Greg Dent: The importance of a healthy lifestyle

Published 10:52 pm Thursday, September 4, 2014

In my position, I’m often asked what can be done about the high cost of health care.

That is, no doubt, a complicated issue, and one without a simple answer.

But I do believe that one way we can all reduce the amount of our income that’s spent on health care is by choosing to live a healthy lifestyle, through maintaining a normal weight and by making good lifestyle choices.

It’s interesting to note that the health care one receives from health care professionals, doctors’ visits and hospitalizations only has about a 10 percent influence on one’s health status.

Much more important are environmental factors, which constitute a 19 percent influence, and biology, or hereditary factors, which constitute 20 percent.

But by far the most important influence on one’s health status is lifestyle choices, which have a 51 percent influence on how healthily we live our lives.

That’s a big percentage.

And it incorporates a number of factors, including diet, weight, physical activity, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption.

It also includes other determinants, such as wearing seat belts every time you’re in a car, wearing bike helmets when you ride a bike and not taking other unnecessary risks.

Unfortunately, there’s not all that much one can do about environmental or hereditary factors. In terms of the environment, it’s important to have access to clean air and water and to limit exposure to such harmful chemicals as asbestos, lead paint and other environmental hazards whenever possible.

Less controllable are hereditary factors, as we cannot alter our DNA. But we can be aware of our family history, not just that of our parents, but of our grandparents, aunts and uncles as well. If you’re aware that many of the women in your family have experienced breast cancer, you can be more diligent in having annual mammograms, self-exams, gynecological visits and maybe even undergo BRCA testing (a test for Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer syndrome).

Those who have relatives who suffered from heart disease can begin monitoring their heart health and function at earlier ages. Scheduling a baseline visit with a cardiologist might be a prudent preventative measure for those folks.

But we even have much greater latitude when it comes to affecting our day-to-day health through our lifestyles. And I cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain a healthy weight and BMI (Body Mass Index), exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet filled with healthy proteins, fruits and vegetables, not smoking and limiting alcohol intake. These choices will go a long way toward reducing the need for medical therapies or intervention.

At the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership, we strive to address all four of these factors — health care accessibility, environment, biology and lifestyle choices — through our program offerings that promote such goals as tackling childhood obesity, controlling diabetes and planning for the underinsured.

For example, one way we work with health care accessibility is by making sure that people have access to health care by getting them connected with physicians and health care practitioners through our Community Health Workers/Promotoras de Salud program.

This program targets the medically underserved by bringing the underserved and uninsured (both Latinos and non-Latinos) into care and increasing their knowledge of health issues.

In terms of lifestyle choices, we offer such activities as the Bill Gregory Healthcare Classic race each spring, the Bike Across Murray bike ride in September and other healthy lifestyle awareness campaigns.

We believe that an informed public can and should be a healthier public, and that’s what we strive to do.

So while it’s very important to have the best health care, the best hospitals and the best physician network possible, it’s even more important to make wise choices in one’s daily life and to maintain good health. The biggest way that we can all drive down the cost of health care is to make healthy choices every day of our lives.

Greg Dent is the director of the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership.