Cardiovascular disease remains the number one killer disease and is the nation’s leading cause of death, killing about 659,000 people each year – that’s one in every four deaths and ONE person dies every 36 seconds in the United States (www.cdc.gov). After all, the fixes sound so simple, such as control blood pressure, control cholesterol, stay active, lose weight, stop smoking and eat better. But yet the hospitals are bulging with the diseases caused by poor lifestyle choices. Why? Because sometimes it is difficult to be motivated and do all the healthy living habits that have been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease as mentioned above …until one suffers a heart attack… and this becomes the wake up call, making us consider changing lifestyle.
Lifestyle is a choice: how you use your life force on a daily basis, how you fuel your body and how you structure your activities that constitutes your life. Living is a series of choices, good ones and not so good ones. When you are younger, the impact of many lifestyle choices don’t have the immediate impact, but they can build up, like waters behind a dam that can crack or break, causing a flood of disease that results from the lifestyle you have chosen to live. It is the habits or the lifestyle you establish at your young age and beyond.
Dr William Abraham, chair of cardiovascular medicine at Ohio State University stated, “If you haven’t changed your lifestyle, the disease continues to progress.” He compared it to preserving a prized automobile: “If you want to get your car to 200,000 miles, you take really good care of it. If you want to get your body to 100 years, you take care of it.”
So how? Seventh-day Adventists have more information at our fingertips on how to be healthy than at any time in earth’s history through the laws of health and the writing of Mrs. White. AdventHealth is embracing CREATION health principles (Choice, Rest, Environment, Activity, Trust, Interpersonal Relationships, Outlook, Nutrition). Weimar Institute is embracing the NEWSTART plan program (Nutrition, Exercise, Water, Sunlight, Temperance, Air, Rest, Trust in Divine Power). For more information see creationhealth.com and newstart.com. These are few health programs to name a few that follow the eight natural principles to achieve good health.There are many other throughout the world run the wellness program based on the same principles.
Counsels on Diet and Foods, Page 26: “Many have expected that God would keep them from sickness merely because they have asked Him to do so. But God did not regard their prayers, because their faith was not made perfect by works. God will not work a miracle to keep those from sickness who have no care for themselves, but are continually violating the laws of health, and make no efforts to prevent disease. When we do all we can on our part to have health, then may we expect that the blessed results will follow, and we can ask God in faith to bless our efforts for the preservation of health. He will then answer our prayer, if His name can be glorified thereby. But let all understand that they have a work to do. God will not work in a miraculous manner to preserve the health of persons who are taking a sure course to make themselves sick, by their careless inattention to the laws of health”
Counsel on Diet and Food, Page 445: “…our sanitarium are established for a special purpose to teach people that we do not live to eat, but that we eat to live.”
3 John 1:2, NIV “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers”
NIV Psalms 139:14: “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”
The Lord is concerned for our physical and spiritual well being. Make the best choice that by the grace of God, you will have an abundant life and the joy of good health here and now and eternal joy in the Lord. ….to be continued…
Yin Schaff, Health Ministries Coordinator