A spot of people watching

I was at a screening event a while ago (pre covid, so quite a long while!) and in a ,rare, quiet moment indulged in a spot of people-watching. It’s amazing how many people do any number of activities that are not good for their health and, I suspect, they are totally unaware of. These were some of the most common:-

•   Carrying a heavy shopping/handbag on one shoulder. This leads to a marked asymmetry or imbalance in the spine over time. As a result of this the spine will wear unequally – just like having the wheels out of alignment on your car. Now… you can replace an unevenly worn tyre but …you only get one spine.

•   In a similar way carrying a small child on one hip has an unbalancing effect on the spine. You may say “But people have been doing that for years” and I’d agree with you, they have; and for many years people have been developing back problems and arthritic changes as a result. As an aside on this, sometimes I have patients say to me  “My Mum ( or Dad, grandpa, grandma etc) did some type of very heavy manual work for years and years and he never had a day off in their life!” Well, that may be true but it’s also true that such generations were very stoic and would put up with great deal without letting on. They’d also do a lot more regular exercise (walking or cycling miles to the factory or place of work) and didn’t sit at PCs, or indeed in front of the TV all evening. So their lifestyles were often very different.

It has to be said that it’s a little like the “ My grandpa smoked 40 a day and lived to be 87” story. Sure, it has happened… Sometimes… but, the cemetery is full of those who did die from smoking at a much younger age.

•   On a related topic a huge number of people walk around town drinking anything other than water. It seems that there’s gallons of coke, diet coke, redbull, cappuccino, frappa-mokka-lokkacino being consumed every day. What your body needs is water, nothing else is as good. Don’t get me wrong the occasional coffee isn’t going to do you much harm but 6 or 7 a day! Tooooo much. Plus… don’t get fooled by “special waters”. You know the ones. They’ve got super additives like vitamins, guarana, isotonic something or other. They’ve often got artificial sweeteners and additives in them and these are NOT good. But I’m racing ahead and this is a whole other topic in itself. You can read more elsewhere. What’s wrong with actual water? I’ve heard some people say water doesn’t taste of anything. Yup…..It tastes of … water – that’s it. To be fair the tap water in Norfolk does tend to taste like an old swimming pool at times. I appreciate that there is a need to keep it all clean and bacteria-free but a water filter will help to make it taste better if you don’t like the chlorinated tang! For now think natural is best and eat and drink natural too!

Till next time…

Yours in health

Neil