The Pursuit of Health

The Pursuit of Health

Another World Health Day has come and gone. A lot of noise has been made about health and fitness. Self-styled experts have come up with magic recipes for anyone and everyone. We will wait another year to make the same noises, the same proclamations, the same warnings.

Malcolm Gladwell in The Outliers provides the fascinating account of a community that migrated from Italy to the USA and settled down in a village. The astonishing fact about this group of people was that even though they consumed high portions of fat, were generally obese, and should have had symptoms of a variety of diseases, they did not. Death, when it came was due to very old age. Studying the available records and observing the life style of the group, a physician came to the conclusion that their well-being was due to a sense of belonging, a sense of community, a sense of harmony. Three generations of a family lived under one roof.

A similar phenomenon can be observed in our villages. A quadrangular house with rooms built all round a central hollow portion would have thirty or more occupants often of three generations. Food would be had together with the matriarch and the patriarch keeping a close watch on everything. Living quite hale and hearty up to 100 years was common. Death was a result of normal decay and debility and not disease.

Contrast these two paragraphs with the findings of a landmark study conducted by the acclaimed National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore. The study was conducted in the knowledge sector and the respondents were in their late twenties or early thirties. All had well-paying jobs and financially were well off. Here are the findings:

• 37% of respondents qualified as probable psychiatric cases (that is more than 1 in 3)
• 20% of respondents felt constantly edgy and bad-tempered
• 28% felt being constantly under strain – “unable to enjoy their daily activities.”
• 15% felt they were being “socially dysfunctional.”

There is more to health than physical well-being. When you look at the figures and find that not even 1% of the respondents felt happy and contented, you probably have a cause for concern. If this is the case with knowledge workers, what would be the state of sectors that do not compensate people as well as the knowledge sector? Or, is the problem peculiar to the knowledge sector? Only more studies will show one way or the other.

Our culture and tradition have laid considerable emphasis on mental well-being. Whether it is yoga (not physical but spiritual) or meditation the central objective was to calm the mind. It was thought (implicitly) that a healthy mind would lead to a healthy body. We have come a long way since then. In the process, we are paying a heavy price for our callousness.

It is time we recognized the importance of contentment, equanimity and a caring attitude. It is time to learn to live in harmony with nature and to stop exploiting all resources without the slightest thought for the next generation. It is time to look beyond six packs and fitness centers and to look inwards. Do we have the time – or the patience?