Healthy lessons from our First Lady

Our First Lady has been in the limelight over and over again spearheading health initiatives for our populace. The scope of her initiatives ranges from maternal health to cancer, with huge potential to impact positively on our health outcomes.

Why does she make it her business to be concerned about our health when she could easily divert her efforts to countless other initiatives? Are we complementing her efforts with our own initiatives to better our health?

There is a lot you can do as an individual to complement our First Lady’s health initiatives. Start by taking stock of your current state of health. If in poor health, what steps can you take to improve your health?

Or if already in good health, what should you continue doing to maintain the status quo? Healthy habits are no secrets anymore, they should already be second nature to you. Eat right, drink the right stuff, don’t smoke, keep physically active et cetera. Don’t just practice healthy habits.

Remember also to get screened for chronic diseases and cancer at the recommended intervals. There are established screening tests for various cancers, translating into early disease detection and treatment. The earlier your cancer is detected, the more likelihood of a cure or long term disease-free survival. It will also cost you much less to get regularly screened, than to get treated once disease sets in. So, get up and get your screening up to date.

No use having well-equipped healthcare facilities which are underutilized. If pregnant, it’s your duty to go for antenatal care. This must be followed by delivery under skilled birth attendants. Our maternal indicators could change overnight if every expectant mother, and father for that matter, heeded all the advice currently available for antenatal care and delivery. Having maternity subsidies at your disposal, and not making use of them to optimize a healthy pregnancy is despicable.

Beyond yourself as an individual, you can also contribute in collective efforts aimed at better health for your community. Am sure you have heard of welfare groups spearheading initiatives like land buying, monetary merry-go-rounds and much more. You may even be a member of one such group. What about ‘chamas’ aimed at health initiatives in our communities? Collective contribution might mean lobbying for more health resource allocation in your locality, volunteering for health-related mass campaigns and much more.

Each of us can play an active role in bettering our own health, if only we tried harder. None of us requires the kind of resources the First Lady has in order to do something for ourselves. The only investments required are will-power and conscious efforts to improve the state of our health. Short of that, our First Lady’s well-intentioned initiatives will be for naught. We’ll remain where we are, with grim health stats for the whole world to savor.