MAHA – in thriver words

Setting the Stage

A question I asked myself daily when my children were growing up is what am I setting the stage for? That may seem like a less than emotional approach to parenting. It is. But based on my family of origin, thoughtfulness was always better than my initial emotional instinct.

I didn’t sit and study an issue for hours. I just quickly played out the lesson I was teaching to the extreme. Quick example: When my 2-year-old took a Happy Meal toy from another 2-year-old, I suggested he apologize. As I watched his fury and reluctance, I knew he wasn’t sorry. If I pursued pressuring him at that moment, I was teaching him to be disingenuous aka lie.

I’m not discounting that he needed to learn to be polite and kind and function well in society. But that required a more thoughtful and lengthy discussion repeated over time.

If I teach a child to lie at a time in their development that I’m also attempting to teach him to tell the truth about throwing my ring in the trash, feeding the dog chocolate, or breaking his grandmother’s vase, can he differentiate or will he determine he should just ignore me because I make no sense?

You could argue I’m only teaching him to be emotionally disingenuous. Okay, well how will that play out in his adult relationships, especially intimate ones? Will he adopt polite appeasement over the truth? Maybe or maybe not, but the stage has certainly been set for it.

Each decision we make as a parent sets the stage for something. It is worth considering for what. This is also true as business owners or corporate citizens. And it is true of healthcare.

Young man with dark curly hair sitting at white table next to black chair pulling his hair with both hands.

The US healthcare system set the stage for people to seek answers elsewhere. Unfortunately, this has led to doubting science along with healthcare professionals. But dismissing people who run to Dr. Google first is to miss the point of the patient experience.

The aftermath of 2020 led many institutions away from the emphasis they were putting on patient-centered care. This is unfortunate. And even with a movement toward listening to the patient, the system in general needed hearing aids.

Many patients with GI problems suffer through years of no diagnosis, misdiagnosis, ineffective medication, being treated as though they’re crazy. And then years of paying off the invoices generated in getting them no relief. Why wouldn’t they mistrust a system that is not serving them?

A lot of those patients want to be treated by someone who cares to get to the root of the problem even if it means trying something besides medication. I’ve written before about the doctor I had coffee with who said he would never put someone on a gluten-free diet unless they had a positive biopsy. I understand the importance of best practices, but a gluten-free diet does no harm and might give him helpful information toward diagnosis.

Can we get past rigidity of thinking when we know our diagnostic tools are limited? Opting for surgery in an unclear diagnostic situation is considered acceptable. Is that because surgery gins more money through the system?

Why is a non-harmful approach rejected when a potentially dangerous procedure is considered acceptable within the standard of care? The answer may not be simple. Sometimes, it’s just that the physician you rely on is not well-informed on new research or developments. Sometimes, it’s fear of being sued. Often, it’s that huge systems are not nimble and move slowly.

But sometimes a complex answer gets simplified to – we’re following science – and presented to the patient. Great job! Now you’ve set the stage for that patient to distrust science.

And such incidents may come on top of setting the stage for patients to distrust the way medicine is practiced because they haven’t been provided a diagnosis or effective treatment. Further, they may have been treated as if they’re crazy (especially if they’re female).

Posters on Reddit and BlueSky last week asked people to post the most ridiculous thing a doctor had ever said to them with a straight face. These posts received hundreds of replies and thousands of replies and reposts.

We’re reaping the results of distrust in science in things like measles outbreaks. That is bad and dangerous. But until the healthcare system chooses some self-reflection, it will continue to set the stage for distrust.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Good Health

With the MAHA movement, perhaps we should be asking: What defines good health? It’s easy to assume we all have the same definition of health. But is that true?

closeup of dictionary page with the definition of dictionary

The top 3 definitions of the word health according to The American Heritage® Dictionary are:

health /hĕlth/

noun

The overall condition of an organism at a given time.
Soundness, especially of body or mind; freedom from disease or abnormality.
A condition of optimal well-being.

Merriam-Webster defines it as follows:

health

noun ˈhelth also ˈheltth

1a: the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spiritespecially:freedom from physical disease or pain
1b: the general condition of the body
2a: a condition in which someone or something is thriving or doing well:well-being
2b: general condition or state

Medical Dictionaries recognize health as a range of potential within an environment: “a relative state in which one is able to function well physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually in order to express the full range of one’s unique potentialities within the environment in which one is living.”¹

While all are similar, there are some notable differences. American Heritage does not mention the spirit, only the body and mind. Merriam-Webster mentions the spirit, but emphasizes physical disease and pain. Of the three, the medical dictionary is the only one to mention potential and environment.

Why does defining health or good health matter?

