Ayla Elledge 1

Ayla Elledge
Professor Thomas
UWRT 1102
18 April 2016
Dying to live: is there a best way to be our best?
What is health? To some people being healthy simply means that they
are disease free. For others, healthy can take on a very complicated routine of
exercise and strictly regulated food intake. Someone else may consider
themselves healthy because they are very happy or successful. The World
Health Organizations (WHO) definition of health very much sums up all of
these notions: A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and
not merely the absence of disease or infirmary. This same definition has been
used by the WHO since its inception in 1948. There is much variability in the
human gene pool so it obviously must be left vague and open-ended, but what
exactly does it mean to be healthy in the world we live in? How has this
changed over time? And is good health generally the same for everyone?
These questions can amass very different answers, many conflicting or
contradicting one another. Im choosing to focus on how being healthy in this
current generation is a very dynamic but ambiguous concept we all seek to
obtain and preserve. Furthermore, the consistency of the concept of health

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becomes very messy when you take into account the context of how different
everyones life is. It it very important to critically assess yourself and the
information you receive because not all information is good information and it
may not apply to you.
Ill use myself as an example because I have the most accurate and upto-date information about me. For most of my life, I was one of the healthier
people I knew. Sure, I got a cold every year, but it usually cleared up easy. Id
never even been to the E.R. until I got sick with Pneumonia at age 17. To be
completely honest, I didnt think about my health very much because why
would I need to? Nothing brought it to the forefront better than getting a cancer
diagnosis. In February 2013, I entered the E.R. with trouble breathing and
unproductive coughing fits. X-Rays showed so many masses in my lungs that it
was difficult to count. For a short stint, I was put on steroids as a diagnostic
tool. If the tumors shrank, then I probably had an autoimmune disease similar
to Lupus. If the tumors didnt shrink or grew any, I was looking at a painful
and invasive biopsy into my lung that would probably test positive for
Lymphoma. To speed up this novel I could write for you, the tumors did grow
while I was on steroids, I did have the chest surgery to biopsy lung tissue, and I
was diagnosed positive for Hodgkins Lymphoma. The next 3 years (even to this
current day) would be consumed with doctors visits, blood tests, chemotherapy

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regimens, radiation, hospital stays, and a constant monitoring of my health
condition and possible symptoms/side effects, among other things. I can safely
assume that I have a different perspective than the average person on what it
means to be healthy. The amount of focus Ive had to keep on what my body is
feeling has made me hyperaware of the cause and effects of what we do with
and put in our bodies. BUT! Just because Ive had to analyze every single
minute of my health doesnt make my experience or opinion any less relevant. If
anything, Id probably be a better person to get health advice from due to the
sheer amount of health articles and journals Ive read (both good and bad). My
Lymphoma has made me appreciate the frailty of the human body and allowed
me to gather what will help most people be an average model of healthiness.
These days, we truly dont know how lucky we are to be in an age of such
medical and health innovation. Up until the late 1800s it was common practice
to use bloodletting as a form of treatment for anything from acne to cancer, to
plague or stroke. For those unfamiliar, blood-letting is the act of removing blood
from the body via a medieval device (and more recently leeches) to get some of
the bad blood out. Doctors back then really thought it worked like a charm.
From their point of view, I can understand it. If half of their Bubonic Plague
patients survived after all of them receiving the blood-letting treatment, they
would assume that the survivors had lived due to the treatment and the ones

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that died were too far gone. But what if the bubonic plague naturally only kills
half of the people infected with it? That would mean that half would have lived
either way and especially without blood being let out of their already frail
bodies. Because the doctors used no control group, there was no way for them
to tell if the blood-letting treatment was the cause of success in the patients
receiving it or if there was some other alternate cause for their cure. Nowadays,
the idea of blood-letting is considered wildly preposterous and is often referred
to as a pseudoscience. This illustrates that medicine has come a long way
since the dark days of blood-letting.
By contrast, modern medicine is quite complex and difficult to
understand sometimes. These days we often see curing diseases being equated
to health. We have a procedure or pill for almost any ailment, and you can bet
that it will be different than the treatment of a slightly different ailment. Our
medical system has gotten so specialized in a way that treatment may follow
certain standard guidelines but will often receive alteration. Take my previously
mentioned Lymphoma experience. When diagnosed, I received the ABVD
chemotherapy only. This was because the disease in my lymph nodes was
localized mainly in my lungs. For another person with the same disease, but
bulkier or active nodes (tumors), there may be added dosages of ABVD in
conjunction with radiation therapy to better cure them. Furthermore, the

