It always saddens me to hear people say this, because the reality is…it’s expensive to be sick. The CDC reports that in America, 7 out of 10 deaths a year are from chronic diseases, with over 50% of all deaths from heart disease, stroke, and cancer. These are the leading causes of death, AND the most preventable diseases. Also according to the CDC, coronary heart disease alone was projected to cost the nation over 108 BILLION dollars in 2010. If you wind up with heart disease, you lose money if you can’t work because of it, you have to pay for medications, doctors visits, procedures, etc. And if you don’t have decent (or any) health insurance? This is the crisis we’re in.
So when people get sticker shock over the cost of real food, or quality supplements, you have to think of it in terms of spending now or spending way more later in money AND quality of life, happiness, security. Taking Omega-3′s every day, drinking water over sweetened drinks, and eating as much organic food as possible now will drastically lower your odds of having to take medications, or worse, down the line. We’ll scrunch our noses and pass up a bottle of super-food nutritional supplement because it costs $40 (or about $1 per serving), and then spend $4 a day on a coffee at Starbucks. People who WANT to be healthy, and who are genuinely interested in feeling better do this. The reality is, we’ve become a culture who’s only interested in the here and now. We’re not interested in gradual changes, and we think we’re immune to degeneration from our current daily habits because most of us don’t notice the subtle decline in health until it gets to a point of obvious disease and malfunctioning.
People, we have to stop living for instant gratification. Instant gratification is killing us. And it’s costing you and the nation serious money.
It may seem like staying healthy comes at a cost, and in a way… it does. My grocery bills would probably be less if I didn’t include supplements or much of the organic produce I buy in them. However, I do not buy juice, or soda, or frozen meals, or bags of chips and pretzels to keep around the house. There is no steady supply of ice cream in the freezer, or 6 boxes of Honey This, Cocoa That cereals in the pantry. The foods we have in the house are for the most part, simple staples that can be jazzed up with varying healthy condiments when we want a little something extra out of them. So, does it wind up balancing out for me? Would I spend what I spend now if I included the Standard American Diet staples into my grocery cart without my vitamins and organic apples and celery? I’m not entirely sure, but I can tell you this: it’s worth every penny extra if it still costs me $5 more per grocery bag than the typical American might spend. It’s worth not having the horrible allergies I had as an adolescent. It’s worth not having the eczema that tried to consume me in my mid twenties. It’s worth having a healthy self esteem about my body when it seems like everyone around you is unhappy with the way they look. It’s worth it to know that the choices I make today can help encourage others to go down the same path I’ve explored the past 7 years and lead them to a better place.
So, yes it may seem expensive to be healthy, but put things in perspective and assess your priorities. Don’t wait until it’s too late and you have to spend everything you would have spent on vegetables on life-saving procedures or risky medications with 47 possible side effects.
THAT is not worth it.
3 Responses
April 20th, 2012 at 11:30 am
I could not agree with you more! Thanks for posting. Living with chronic illness is very, very expensive- far more so than taking care of yourself. Although it might not be possible to prevent some illnesses from coming your way, making healthy choices and maintaining a healthy lifestyle with ultimately mean your body will be better able to tackle any problems that come your way. This message could not be more important than it is now- with millions of people forgoing health insurance and healthcare reform under threat. Now, more than ever, it is our responsibility to safeguard our own health.
May 3rd, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Sorry for the delayed response, but I’ve been thinking a lot about this.
I agree with you to some extent, but you have to consider your audience when you’re making this argument. It’s very easy for us to say this is a choice we have to make, but that’s because we come from a place of privilege where we DO have the option to buy the more expensive organic produce or spend a bit more money at farmer’s markets for high quality food. But there are a lot of people who truly do not have that choice. We cannot ignore the impact that socioeconomic status has on health. There is plenty of research that links income to health with findings that obesity (and heart disease) are associated with poverty, food stamps, and low income in general and conclusions that lower income levels are equated to poorer food quality and less consumption of healthy foods like fresh fruits and veggies.
There are people who really can’t afford to buy health foods. And yes, they suffer from chronic diseases, and they often don’t have healthcare, so their costs are higher and it hits taxpayers and ends up costing the government that much more. But we need to be really careful about asking people to be personally accountable and saying “just spend the extra $20 on organic produce now because it will save you in the long run.” There are lots of folks who have to choose between paying their rent and buying groceries. There are lots of folks who live in poor areas (rural and urban) that don’t have access to health food stores or farmers markets (either because they don’t exist or because you need a car to get to them), and who can’t afford to shop there anyway. There are lots of people on food stamps the value of which would never amount to enough to let them buy the healthier foods you and I eat.
There’s a Whole Foods that was built a few years ago in DC that, at the time, was in a sort of up-and-coming area. Whole Foods didn’t want to build there because of the demographics of the surrounding neighborhood (lower income, mostly racial minorities). It was the neighborhood’s wealthier white residents who convinced Whole Foods to build by saying they would shop there, and lo and behold they built, the better off folks came, the neighborhood continued to develop and now it’s a hip part of town that I certainly can’t afford to live in. There’s a reason you tend to see health food stores in higher-income neighborhoods (not always, I know, but usually).
Also, the time it takes to grocery shop is a factor that again is impacted by your income level. If you’re buying a lot of fresh produce, that means you’re going to the grocery store more often so that it’s not going bad. lots of low income families have parents who are working more than one job, and for women (who are often single mothers), they’re generally doing most of the care work for children on top of their job(s). that alone can make it a huge hassle to have to plan time to go to the grocery store more frequently, so it’s easier to buy processed/frozen things that live in the pantry longer.
I don’t disagree with you, I just mean to point out that there is so much more behind health and food choice than just deciding to spend the extra money to buy high quality food and supplements because it’s better for you in the long run. we need to do a better job with our public policies to support local growers, stop subsidizing processed foods and their corporate owners, increase access to fresh produce in urban and low-income neighborhoods, and provide way better social services that would allow low-income families to actually eat healthier foods and live healthier lifestyles.
May 3rd, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Liz, you are absolutely right about everything you said. And it’s something I’m already all too well aware of. I do also know the audience of this blog, and the subscribed readers are those people who do have the ability to make that choice. It was our own mother, who scoffed at the cost of a bottle of vitamins that inspired me to write it, while she has three prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet for different things.
The plight of the low-income and lack of healthy food accessibility is obviously an enormous problem in this country and fuels the chronic disease epidemic. There are many initiatives in place that are trying to improve school food programs and increase education in those environments, but it won’t be fixed in the near future. I would never tell a single mother on food stamps with 2 jobs and 3 children that her only hope for her kids’ health is to buy organic vegetables. That’s not realistic, and frankly, people in that situation most likely aren’t scouring the web for wellness blogs.
In the meantime, my target market, or the people I aim to inspire are those that are open and able to change their habits and thoughts about what they put into their body. I hope that the power we have with our ability to purchase real food grows and creates major changes in food policies. It’s a slow process, but it is starting to pick up.
This blog was truly inspired by the number of times I have heard people with the means and the desire to make healthier choices complain about the price tag while allowing themselves to suffer from chronic health issues. It’s those people I’m trying to reach the most.
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