Two things I hate the most are business and politics. I understand that the world revolves around business and politics, but if I lived in a perfect little world, these two things wouldn't exist. I recently joined a student group at Ryerson called AIESEC. Traditionally it was a student group that was made up of mainly business students. I usually surround myself with either nutrition, fashion, or engineer students, so it's nice to be able to hear the different prespectives of how business students think and feel. Every time I tell them that I absolutely hate business, they stare at me in disbelief. They then proceed to tell me that it's impossible to ignore business because the world runs on money and business (which I know). After hearing the same type of comments for the past 2 months (on a day where I had little patience), I couldn't take it and more and so I began to rant about why I hate business and politics. I am usually a soft-spoken individual, so when I began ranting, the room fell silent.
I hate how medical/health-related decisions are always based on the politics, policies, and money. It kills me that the well being of another is dependent on how much money will be saved, or how much prestige one can get out of doing something. It angers me to know that some hospitals view human life as profit. My rant wasn't specifically about Canada's Health Care (however, I'm not saying that Canada's health care is the best, there's always going to be room to grow), it was more about the American health care system. I do not claim to be an expert on American health care, the little that I do know about America's health care comes from American TV shows and the media's portrayal. The well being of human beings should not depend on how much money they have. I know that there are many problems with Canada's health care, however, compared to America's health care, Canada's health care is kind of awesome.
I think it's great that President Obama, and the democrats have fought this past year to reform America's health care system. It makes me so angry that many conservatives have lashed out at the decision to extend health care coverage for 94% of all Americans. Some radio hosts have been so extreme as to say that they'll move out of the country if the Health Care Reform was to happen. Health care should be the right of every human being, especially in a country such as America that is seen by some as rich and powerful.
As noted by Darmon and Drewnowski (2008), income affects what we can afford to eat. One can argue that food as well as exercise plays a role in the prevention of diseases, which is why it is especially important to create programs that focus on educating people on eating a well balanced diet and physical activity. I applaud Michelle Obama for her work on the "Let's Move" campaign designed to battle the childhood obesity epidemic in America. It is amazing to see that programs such as "Let's Move" are being implemented in a country that is the centre of fat jokes. It shows that there is hope that this obesity epidemic currently used to describe America has the possibility of getting under control. Some see this as being a waste of money because these programs often take a long time to see results, but I see it as a sign of hope for North America's little ones.
Rosenkranz and Dzewaltowski's (2008) framework on how to create a healthy built environment to help combat the childhood obesity epidemic. It is a framework that looks at both what the government as well as the individual can do to create an environment that encourages healthier dietary intake patterns of young children. It incorporates societal, political, economic, as well as the physical environments of Americans. I think this framework is excellent in providing a way to enable people to feel empowered to take control of their own health. This framework should be implemented in North America to ensure the health of our little ones.
No comments:
Post a Comment