Well with all furor over health care these days, everyone seems to forget that doctors and hospitals and pills are just one part of a much larger process.
I had a terrible confession to make: when I used to hire orchestras to come in for some fairly intense recording sessions, I wanted everyone in that room to be at their very highest level of performance ability. To that end, I made sure that there was a table backstage, with copious amounts of caffeine, chocolate, and sugar readily and freely available to everyone in the group.
I was not thinking about anyone’s long-term health. I was thinking solely of squeezing the maximum amount of energy output out of every single player, and what better way to achieve that than with all sorts of chemical stimulants?
I am not alone, of course. You can go into any office, factory, gas station, or any other work sites, and while there is not a single piece of fresh fruit or perhaps a crudite platter, you would be hard-pressed to find the workplace that doesn’t have a vending machine filled with sugar, caffeine, corn syrup, or cotton-seed oil- based products. If you're outside, they bring it to you on a truck.
I used to do some consulting work for a local hospital. In the hallway that ran down the middle of the emergency department was an entire row of these vending machines. You could get all the chips, chocolate bars, Coke, Diet Coke, and of course all the fresh brewed coffee you would care to drink, as you waited for your loved one to get resuscitated from a heart attack.
What is severely lacking in health care debate is a discussion of cause and effect. The reason we pay so much more money than other countries for health care is not just because of the insurance companies (not that I wish to let them off the hook). The reason why health care is so expensive is because we need so much of it. We live on corn syrup and stimulants, and most of us are sleep deprived. Diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and cancer– we do it to ourselves. And we’re proud of how we abuse ourselves.
I was once making a videotape for a heart disease and transplant center in Wisconsin someplace. The guy I was working for explained that the reason they had to have this heart surgery center was because the local diet consisted of all this traditional German cooking, notably wienerschnitzel (which is basically a high fat form of chicken fried steak, if that’s possible), plus 3 eggs and bacon for breakfast every day, and potato chips or french fries on the side.
I was doing another video for a similar heart surgery Center in Georgia. The guy there explained to me that that part of the country had a generally religious anti-alcohol culture, which was too bad, because if these people were to drink a glass of red wine with dinner, most of them wouldn’t get heart disease.
It often amazes me how so many people take pride in their ability to abuse their bodies, especially when it comes to depriving themselves of sleep. I had a doctor- in-training roommate once, and she had to work 36-hour shifts without sleep. If the doctors, the people in charge of health care, don’t think sleep is important, what other basic preventative health maintenance activity are they not going to advise you to do?
If you want to get fire insurance for your building, you have to have a fire marshal come in and inspect the place and make sure that you have sprinklers and adequate exits and so on. Until we create some health marshals to enforce the same sort of preventive measures, crisis intervention health-care will continue to become unaffordable.
You want cheap health insurance? Try taking a nap.
© Justin Locke
