The Perfect Storm: Environment

Can living here, or there have an impact?

As mentioned in the previous blog entry, we are opening up the four sections that make up a system that impacts obesity.  This first section will discuss environment.  When I initially wrote The Perfect Storm entry, I was looking at reverse engineering the system that creates obesity, by teasing out the main factors that impact it.  I find that it is easier to work backwards sometimes to go forward, especially when looking at an issue such as this.  I hope to gain new insights and paradigm shifts in my thinking along the way.  Just as a perfect storm needs all the right elements to be successful (and that term is relative), obesity needs to have the same elements to get to where it is today.  So, let's look at our environment to see how this impacts obesity and where we can make cognitive changes to improve our approach.

Our environment consists of a few components, some of those components are our family, neighborhood, and knowledge.  While looking at these and their impact on our health (namely obesity) we can discern that how our family eats, we'll eat, how our family views physical activity we more than likely will follow suit, and how our family's genetics (which we will talk about later), and health history are, ours will probably be similar.  We can also derive from our neighborhood how our community is structured (adequate lighting, sidewalks, crime, etc.), and where we are located in regards to green spaces and accessibility to healthy foods.  Our knowledge (I think) is the most significant subsection we're discussing under environment of all.  With knowledge we find that our cognitive abilities are the most pliant of all the three.  With more knowledge, we can make better decisions, with better knowledge we can change our lives; so knowledge is key to impacting how we define our health, access health and incorporate health into our lives.  

Our environment is more than the grid or the street we live on, it's all encompassing, more so than some have given thought to.  The late Maya Angelou once said, "When you know better, you do better", and I feel that speaks to the section of our environment that focuses on our knowledge.  It can also touch on how those of us responsible for communities can do better as well.  Our environment of course also included air quality, and clean water, etc., respectively, so those aspects included, the three components we've touched on should be our starting point to looking at reverse engineering obesity in the environment.

Our environment is one part of a larger whole, however, it is important and imperative to look at all aspects and target the ones we have the most impact on first, As health professionals we must always look to those in our environment/where we live to continue the efforts and support healthier communities.  

"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community...."  - Cesar Chavez   

Time's Up, Back to Work...

A long ways away, isn't always about distance.

In the past ten months I've taken time to work and reevaluated myself and the direction I am going in.  I've had the privilege to learning so much this year and working with some amazing people in the process.  More importantly, I learned that I'm on the right track, both in my thoughts and direction.  However, I have a very long ways to go to reach my goals.  I will continue the unfinished series on the perfect storm, but for now I just wanted to become familiar with my keyboard and thinking through processes again.  My goal with this blog is to approach health and health concepts in a way that could provoke further thought, or new ideas.  I've had a great time writing these and love having people respond about how much they appreciate or enjoy my writing.  Having said all this, I am growing more excited to get back to work.  So... Let's go! 

The Perfect Storm

When everything comes together and all aspects of a system begin to meld and work in concomitance the results could be beyond expectation.  Exponential results can occur when elements align, which is what we are most interested in.  This idea could be likened to a perfect storm, where under the right barometric pressure and other varying conditions, the results can be catastrophic.  

I use the idea of a perfect storm to look at obesity in our society.  The reason being, that the results we are seeing in our society are on a epidemic level. The reason for this is just as diverse as the population it affects.  To better look at obesity, I've found it more interesting (and less frustrating) to look at the system in place to achieve such results.  If we think of the system it would take to produce the results we are seeing, I feel it is easier to understand what elements impact obesity, and which merely support it.  

An example of this would be, if I wanted to lose weight I could develop a system that could help me achieve this goal.  By regularly eating healthy foods and exercising I could directly impact my objective.  Whereas by merely watching less television or reading more material on weight-loss would only support my objective rather than impacting it.  

When thinking about what this system would impact I noticed four components that could aid this system in bringing about the results we see in our society today.  These categorical systems are: environmental, genetic, cultural and educational.  

Over several discussions, we will delve into these individually as subsets of the idea of a systems approach to obesity.  I feel that to look at how this storm sustains or creates its power, gives us better insight to how to reduce its impact, thus lessening the damage it produces.