our lives? Here’s why. We need to differentiate between managing chronic disease on the one hand and optimizing health and well-being on the other.
Increasing productivity vs Improving Well-being
Yes, we can do as our politicians (both on the right and the left) would like for us to do and continue to mindlessly consume. Such consumption stimulates the economy, leads to increased productivity and innovation. That innovation leads to technological advancements that produce for us drugs like Ozempic. Thus, we can effectively treat diabetes and obesity. That should enable us to return to our sedentary work environments to continue increasing productivity which will enable us to earn more and then spend ever more mindlessly and purchase even more products and services.
But that lifestyle was precisely what got us into this situation of increasing rates of diabetes and obesity to begin with. Diabetes was rare a hundred years ago. It was nearly non-existent 200 years ago! Today, it’s unusual for me to go more than a couple of days without treating someone diagnosed with diabetes. So, we are celebrating the fact that we’ve innovated our way to effectively being able to treat a disease which we never had in the first place.
Healthy Living Translates to Happier Living
We could have and can still do much better for ourselves. The science of well-being tells us that what impacts happiness is not becoming increasingly productive. Rather it is social connections, exercise, healthy living, spending time in nature, sleeping well, etc. Apart from basic food costs, none of this cost money. They are free to us today. We don’t need to wait for technological innovation to get us out of our current health predicament. Exercise, good nutrition, spending time in nature, socializing are all available to us today. We just need to be freed from being tied to our desks and computers. We need to recognize that increasing productivity is not the route to happiness. We need to stop spending mindlessly as individuals and stop chasing GDP growth as a society. The results will leave you happier, healthier, wealthier, more engaged, and simply better.
BOTTOM LINE: THERE IS A BETTER WAY!
- As John Maynard Keynes said a century ago, people of our time ought to be largely independent of our employers for our income – unfortunately, due to “mindless consumerism”, we are not.
- Mindless consumerism is the underlying reason leading to the rise of chronic disease for 3 major reasons:
- It ties us to dependence on our employers and modern day employment is a health hazard for most (in part due to the sedentary nature of most jobs).
- It has led to environmental changes toxic to our wellbeing:
- (a). We evolved in and are best suited to natural environments and instead we live in increasingly artificial environments.
- (b). Overconsumption has lead us to engineer out the need for meaningful use of our legs for ambulation.
- Finally, it transforms workers to work with blinders on – instead of working for the product or service and receiving money as a side effect, workers focus on making money and the product or service is instead the side effect. The results (with respect to health) is that “food” is no longer food but changed to maximize pleasure and extract profit in spite of the toxicity to our health.
- Based on the science of wellbeing one can derive the philosophy that once basic needs are met, “The best things in life are free” therefore —>
- Most people can live far below their means without sacrificing happiness AND by investing the rest, they can become financially independent of their employers enabling them to be —>
- Happier. Healthier. Wealthier. More engaged. Simply better.
