Self-care wellness should be everyone's business
By Zhenyu Guo and David Webber |
July 23, 2013, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A HEALTH initiative that started modestly only two years ago in Beijing to promote benefits of self-care 24 hours a day, seven days a week is now not only spreading throughout China, it is going global.
On Wednesday, the International Self-Care Day, initiatives in support of wellness and self-care are taking place around the world, in countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Why is self-care so important not just to individuals but also to policy makers and why should July 24 become a UN day?
Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) - cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory and cardiovascular diseases- lead to 63 percent of annual deaths worldwide. They are recognized as global killers and major health challenge. They affect individuals as well as society, imposing an economic burden estimated to reach US$30 trillion over the next 20 years.
The situation in China is no different in this regard. According to WHO data, noncommunicable disease account for 83 percent of all deaths in China, with around 20 percent of those dying before the age of 60, when people are still in their most productive years. As a consequence, the related economic burden for the period between 2005 and 2015 will amount to US$550 billion of health care costs and productivity loss.
The good news is that NCDs are preventable to a large extent through better self-care - up to 80 percent of heart disease, stroke and type-2 diabetes and over a third of cancers could be prevented.
Holistic concept
Self-care is a holistic and very powerful concept. It involves making healthy lifestyle choices, including regular exercise, healthy eating, good hygiene, avoiding risky behavior such as smoking. It also requires vaccinations, using sunscreen and making rational use of self-care products, services and medicines. This should go hand in hand with improving our health knowledge and increasing awareness of physical and mental conditions.
When practiced 24/7, self-care makes a huge difference to our well-being. It empowers people and results not only in higher self-esteem but also in improved wellness and longer life expectancy.
Although there has been some progress in recognizing the crucial role of self-care in the prevention of NCDs, it is still not sufficiently appreciated by the global public to make a tangible difference. Internationally, one in three people smokes, and tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable deaths in the world today, killing more than 5 million people a year - more than HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria combined.
In China, about 28 percent of people older than 15 - equivalent to more than 301 million people - smoke. Around 92 million Chinese people are living with diabetes (mostly type-2 diabetes), which is nearly 10 per cent of China's 1.3 billion people.
The challenge is that self-care is also not seen as integral part of effective and cost-efficient health care systems, which are currently oriented to treat disease. Prevention is understood mainly in the context of disease and not encouragement of "wellness."
We need to look on a global and national level to reform health systems to shift from treating the citizens as passive victims of diseases to active shapers of their own well-being. We should support behavioral change by creating self-care friendly policies, also outside current health systems - from town planning to transport and education. This will not only help to save lives but also to reduce the burden on health care systems.
What's more, as the noncommunicable disease challenge is global, the International Self-Care movement is calling on the UN to recognize Self-Care Day on July 24 each year. We applaud those of you who have already embraced the self-care movement, and ask you to encourage others starting today.
Dr Zhenyu Guo founded the movement and initiated the first Self-Care Day in China in 2012. Dr David Webber is founding director of the International Self-Care Foundation. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
On Wednesday, the International Self-Care Day, initiatives in support of wellness and self-care are taking place around the world, in countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Why is self-care so important not just to individuals but also to policy makers and why should July 24 become a UN day?
Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) - cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory and cardiovascular diseases- lead to 63 percent of annual deaths worldwide. They are recognized as global killers and major health challenge. They affect individuals as well as society, imposing an economic burden estimated to reach US$30 trillion over the next 20 years.
The situation in China is no different in this regard. According to WHO data, noncommunicable disease account for 83 percent of all deaths in China, with around 20 percent of those dying before the age of 60, when people are still in their most productive years. As a consequence, the related economic burden for the period between 2005 and 2015 will amount to US$550 billion of health care costs and productivity loss.
The good news is that NCDs are preventable to a large extent through better self-care - up to 80 percent of heart disease, stroke and type-2 diabetes and over a third of cancers could be prevented.
Holistic concept
Self-care is a holistic and very powerful concept. It involves making healthy lifestyle choices, including regular exercise, healthy eating, good hygiene, avoiding risky behavior such as smoking. It also requires vaccinations, using sunscreen and making rational use of self-care products, services and medicines. This should go hand in hand with improving our health knowledge and increasing awareness of physical and mental conditions.
When practiced 24/7, self-care makes a huge difference to our well-being. It empowers people and results not only in higher self-esteem but also in improved wellness and longer life expectancy.
Although there has been some progress in recognizing the crucial role of self-care in the prevention of NCDs, it is still not sufficiently appreciated by the global public to make a tangible difference. Internationally, one in three people smokes, and tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable deaths in the world today, killing more than 5 million people a year - more than HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria combined.
In China, about 28 percent of people older than 15 - equivalent to more than 301 million people - smoke. Around 92 million Chinese people are living with diabetes (mostly type-2 diabetes), which is nearly 10 per cent of China's 1.3 billion people.
The challenge is that self-care is also not seen as integral part of effective and cost-efficient health care systems, which are currently oriented to treat disease. Prevention is understood mainly in the context of disease and not encouragement of "wellness."
We need to look on a global and national level to reform health systems to shift from treating the citizens as passive victims of diseases to active shapers of their own well-being. We should support behavioral change by creating self-care friendly policies, also outside current health systems - from town planning to transport and education. This will not only help to save lives but also to reduce the burden on health care systems.
What's more, as the noncommunicable disease challenge is global, the International Self-Care movement is calling on the UN to recognize Self-Care Day on July 24 each year. We applaud those of you who have already embraced the self-care movement, and ask you to encourage others starting today.
Dr Zhenyu Guo founded the movement and initiated the first Self-Care Day in China in 2012. Dr David Webber is founding director of the International Self-Care Foundation. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
