Top 5 Health Myths
1. Organic Food. Organic food is marketed as the stuff that is supposed to make us healthy. It’s more expensive than regular food, has green packaging and claims to prevent all kinds of disorders, how can it not be healthy. Organic food can sometimes be beneficial when compared to conventionally grown food but this doesn’t always mean that it’s healthy. You can make organic cheese, beef and bacon but that doesn’t mean an organic double bacon cheeseburger is very good for you. A word that is tossed around even more than organic is natural (example: contains only natural ingredients). Natural sounds all good but that depends what the definition of natural really is. Remember that there are plenty of natural substances that are no where near healthy.
2. Supplements. Supplements are marketed to treat a wide variety of disorders. Sometimes they help and sometimes you’re just wasting your money. Unfortunately the latter is usually true. The truth is that supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA like medicines and foods are. If a medicine makes a claim that it can lower your cholesterol by 10%, it has to be backed up by years of rigorous research. If a supplement makes that claim, it’s usually a lie that is supported by bogus studies. While supplements claim to be healthy, most of the time they’re not.
3. Medicine. Drug companies would like you to believe that the only way to live long is to take prescription drugs. This doesn’t have to be the case. The most serious problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, bone loss, strokes and even some types of cancers can be prevented with proper diet and exercise. If you wait until you already have these problems, it might be too late to do anything other than going on expensive drugs. If you want to prevent these problems before they come up, you need to start as early as possible by exercising at least 3 times per week and eating healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, nuts and beans. Your golden years don’t have to be spent at the doctor’s office.
4. Skinny = Healthy. Skinny doesn’t mean healthy. A lot of people are under the false assumption that because they fall into a normal BMI, they are completely healthy. Weight is only one way of predicting health but it isn’t perfect. If you eat doughnuts and drink soda all day long but are within your ideal weight range, you might not be as healthy as you think you are. There are other, better ways to make sure you are healthy including cholesterol levels, blood pressure and body fat percentage. Skinny might look good but it doesn’t always mean healthy.
5. Doctors Fix Everything. If you watch all of the commercials for prescription drugs, you might start to believe that fixing a health problem is as easy as taking a trip to the doctor. Most of us are guilty of taking our good health for granted. We don’t understand how easy it is to live with a healthy body until we have to actually visit the doctor each week. Many problems that aren’t curable are preventable.