What's Wrong with this Picture?

by Sheryl McMillan, CTM Eclub editor

Prompted by the Christina Applegate story in this Eclub issue and in somewhat parallel to Steve Ransom's satirical 'Sex, Death and Custard' I thought it was time to write this piece in the hope of provoking a little thought.

It has been my observation for some time that when it comes to the current status quo in terms of our health a huge contradiction exists that most people seem to overlook completely.

We are often reminded how amazing, advanced and remarkable is this thing we call the human body. So impressive is this body, in fact, that it is generally regarded with a sense of awe. The pinnacle of biological achievement. Amazing. Adaptable. Any number of adjectives are used, up to and including 'miraculous'. Books have been written and television programmes created detailing the wonders of the human body, our mega advanced brain, fine-tuned immune system, etc.

Yet at the same time we have grown up in a world where we are conditioned to accept as normal an appalling death rate from a vast number of threats, the list being topped by heart disease and cancer (in the industrialized nations). Despite how amazing our bodies are, at the same time we are born into a world where we are told that regular medical assistance is a good idea and in fact some of this 'assistance' is mandatory and even legally enforced!

Women are now led to believe their own breasts are ticking cancer time-bombs that could go off at any moment (for reasons seemingly unknown to medical science). This fear is so pervasive that women are sometimes driven to voluntarily have their breasts removed as a 'preventative measure' and this action is condoned as logical by licensed oncologists and surgeons.

Apparently we need help from the medical industry right from the very beginning in the form of hospitals and doctors to intervene on everything from birth to vaccinations in the first years of life. Thereafter we are encouraged to see a doctor from time to time even when we think we're healthy and our television sets bombard us with adverts for all sorts of drugs for every ache and pain.

So on the one hand here we are at the top of the food chain and in possession of the most advanced and sophisticated bodies ever devised on the planet and yet almost daily we hear about the rising rates of cancer and a host of other threats to our health from all sides.

Even our own sun, arguably the powerhouse behind all life on Earth, something that has been a part of plant and animal existence since day one, has become an enemy to be feared. We are warned of its dangers and fight it like the malevolent beast it must surely be using strict avoidance and high SPF sunblock. Graphic television adverts tell us that 'healthy glow' of a suntan is actually an evil silent killer.

Now, is it not unreasonable to ask 'what's wrong with this picture?'

Surely this is not a state of affairs that should be considered normal by anyone's standards and yet we are conditioned to believe exactly that. What is most remarkable is that most people never question such an absurd contradiction.

Could it be instead that our nutritionally depleted diets, toxic environments and sedentary lifestyles are what might be at the root of so many of our ills? Not surprisingly we have a medical industry that has grown to become a huge institution built on patching us up when we break, giving us a pill and telling us none of this is our own fault.

So maybe it's time to stand back and see the bigger picture, admit the emperor has no clothes, pay close attention to the man behind the proverbial curtain, take some responsibility for the poor state of our health, and start to correct what surely cannot be a natural state of affairs.

Resources
Food Matters - PAL Documentary