1. My Anthropometric Journey
Hello and welcome to the first post on my new blog!
My name is Richard and I am a medical doctor! As well as being a doctor, I am also a human being and therefore as susceptible to disease and potential medical problems as any other human being! This is even more important in the context of a global pandemic (COVID19) and modern society placing a huge emphasis on convenience and bad habits which lead on to developing chronic diseases.
By bad habits, I mean that the human race has learnt to make some really bad choices when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. Pressures of work, stress at home and other pressures of life point us towards neglecting and forgetting some of the really important things which benefit us long term.
If I asked anybody the question, “Who wants to live a long life?”, I’m hoping that the resounding response would be a positive “Me!”. The reason I wanted to write this blog is to share some of the medical evidence around having a healthy lifestyle and hope that you will join me on my journey.
In 2021, I became a Certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician. This is a branch of medicine which focuses on the lifestyle aspects of a person in order to treat some lifestyle diseases. Conventional medicine tends to focus on a condition more than a person - a person has disease X and we give you drug Y to try and make it better. Lifestyle Medicine (LM) focuses on the individual rather than the condition and how they can make differences for themselves (often without medication) in order to improve their disease outcomes.
Please don’t get me wrong! I am not against medication but there is overwhelming evidence supporting the treatment of disease through lifestyle changes rather than medication or otherwise and that is the purpose of this blog.
Over the last 50 years or so, we have entered into epidemics of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, allergies and numerous autoimmune conditions (conditions where the body decides it doesn’t like a particular part and decides to do something to upset it - examples are Rheumatoid Arthritis, thyroid disorders and some forms of bowel disease). So why is this? Did you know that there is a lot of research looking at “low grade chronic inflammation” in the body which is directly related to our lifestyle choices? This in turn causes long-term effects on our bodies including causing some of the diseases already mentioned.
At the outset of this journey, I should make it clear that the views in the this blog are purely my own and that in no way should it be taken as medical advice. I want to share my own journey and some of the research available in order to help us all make our own informed choices.
My anthropometric journey…what does the word anthropometric mean? Simply, it means measuring different aspects and proportions of the body. This could be weight, blood pressure, waist circumference etc etc. At the beginning of 2022, I needed to make some personal changes and I want you to join me in seeing what I can achieve through a healthier lifestyle. More on that in subsequent blogs but for now, go easy on me as I share some of the embarassing aspects of my own body with you! I wanted to focus on those things which are generally easily accessible (and don’t involve blood tests or expensive investigations).
So, in a quote from one of my Christmas movies ‘The Holiday’, “You with me Simpkins?”.