michelle@thegoodhealthshop.co.za
039 315 5351

While you are, or were, a working person with a fixed income, did you save and/or invest for your future?  Did you plan your retirement with meticulous precision?  If you have already retired, was it worth the effort?

 All over our website, in our blogs and in our store you’ll hear the term ‘health promotion’ a lot.  It’s a strange term and a stranger concept, but a lot like Financial Planning…. Follow my thinking :   Today a young man came past to have his sugar tested.  He’s 30 now, and his dad died of diabetes complications, so he’s worried.  His sugar tested 4.6 two hours after a meal, which is pretty good.  There is no immediate health crisis so the young man left to keep doing what he’s doing, and occasionally worrying in-between.  It is here that an intervention, our ‘health promotion’ would have a place in this man’s life.  But, I hear you ask, if he is already healthy, what is that he needs from health promotion? 

One finger prick test is not a definitive ‘clean bill of health’.  It might be fine for someone who is not worrying, or doesn’t have the genetic predisposition, but this young man could begin today, to make the changes in his Modifiable Lifestyle Factors – Appropriate eating habits, stress, sleep, hydration and movement – that would mean he will reduce his risk of ending up like his dad and he will never have to waste another minute on worry.  Pre-empting a health crisis, veering off a prescriptive path, changing future outcomes is why we use the term health promotion.  The changes required in one’s lifestyle might be miniscule tweaks; they might be monumental shifts… but…

If I knew that I could choose to walk, talk, see, hear, and be lucid till my last day, as opposed to becoming decrepit, demented and dependent, which would I choose? 

And if that choice demanded some adjustment in my daily habits, would I be prepared to invest in a future of my choice?  If it’s about money, do you choose to spend less today to save for future retirement?  Why is this so different? Saving your health for the future… actually an amazing concept.  Health promotion – don’t wait for a health crisis to precipitate the change process; the best time to promote health is while you still have it, just like saving money while you have a regular salary