“Unnecessary Care: Are Doctors In Denial, and Is Profit Driven Health Care To Blame?“, is the title of a feature article in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) published on 10/2/12. The article is about a newly launched movement by medical doctors challenging the basic assumption in U.S. healthcare, that more is better.

• High numbers of questionable surgeries.
• Unproven treatment modalities.
• Unnecessary interventions cost between $250 to $800 billion annually.
• Overly aggressive treatment causes 30,000 deaths annually.

Fitness professionals know that regular exercise, maintaining a normal weight, and healthy eating will keep you out of trouble.  This simple message hasn’t sunk in to the general public.  The sad result is poor health, chronic disease, and early death.

Our culture doesn’t encourage good health.  Junk food is promoted to children and adults.  Instead of designing cities and towns with walking in mind, urban sprawl makes car dependency necessary in most of the country. Obesity beauty contests emerge as American women get bigger.

In his book, Medical Nemesis, Ivan Illich wrote about medicine doing more harm than good.  Published in 1982, he asserted, “the medical establishment has become a major threat to health.”

In her book, Overtreated: How Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, Sharon Brownlee, explores the problem of overtreatment in America.  She found that America’s per capita spending is rising, but life expectancy is not.

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Copyright 2012 Irene Pastore and Blue Moon Personal Training