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treatment for one type of cancer may be drastically different than the treatment
of another. Though this doesnt just apply to conditions as severe as cancer.
Every year, 5%-20% of the population will get the flu and over 200,000 people
will be hospitalized because of complications with it (CDC, 2015). Because
influenza is a viral infection, there isnt much we can do except let our bodys
immune system fight it off. Often, doctors will give people with blood testconfirmed influenza an antiviral drug called Tamiflu in the hopes that it will
reduce the number of viral flu organisms in the body, but its efficacy is still
much debated in the medical world. It is a very common misconception of
people feeling sick enough to seek treatment for the flu that they should get
prescribed an antibiotic. Even though most doctors know that giving an
antibiotic for a viral infection is useless, many still write these prescriptions to
placate their worried patients. These prescriptions may do nothing for their flu,
but most patients feel safer getting some form of treatment rather than a
doctors promise that their body will fight it off naturally (Brownlee pg. 1).
All things considered, is it healthy to see a doctor every time something
in our body seems a little off? Referring back to the influenza prevalence I
mentioned earlier, there are many current studies showing that our bodies are
becoming resistant to antibiotics because of the frequency we are prescribed
them (Spellberg et al. 155-162). Our bodies antibacterial resistance makes

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fighting stronger or different types of infections very difficult and sometimes
deadly. It is understandable to want to go to the doctor for every ache and pain
because it can be reassuring to have an educated opinion on the condition of
your health, but it is a precarious line to walk. Do I take medicine to get better
or not? Should I wait it out and let my body try to heal it or push for a
prescription? In some instances, such as a common cold, its probably more
trouble and money than its worth to see a doctor; but if this cold doesnt get
better and morphs into something more serious, like bronchitis or pneumonia,
then seeing a health professional is definitely the better option.
Another very prominent concern is the social implications of a culture
obsessed with health and in our culture, thinness. Fitness and diet are seen as
the road posts to good health. You see it every time you turn on the T.V. or go
to the store. It may be a health magazine telling you how to lose 6 pounds in 6
days, a new drink supplement that will invigorate your mind, or a new super
food that is the BEST NEW thing to fight insert cancer or chronic disease. We
are obsessed with being healthy. We are obsessed with eating the right things
or doing the right moves to look better. The trouble with this is that much of
this market is uncontrolled, unregulated, or just new and untested. Going back
to the 1970s-1980s, we see a very real difference in how nutrition was seen.
Some older federal health guidelines show that eating food with fats and

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cholesterol is bad for your health. While partly true, newer studies have shown
that there are two separate types of cholesterol (HDL and LDL). For better heart
health and weigh management, it is recommended that you decrease your LDL
cholesterol intake, but increase your HDL cholesterol intake. This
differentiation wasnt officially made in federal dietary guidelines until 2005
(U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2005). A similar concept is
being applied to the amount and types of fats that we eat. Simply put,
Saturated fats: bad, Trans fats: bad, Unsaturated fats: good. If widely accepted,
using this newer information could change the eating patterns/content of a
boundless amount of people; These far-reaching health effects could a blessing
and a curse. If one is not mindful of their own bodies needs, they could
potentially be putting themselves at risk for many future health problems. An
individual who already has some form of elevated health concerns (high
cholesterol/triglycerides, obesity etc.) may need to cut down on foods with
normal LDL amounts to get their cholesterol level closer to an average range; A
person with an average cholesterol range would not need to take these drastic
measures. In fact, cutting down their cholesterol may have unexpected side
effects such as depression, anxiety etc. (Lopez-Jimenez, Francisco). Because of
the very specific nature of each of our bodies homeostasis, obsessing over

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health and using any tactic to achieve it may produce good results for some,
but dangerous results for others.
Imagine this: you are fourteen years old. Your body is changing and
doing things you cant control. Youre feeling new feelings that youve never felt
before and youre in the uncharted territory of high school. With all of the
ambiguity of what you can or should be, how is a girl to know what is healthy
and what isnt? To get clarity, you go to the store to get some magazines that all
your friends read. Plastered on the front in a half-naked pop star who couldnt
be much older than you are that this point in time. Shes so thin that her ribs
stick out, but it looks good. Theyve edited the photos well even though you
dont know that they have. She looks energetic and alive. You then look at
yourself in the mirror and see the small but noticeable roll of belly fat that
hangs over your jeans. Its not a far cry from the looks of some of the other girls
at school, but compared to all of the girls of your age represented on TV and in
magazinesyou dont measure up. This magazine also has a large text block
reading Lose that Belly so they must obviously know that you arent as
skinny, healthy or happy as them. The advice they give you is to diet and
exercise, but you may be too young to know how much is too much or too little.
Youre also at a very impressionable age and dont have the foresight to see that
many people lose their baby fat and they grow into adulthood. Given the right