To Establish The State We Wish to Achieve

Keeping it simple, if you don’t know what it is, you can’t recognize when you have it.While that’s stating the obvious, we spend lots of time, energy, and money trying to achieve good health. If we don’t define what it is, not only may we fail to recognize it when we achieve it, we can’t devise a reasonable plan to get to the state we strive for.

To Create Reachable Goals

Health, good health, and optimum health are not the same for everyone. I don’t have the same health potential as someone with a different genetic makeup, history of illness, background of injury, exposure to environments, and reliance on medication. That’s why the medical dictionary uses words like unique potentialities and environment. Understanding what’s realistic for me is key to developing appropriate and achievable goals.

To Make Sure My Health Choices Reflect My Priorities

I may not have the same priorities as my physician. This can mean I request an alternative route to get to the same goal. My doctor might prefer I take a certain medication that will get a result quicker. I may prefer a lengthier path that leads to the root cause of my issue. As a team, we can devise a treatment plan in line with my priorities.

Other priorities may extend beyond my personal health in order to protect vulnerable family members, those with disabilities, and the elderly.

To Balance Time Spent On Each Component Of Health

If I spend too much time working out, I may not have time to prepare food that most benefits me. If I only focus on physical health, I may neglect social connections, creative projects, or practices that contribute to a positive state of mind.

To Get Results

Without any clear definition, goal, or plan, there’s no way to measure results. Even if our health plan is mostly about the process, we won’t know whether we’re on track unless we’ve outlined that process & where we hope it to take us.

There’s no better time than now to define good health, determine our priorities, and develop a plan to meet our health goals. This will make the path more clear as information becomes murkier.

¹ https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/health

Get to Know Your Food

If you really get to know your food, will you want to eat it? When it comes to processed food, probably not. But will you make more informed choices? Obviously.

Withholding information as a way to influence or control has been a theme in my life. As a result, I like information, the bottom line, evidence. Give me the bad news. I can take it.

I’m not saying I’m tough. I just understand that withholding means I cannot make the best decision possible. We simply must know what we’re dealing with to make informed decisions. Data before the fact is a better option than recalls.

Information is power. You and I may make different decisions based on identical data, but having the data gives us that choice. Without it, we are at someone else’s mercy. Often, withholding information is used as a power play. When anyone or any entity refuses to provide or goes to extreme means to tightly control information, their motives are suspect.

In the food industry, we know the motive is profit. Since Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, we’ve been aware of the lengths to which industry will use and abuse humans in service of profit. We like to think industry is more enlightened, business more humane, and ourselves less tolerant of abuse now. But are those facts?

Alice Driver’s 2024 book, Life and Death of The American Worker gives an inside look at conditions we currently tolerate as well as what’s really in those chicken nuggets we’re feeding our kids. Tyson Foods, the largest meatpacking company in America, is the study of this book.

With regard to chicken nuggets, a product Tyson created for McDonald’s, here’s part of the description: “The nugget recipe involved forty-pound frozen blocks of chicken parts: three blocks of chicken breast; two of ground skeleton mixed with blood, necks, and other bits; and one of chicken skin and fat. Victor began his shift by using a crowbar to open the frozen boxes of chicken parts. In his experience, ‘Many times, the chicken is rotten. It smells. It arrives like a rock. When we open it, it is already a different color, not pink. It is green or purple.’”(1)

I know, it’s a shocking and disgusting description. But it’s real. This book has been painstakingly fact-checked. And it’s knowledge. And knowledge is power.

So why aren’t the alleged harsh conditions, inadequate medical treatment, and child labor in the food industry front and center on the news? Well, as you know, money is also power. Besides, in 2024, John Tyson brought the Arkansas (where Tyson Foods is headquartered) Razorbacks a hall of fame basketball coach. And we all look to sports for role models.

Also, there are Ag-Gag laws in some states. Arkansas is one. Enacted in 2017, the law seeks to gag whistleblowers and undercover activists and empowers businesses to sue whistleblowers for exposing the truth about industrial agriculture. Arkansas’ law goes further by banning undercover investigations of nursing homes and daycare centers.

It is hard to see economically successful members of our communities as anything but upstanding and morally centered. And they sometimes are. But the bigger story may be more complicated.

To get to know your food, you may also get to know sad, unspeakable abuse. And you may learn some unpleasant truths about people you have trusted. That’s how it is with truth knowing. Many truths are heartbreaking.

But embracing knowledge, shouldering heartbreak, and deciding what we can and are willing to do to make things better is a more courageous choice than looking away or trying to whitewash the story.

Want to make informed choices? Read Alice Driver’s book, I am. It’s an important way to get to know your food.

(1) Driver, A. (2024). Life and death of the American worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company. Simon and Schuster, p41.