Archive for the ‘ Preventive Cares ’ Category

When Passion For Fashion Is A Health Menace

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

You will never understand up to what extent women are willing to do for the sake of beauty. They will brave undergoing through the knife for the purpose of cosmetic surgery. The risk-taking involved is a case of the end justifying the means. However, a new concept of suffering for passion does not follow the same argument. Suffering for fashion is not just about the perils that being eternally stylish can pose to your bank accounts, but about the damage that your passion for fashion could be doing to your health.
Talk about low back pain and spine fractures which can be severely disabling and may result in chronic pain. And that is exactly what those supersized killer bags fashion on-the-loose are doing to a woman’s body. Those supersized handbags could be as potentially dangerous to your health as upsizing your favorite fastfood value meals. The recent increase in the number of “heavy handbag related injuries” prompted chiropractors to seriously consider issuing a medical warning on the use of these huge totes.
These fashionable bags on the hot seat are not just painfully heavy, draped and bedecked with more blings than Apl.de Ap of the Black Eyed Peas, and that their capacity is so enormous there could be enough rooms for the whole vanity dresser to fit inside. These bags allow users to fill them with endless amounts of stuff that are not really necessary.
According to a recent study, women today carry twice as much in their handbags as our mothers used to do. In the good old days, our moms might have had a coin purse, a powder compact, a couple of tissues and a house key. Today’s women can be seen carrying a whopping great wallet/diary/address book Filofax affair, an entire make-up bag and a bottle of water, plus great bunches of keys for the house, the office and the car. And that’s before we get to all the gadgets and gizmos – MP3 players, mobile phones, laptops etc.
Social anthropologist, Kate Fox, of the Social Issues Research Center in Oxford, believes that a woman’s love for large luggage is not just about fashion. It’s about making an impression. “Larger women generally prefer to carry a big bag as it makes their bum look smaller in comparison. And, the fashionably petite like to emphasize their size zero status by carrying an outsize bag.”
It’s okay to drag handbags the size of houses if you are a celebrity with all the bodyguards to help you carry the load once you’re done showing off. “The problem with carrying a heavy bag is that while it may not cause you an injury at the time you carry it, over time it has a cumulative effect, and we’re certainly seeing more instances of back pain triggered as a result,” says Tim Hutchful of the British Chiropractic Association.
Carrying a heavy bag over one shoulder can cause your body to shift stance as you hike the shoulder up, which can shorten the muscles that result in a twisted or lop-sided body position overtime. This may later on lead to serious back pain, and worse, a neck injury by stretching the nerves, or even a spine fracture.
Avoid carrying bag in the crook of your arm as it is farther away from your center of gravity, putting more strain on the body. When you hold something at arm’s length, the pressure it puts on the body is five times greater than if you were carrying it close to your chest.
Whether you are a certified “fashionista,” a working mother, or a plain Jane, always remember to carry a bag that is big enough to carry only the essential stuffs that you cannot do without. “Health is wealth” is a better motto to live by, while passion for fashion can be a health menace.

Why Preventive Care is Important in a Healthcare Plan Provider

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

More and more progressive healthcare plan providers are offering patients preventive care options. This helps offset the number one concern of most consumers ? cost.

When shopping for health insurance or any sort of healthcare plan, most consumers seek to protect themselves and their families from the potentially disastrous cost of major illness and hospitalization. Hence, preventive care is often an overlooked benefit that many consumers may not give sufficient consideration.

Following are some benefits of preventive care that you should consider when looking for a health insurance or a healthcare plan.

What is Preventive Healthcare?

A broad definition of preventive healthcare is “measures taken to identify life-threatening illnesses or habits with an eye towards curing, modifying and preventing them.” In other words, preventive care can be anything that helps you stave off illness and live a healthier lifestyle.

Why Preventive Healthcare is Important

Preventive healthcare is important for three reasons:

Early Detection Saves Lives: This is perhaps the most important reason to look for a healthcare plan that offers some measure of preventive healthcare options.

Annual mammograms, pap smears and colon-cancer screenings are all examples of preventive measures that help to save lives. Many life-threatening illnesses have silent symptoms. They only way to detect them is through some type of early detection test.

Take heart disease, for example. The American Heart Association estimates that roughly half of all deaths from this disease are sudden and unexpected. When you consider the great strides that have been made over the last 25 years in preventing and treating this disease, early detection can make all the difference in how well you will survive a heart attack, or whether you will even have one at all.

With illnesses like this, preventive care takes advantage of the advances in medical technology, detecting problems ? or assessing the likelihood of problems ? before they become life-threatening illnesses.

Modifying Behavior Leads to a Healthier Life: Preventive healthcare encourages many to lead healthier lifestyles. Getting regular exercise is one of the easiest things anyone can do to achieve overall better health. Many healthcare providers encourage this by offering discounts on gym memberships, yoga classes and other types of regular workout programs.

Another popular lifestyle change program that providers encourage is a smoking cessation program. Cigarettes are extremely addicting, and many smokers try for years to quite before they succeed. The benefits of quitting can prevent many healthcare problems, from lung cancer and heart disease, to stroke and heart attack, to many respiratory illnesses.

As the ultimate goal of all preventive care is to help patients live longer, healthier lives, amenities like this are natural offerings by healthcare plan providers.

Preventive Healthcare Saves Money: Preventive healthcare allows policy holders to get the most value for their healthcare dollars. This is because preventive care is usually much less expensive than treating a disease down the road.

To encourage this, comprehensive information is needed to make informed decisions. Forward-thinking healthcare providers offer members integrated solutions, like up-to-the-minute health information, medical alerts, drug recalls, wellness assessments and more.

This puts the information that members need right at their fingertips, allowing them to be an active participant in their ongoing healthcare.

Preventive care helps people to actively manage their overall healthcare. By encouraging regular checkups, regular screenings and an overall healthier lifestyle, individuals maintain better overall health, feel better, and minimize their health care costs throughout their lifetimes.

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