Life Style Modification Need of Hour in Preventive Approach

If we look back, and look into history we can realize that our ancestors, who faced numerous challenges and hardships.

- By DR ROHINI HD

They used to walk from one place to other far places there was no means of transport available. There was no certainty of having food every day, so they would eat large quantities at once, storing energy as glucose and fat to sustain themselves during times when food was scarce. Sophisticated machines were not available to assist humans in completing their tasks. That was the life style of our ancestors.

Over time, these hardships began to diminish as technology continued to advance and improve human life. Advancement in technology is a boon as well as a curse for humanity because this advancement has led to a reduction in physical activity among humanity. They used to work hard and use the stored energy and living happy life without any diseases.

Definition of life style - It refers to the way in which a person lives or the typical way of life of an individual, group or culture.

Past and present lifestyle

There is a significant difference between the lifestyle of our grandparents and ours. We can observe drastic changes in our lifestyle over the past few decades, along with a notable increase in the emergence of diseases. Most of these diseases today are not due to undernourishment, but rather the result of over-nourishment. This is because the easy availability of food and also lack of physical activity.

As a result of rapid economic growth and increasing westernization of lifestyle prevalence of life style disorders like hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, over weight/obesity are increasing very rapidly. As a consequence of westernization, we are becoming increasingly complacent.

Diet and lifestyle

All these life style diseases are caused because of over-nourishment which we can understand as santarpanajanya vyadhis and the chapter explains the following nidana for the manifestation of the disease