I suppose we all want to live a long and healthy life so any health news in the media is bound to catch our attention. But over the years I have come to realise that so much of the advice contradicts what has been said before that there is probably little point in taking any of it very seriously.
For example, for many years we have been warned of the dangers of exposing our skin to the sun as we could be putting ourselves at risk of skin cancers. But by keeping our children in and smothering them in sun cream, vitamin D deficiency is on the increase meaning doctors are seeing more cases of rickets. Having low levels of vitamin D it is claimed in the press today could also ‘raise your risk of high blood pressure.’ Sunshine accounts for 90 per cent of the body’s vitamin D supply and it is essential for the immune system, healthy bones and teeth, and the absorption of calcium. Vitamin D is also found in oily fish and the Mediterranean diet has long been advocated as a beneficial regime to a healthy lifestyle. Yet today, heart attack survivors have been, for the first time, advised against eating too much oily fish, taking omega-3 supplements or food fortified with omega-3. Heart attack survivors had previously been advised to eat two to three portions of oily fish – such as herring or mackerel – a week. The draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) says new treatments have made this approach redundant.
And do you remember when taking a single aspirin a day was supposedly sensible preventative action against heart attacks, in healthy people any protection against cardiovascular disease, we later learned, may be outweighed by an increased risk of internal bleeding. Suddenly aspirins were bad news. I have always been puzzled by alcohol advice; “Alcohol is good for your heart—but too much is a health hazard.” However, if one were to follow the Mediterranean diet as recommended by physicians and doctors all over the world as being the best diet for all-round good health, one would consume two to three glasses of red wine per day. This is surely above the current permissible number of units of alcohol that is accepted as the safe amount of alcohol to drink weekly. More contradictory advice.
How does one differentiate the good advice from the bad? Firstly, in my opinion, one has to look at the newspapers reporting the story. In my experience, the red tops and the other tabloids sensationalise and print a story on the smallest premise. Time and again, health-care and lifestyle articles are reported on barely a shred of evidence and on further investigation, it proves almost impossible to establish the source of the information.The media must take a responsible lead in the way that it informs us of these issues. The current situation is totally unacceptable with so much contradictory advice reported that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. We urgently need a single source of medical and lifestyle advice. Is Public Health England the answer?
Totally agree! And nobody knows contradictory advice like a mother does. Especially if you have spread your childbearing out to cover several years. Classic examples being – “Wait till four months till you wean your baby. By six months your baby SHOULD be eating solids” changed a few years later to, “Wait till six months to wean your baby.” None of my babies listened to any of this advice and began solids when they felt like them, falling either side of the permitted margins every time.
“Don’t worry, your baby will be born when it’s ready”, changed almost overnight to “We usually book you in for induction after ten days overdue”.
Contradictory breastfeeding advice was actually more harmful to me, as a clueless, first-time mum, than no advice at all and included, “Make the baby wait four hours in between feeds, so your milk supply builds up.”, “Feed constantly, all day, all night, so your milk supply is stimulated” “Swap sides, halfway through” “Empty one side before you switch over” Aaaagggghhhhhhhhh!!
Oh and of course if you are pregnant, you have to make sure you watch how much tuna, swordfish and shark you are eating (don’t we all!), because of all the aluminium that it contains. When I quizzed the midwife to see exactly how much I was allowed to eat, it worked out at a lot more than I would have wanted to eat anyway and A LOT less aluminium than the baby will be injected with when it goes in for it’s routine vaccinations!! But us mums aren’t supposed to do complicated maths like that, we’re supposed to just do as we’re told of course ……………………………..
And then we are are told that pregnancy food cravings are your body’s way of telling you what it needs and what minerals it may be lacking in, but nobody ever tells you what to do if you are craving tuna, swordfish or shark!!!
What I often find with contradictory advice is a disgraceful manipulation of statistics. “Twenty five percent of people will catch XXXXXXXXX ………” Which could read as “Seventy five percent of people WON’T catch XXXXXXXXX ……” but which doesn’t sound so interesting to read! It’s like that pregnancy service that could discover the sex of the baby very early on and deemed itself to be 40% accurate. One wag wrote in to the radio and suggested that parents having this scan and being told they had a girl/boy, should assume the opposite and thereby have themselves a 60% accurate result for the same money!
I am a believer in “a little of what you like won’t hurt you” for most things. I’m not going to refuse a tuna salad if I really fancy one, just because I’ve maxed out on oily fish for the week and I know myself how I will feel in the morning if I drink two glasses of red wine tonight (even if it is supposed to be completely safe).
I think, sometimes, the best advice is to give the general public a bit of credit for common sense and intuition because only when people take responsibility for their own health, will they tune in to their bodies and learn what works best. No more parenting books (especially the ones written by women who have only ‘observed’ babies and never actually pushed one out!!!) would be a good start too.
Just as there are many ways of getting things wrong, there are also many ways of getting things RIGHT and if it works for you, then it works.