Health Blog

When asked “How healthy am I?” more than half the respondents to a recent survey said that other people’s health “was going in the wrong direction”. Only 17% admitted that their own health was going in that very same direction.

The survey was intended to look at how Americans and health care professionals rated the country’s health. Seems most American’s think their health is just fine, but it’s everyone else who’s in trouble. Doctors disagree.

According to the survey results, American’s believe themselves to be in far better shape than their doctor’s do. “Either people are denying reality about themselves or they don’t have the correct knowledge and believe they are doing the right things,” explains study author Dr. Michael Roizen, chairman of The Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute.

The survey, conducted late in 2009 included more than 2,000 people from all parts of the United States, and found that:

- Almost 30% gave themselves an A for managing their personal health; 92% of doctors gave a grade of C or lower.

- Just about 1/3 of respondents gave themselves an A for eating healthy; the doctors grades remain unchanged, 92% giving a C or lower.

- Nearly 1/3 gave themselves an A for getting regular exercise;

91% of physicians graded a C or lower in this area.

Now it’s also possible doctors, who typically only see the sickest among us, are overstating their concern, based on daily experience and fears for where we’re headed.

Still it seems odd that in a place were the obesity and diabetes rates are steadily rising, Americans tend to compare themselves (and come out the winner) with heavier people.

The survey found that even in our supposedly health conscious world, many respondents didn’t know their own numbers – cholesterol, glucose level, blood pressure.

Only 24% knew their body mass index; 29% knew their blood glucose level; 33% could answer for daily calorie intake and 36% could give their cholesterol numbers.

What’s more surprising is that a majority said that keeping those numbers in a healthy range was important to staying healthy. It seems knowing and doing are two different things.

Contrarily 95% of respondents agreed that regular doctor visits are important, but 70% had actively avoided such visits. Some hoped their problem would go away. Others asked friends for advice.

Some of the problem may be cultural as well. Everything in America is big. Western medicine doesn’t focus on prevention. But most of the diseases that get us in the end are silent killers like diabetes, high blood pressure and hardened arteries.

And then who doesn’t convince themselves that the bad things we do to our body are cancelled out (or eased) by the good things? Rather than looking at just one element of our lifestyle when asking the question ‘how healthy am I?’, we need to take a step back to view the big picture.