October 24, 2019
fizkes/istock.com
According to a recent survey, 64% of Americans say that they are too busy to properly take care of their health. That includes eating healthier and exercising regularly.
How your fellow Americans feel about their health may surprise you. According to a recent survey, 64% of Americans say that they are too busy to properly take care of their health.
To get a better pulse on how people in the United States feel about their health, One Poll and Elysium Health surveyed 2,000 Americans not only about on their own health habits, but also what they think are the most important factors impacting their health.
Other interesting findings from the survey, published in the New York Post, include:
• 71% of people reported that they do not maintain consistently healthy habits.
• They would be willing to spend more than $20,000 for good health.
• When it comes to what factors drive good health, 53% said that exercise was the most important; 45% reported that diet played a big role.
Despite valuing exercise and diet, 39% of respondents said they do not exercise enough and 64% said that eating healthy is too expensive. Another surprising finding was that 63% didn't plan to worrying about their health too much until they were older.
"People generally think that aging is an unstoppable force that they just have to accept," Elysium Health CEO Eric Marcotulli told the New York Post, "But it's not."
He added that "healthy aging is actually what dictates our overall health, and it's something we have control over."
So why do some of us struggle so much with eating right and exercise?
A Verywellfit article suggests the diet part is because junk food is so tempting. It is cheap, easy and hits all our cravings.
And how about the time crunch we all feel? Is there really not enough time to practice healthy habits? Kira M. Newman in the Washington Post posits some interesting theories on this.
Newman suggests that the time pressure we feel may be more subjective than we realize, and that when we are passionate about what we are doing, and feel more in control of how we spend our time, that time pressure lessens.
Conflicting goals pulling us in different directions could also be a factor, she wrote.
Perhaps our mindset towards healthy living matters more than we realize.
