The General Rule of Health (ROH)

             Every human being, no matter young or old, rich or poor wants to be healthy. In fact people are willing to pay the exorbitant cost of a medical operation or medical fee to get cured from an illness. Sadly, the majority of people in this world seek to cure rather than seek to prevent an illness. People seem to like living a life of their desire with disregard to any health consequence in the future. For example, the percentage of obese people in the world is increasing. Malaysia is no exception.

            In the New Straits Times dated September 29, 2006, it was reported that Malaysia has the most fat people in the ASEAN region. It was also reported that in the last 10 years, the number of fat people has more than doubled, resulting in more Malaysians falling ill and diseases such as hypertension and diabetes shooting up. It is a general knowledge that being fat is bad for your health. The same newspaper went on to explain the effect of fat on your health:

            “The fat releases substances into the bloodstream that can damage the cardiovascular system, raise level of unhealthy fats in the blood, lower level of ‘good’ HDL cholesterol and contribute to the development of blocked arteries which can lead to heart diseases and stroke.”

            According to the same newspaper, the top 5 reasons why Malaysians are fat are the following:

1.      Eating too much

2.      Drinking carbonated drinks

3.      Liking for fast food

4.      Lazy to use the staircase

5.      Lack of exercise  

It is not surprising that the top 3 reasons that contributed to the Malaysians being fat are related to eating and drinking. As you can read further from my Rules of Health, the majority of the rules are also related to eating and drinking. Reason no.4 and no.5 above is similar, in the sense that both are related to lack of physical activity. I also believe that it is common knowledge that exercise is good for your health. Again, people seem to take the easy way out, by being cozy and lazy.

How do you know whether you are obese or not? A crude but easy way to determine your obesity is via a Body Mass Index (BMI) calculation. I said it is a crude way because it does not take into consideration the structure of your body. For example, a muscular person will have a higher BMI figure than a less muscular person with the same height. But it does not mean that the muscular person is fatter than his opposite.

So what is BMI? BMI is a formula that calculates your ideal weight in relation to your height. What the formula is saying is that the taller you are, then you are entitled to have more weight without being fat. The formula is as follows: (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index)

The following ranges apply for BMI value:

Males

• Underweight: less than 20 (<20)
• Ideal: greater than or equal to 20 but less than 25 (≥20 but <25)
• Overweight: greater than or equal to 25 but less than 30 (≥25 but <30)
• Obese: greater than or equal to 30 (≥30)

Females

• Underweight: less than 18 (<18)
• Ideal: greater than or equal to 18 but less than 25 (≥18 but <25)
• Overweight: greater than or equal to 25 but less than 30 (≥25 but <30)

Obese: greater than or equal to 30 (≥30)

For example, if you are a girl with the height of 1.62 m and the weight of 54 kg, then your BMI =

             

= 20.6

Then, your BMI is between the range of ≥18 but <25, which is under the category of ideal weight.

            So weight and physical activity are a few things that one need to control to be healthy. But what is the general rule to follow? I believe the general rule of health is as follows: “Things that are too much need to be reduced and things that are too little need to be increased”. If you think about it, every health deterioration to humans happened when things are too much or too little. Consider the following:

• People get diabetes when they take too much sugar
• People get headaches when they have too little sleep
• People get involved in an accident when they are careless, i.e. when their care is less than usual
• Being both overweight and underweight is bad for you
• People get stomachache when they eat contaminated food, i.e. when the hygiene is low
• People get depression when they have too much stressful situation

So in order to be healthy, you need to look for a sign when things are too much or too little. BMI is a sign to know whether you weight is too much, too little or is ideal. There are other signs you need to look for, for example your blood sugar level, your high blood pressure level or even your stress level. When things are too much, you need to reduce it. When things are too little, you need to increase it.