Worrying (or Not) About Sickness

A recent report from UK said that almost half the people with obesity didn’t want to do anything about it. Can this really be true? Perhaps – this was a poll conducted by the charity Cancer Research UK . It may be, however, that familiarity breeds contempt; people who are surrounded by a situation develop tolerance to it.

A clear example is bird flu, as mentioned by the New York Times. We are surrounded by type 2 diabetes, a very common condition, but we (including those who have it) don’t fear it. Compare this with the panic induced by news of a death from avian flu in Turkey . People contemplating a vacation to Croatia are now having second thoughts.

We all need to understand real risk a lot better. It helps every now and again to consider your actual chances of winning the lottery compared with the high likelihood of your developing Alzheimer’s disease before you die. There’s not much you can do about winning the lottery (except by buying thousands of tickets), but there’s quite a lot you can do to ward off Alzheimer’s. Losing some weight would be a good start.  Or improving your dietary choices.