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circumstances, its not rare for a situation like this to turn into destructive
behaviors and even deadly eating disorders.
Anne E. Becker, Vice Chair of the Department of Global Health and
Social Medicine at Harvard Medical school where she also serves as a professor,
has devoted a tremendous amount of time studying these patterns of behavior
in women of different cultures who have not been so predisposed to our
Western media until recently. In her published work Television, disordered
eating and young women in Fiji: Negotiation body image and identity during
rapid social change, (which is among over 70 other published works since
2003) it is very discouraging to hear about the effects our media have had on
the adolescent women in Fiji. In, Becker entered Fiji with a study design that
planned to interview adolescent women (average age was 16. Years old) about
their eating patterns, opinions on their bodys, and how this associated with
their place within Fijian society. With the influx of shows like Beverly Hills
90210 and Melrose Place being shown, many of the young girls had started to
associate the success and happiness of the characters with their thinness and
fashion. Prior to this media exposure, eating disorders were almost unheard of
in Fiji. The studies done after the introduction of western media show a
correlational increase in disordered or unhealthy patterns of eating. The article
goes into much detail about how the advertisement of exercise machines were

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very targeted towards younger women and the idea of youth, thinness,
femininity, and success. To be overweight could then mean that you were just
too lazy to care about your appearance. It also gave the girls an ideal to achieve
with which they could have no real world comparison to discover how much a
better physique would correspond with a better social standing or
attractiveness. In the end this really hurt many adolescents because of the
lengths they would go to to achieve the appearance of feminine health. Many
expressed that they had purged at least one meal in order to rid themselves of
the calories (and fat) consumed (Becker, A.E. 533, 550). All in all, being so
controlled by the idea of healthiness can have harmful results.
Why is any of this important? Well, as far as we know, we each have only
one life to live. The decisions we make daily can impact us for years to come. If I
were to read something misleading that told me mercury could cure cancer and
I went out and ingested some, theres a good chance my life would be over that
same day. In a less dramatic notion, when someone developed diabetes from
their poor diet and exercise, it would have irritating daily effects on their life.
Routine blood sugar monitoring and a vigilant care of less sugar in their diet
would make daily life an uncomfortable struggle. Failure to adhere to whats
better for their body could lead to (in this case) diabetic sores and a necessity

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for limb amputation. Its important to understand the implications of knowing
what health is and how it applies to yourself as an individual.
I could go on for days about the ways in which healthiness can be
debated, fixed, changed, described, or otherwise transformed, but I wont. Even
though he wasnt specifically talking about health, I think Charles Addams
summed it up the best. Whats normal for the spider is chaos for the fly. If
you feel very sick, go to the doctor. Its probably a good rule of thumb to eat a
fruits and vegetables every day and get the recommended amount protein and
calcium intake. Being highly sedentary will often lead to heart disease or an
unhealthy amount of being in the house too much. Nevertheless, dont expect
what works for you to work for everyone exactly the same. Our gene-pool is rich
with diversity and that variance comes with the inevitability of using different
approaches. Do your research and be informed; not just about current health
trends, but about your body and the way it reacts to the things around you.
Self-awareness is key to anyones individual health, as long as it is asserted
moderately. Ive found that being inquisitive and open-minded has always
gotten me through my struggles, health and otherwise. The only thing I can say
that unequivocally applies to every one is this: Love yourself. Love yourself the
way you would want someone else to love you. Love others how you would want
to be loved. Most importantly, treat yourself and others the best you can

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because you never know when your health will fail permanently and eternally,
never to be regained.

Works Cited
Becker, Anne E. Television, disordered eating, and young women in Fiji:
negotiating body image and identity during rapid social change. Culture,
Medicine, and Society, 2004, 28, 533-59. DOI: 10.1007/s11013-0041067-5
Brownlee, Shannon. Why Doctors Uselessly Prescribe Antibiotics for a
Common Cold. Time 16 April 2012: pg. 1. Time.com. Web. 16 April 2016.
http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/16/why-doctors-uselessly-prescribeantibiotics-for-a-common-cold/

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2015). Seasonal Influenza (Flu)
Questions & Answers. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm.
Lopez-Jimenez, Francisco. "Cholesterol Level: Can It Be Too Low?" - Mayo
Clinic. 30 Oct. 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/cholesterol-level/expert-answers/faq20057952.
Spellberg, Brad, Guidos, Robert, Gilbert, David, Bradley, John, Boucher, H.W.,
Scheld, W.M., Edwards Jr., John. (2007). Clinical Infectious Diseases,
2008, 46, 155-64. DOI: 10.1086/524891
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of
Agriculture. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005. 6th Edition,
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 2005.
Online.