If you could put a price on it, what is your good health worth?

I think it’s true to say that most people don’t realise the true value of good health, until it’s gone.

I meet people every day who won’t spend the extra money to buy organic, they definitely won’t spend the extra required to buy grass-fed meat or organic, free-range poultry. I meet people every day who say gym membership is too expensive, running shoes and lycra clothing are too costly, and they don’t have time to work out because they are too busy working, because their demanding career comes first.

When it comes to making the best health decisions, price is often an objection.

Yet I also meet a lot of people who have diabetes, heart disease, or cancer, and I have never yet met one person with a terminal cancer or in recovery after a heart attack, who still thinks gym fees are too expensive, or still says buying organic isn’t worth the cost. I’ve never met anyone who has been given a terminal diagnosis, who wouldn’t give you all the money they have to live a few years longer.

It’s true, most people don’t value their good health until it’s gone.

Causes and factors

Of course, the whole subject of what causes cancer or what causes heart disease is generally a bit more complicated than ‘well you didn’t buy organic veg, so now you have terminal cancer’, or ‘you didn’t work out in the gym, so now you are cruising for your second heart attack’. Certainly, in reality it’s a lot more complicated than that.

In the real world, what causes these ill health conditions is usually a combined effect of many such factors and causes, stacked up over a period of time. Of course, a certain percentage of cancers are unavoidable, genetic defects. A certain percentage of heart conditions are congenital defects, there’s little we can do about them. But the truth is that the vast majority of diabetes, heart disease, lung diseases and cancers, are affected, and made more likely, to one degree or another, by our diet and lifestyle choices.

There are many known factors that contribute to these conditions – such as smoking, drinking, exercise, diet, obesity, pollution, etc. So we have more choice than most people realise, we have the power to make decisions that will stack the deck in our favour. But I find this is where people don’t value their good health until it’s gone.

If I said that smoking is known to cause lung cancer, so you value your good health and not smoke, most people would understand that, agree with it, and choose not to smoke.

If I said that lung disease is one of the leading killers in our society, and air pollution is a known major cause of lung disease, so folks who live in big towns and cities, or near busy roads or airports, should consider moving home to a cleaner environment, how many people would do that? You know the answer, right? Few people would move. They would say they have to stay in that area for their job, they have family in the area, the kids school and friends…wait, so you have kids!!! Even more important reason to move to somewhere with cleaner air!! But you know, still, most won’t. Yet how many people dying of pneumonia would give anything to have another decade?

If I said that lifetime exposure to pesticides in our food supply is known to contribute to cancer, and known to promote tumour growth, how many people would spend the extra money to shop organic for 20, or 30, or 40 years so as not to get cancer in the first place? We know, that 90% of people, won’t go to that extra expense. And yet I have never met anyone with terminal cancer who wouldn’t give up every penny of their life savings to have a few more years alive with their loves ones.

The truth is that no one single factor can be said to cause heart disease or cause cancer, in most cases these conditions develop over time, usually caused or exacerbated by a number of factors combined. But we know what many of those factors are, and yet still people ignore the good health advice. Too many people just do not value their good health until it’s gone.

So my message to you is simple – do YOU value YOUR good health?
How much is it worth to you, to stay in good health?
Enough to buy organic, move away from that busy road, change jobs, join a gym, but those running shoes?
Is it worth it?
Or are you going to be like everyone else, ignore the simple good advice, keep doing the things we are advised not to do, and then throw your hands up in horror and explain ‘why me?’ the day you get the bad news?

Invest in your health now, while it’s good, so you can keep it that way.