News

I am very happy to congratulate our very own Non-executive Director, Dr Yasmin Ahmed-Little, who is in a three medic race for the impressively youthful sounding title, 'Junior Doctor of the Year'.

 

She has an accomplished record in areas of medicine and medical management and the field of public health, her new chosen career, will be all the stronger for her expertise. We wish her all the luck for the BMJ awards on May 18th.

 

This is in stark contrast to my feelings towards the looming millstone of my 40th birthday. Associated with this gloom is a strangely renewed interest in all health related warnings. According to the Department of Health (see 'Who, what, why: How much red meat should we eat?' BBC News. 25 February 2011), we should be eating, on average, no more than two sausages worth of red meat a week. So bang goes my Sunday morning bacon and eggs, Tuesday’s slab of cow and Thursday’s lunch time bowl of Chile.

 

If I am honest with myself, I know that my last 25 years of meat eating has been a little excessive. But, as more and more health news shows, I am not alone in behaving in potentially self harming ways. Most people know that being overweight is likely to cause problems, and guzzling units of alcohol is at best unwise. But if we know these behaviours are bad for us, why do we continue? Solving this conundrum is, I believe, where the field of public health should focus its attention – on the confused and irrational mind of the citizen. We have access to the information, we know the dangers of excess and yet we still indulge.

 

In a fantastic book, 'Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions' (Harper/HarperCollins 2008), author Daniel Ariely describes a number of odd human behaviours which are the result of irrational unconscious mental activity. Our unfavourable treatment of ourselves by ourselves is one example of this predictably irrational behaviour.

 

The talking therapies, cognitive behavioural therapy and methods of level (another highly effective therapy based on perceptive control theory) have recently been promoted as highly effective treatments for mental health problems. But they should not be reserved for only those with clinical problems. I believe that the vast majority of public health issues stem from unhappy and unhealthy minds. People eat and drink too much because they are bored, unhappy stressed or have developed unhealthy ways of positive reinforcement. It is not an easy task to undo your unconscious ways. A little taking therapy can go a long way in helping the superficially mentally well. The discipline of public health needs to understand that at the heart of the problems is not a lack of information but a lack of mental well being and that we could probably all benefit from a little talking therapy.

 

If you have any comments or questions about this blog post please email info@zircadian.com