Health matters : How to enjoy a healthy Life throughout your life Journey

Making the right decisions on health


Have you ever met someone between the ages of 50 to 60 years, without a single wrinkle on his or her face? If you try to find out the reason the person looks so pretty, beautiful, handsome, dynamic, and attractive (without plastic surgery), one can tell you the secret behind that healthy life.


In our past and present society, many think that a successful, healthy life is to enjoy. In what way? Excessive drinking, smoking, going to nightclubs and parties, prostituting, and doing drugs. 

As a matter of fact, people who heavily hang upon such life entertainments are rather inviting sickness and disease to take its toll on their health.


Some sicknesses, life turmoils, and diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, stroke, depression, frustration, and mental disorders, can be prevented, but the lifestyle of people and what they eat turns their lives upside down, with chronic health hazards deteriorating their physical beings.

The question is `why do people choose to bring misery on themselves and their homes, by inflicting wounds on themselves, knowing perfectly well the aftermath consequences? Excessive drinking and smoking can cause heart, kidney, and lung cancer, yet many people can`t avoid the temptation of these destructive elements.


Some people eat too much. They keep on eating unhealthy food until they start experiencing serious health problems. Being fat can keep one restless, not able to walk properly, and the legs may likely get swollen because the weight of the body now hangs on your legs that can`t carry the body`s weight any longer.

For healthy living, free from ailments at a ripe age, people should avoid much alcohol, smoking, and excessive eating. Eating healthy food, such as vegetables and fruits, can keep one younger and stronger than eating fast food outside your home.

TEENAGE LOVE AFFAIR LEADS TO EARLY SEPARATION AND DIVORCE

 Early teenage lovers

Many couples, seen with or without children, had friendships that began at school as teenagers, before they married or settled together. 

In principle, it is always good for people to study and know each other very well before entering into relations or love affairs.

Children's and teenagers' liberty in advanced countries can’t be compared to that of African children and teenagers. 

For example, in Africa, children are severely punished when they do wrong, but in Europe or America, punishing a child could lead to many problems. One may even end up in prison for punishing their son or their own daughter.

The rate of divorce and separation is very high in advanced countries, so I looked back to review why divorce is very low in Africa. 

In Africa, it is a gross disrespect to parents when a sixteen-year-old child comes home to introduce his girlfriend or her boyfriend. However, in advanced countries, it is permitted.

Children as young as thirteen and fourteen indulged in caressing and kissing. This could go on until they go their separate ways or settle. When they finally get married, the love isn't as strong as before; in this case, the marriage doesn't go far. 

Both have seen their nakedness too much when they were teenagers, to the extent that they don't value their precious bodies any longer.

Here, the dignity and the worthiness of the woman have been neglected by the man. It is always the man who causes the breakup because he wants something new. 

A woman or man may find real happiness in life, marriage, living together, or in relationships when they enter into love affairs as adults rather than as teenagers.

That is the reason in Africa, separation and divorce are less common than in advanced countries. 

Europe, America, Japan, Korea, and other advanced countries are far ahead in development, education, and technology, compared to Africa, yet the rate of divorce, separation, and suicide is higher than in Africa.

Smoking is like a fashion among teenagers in advanced countries, but it’s less common in Africa. Teenage pregnancy is booming in Europe and America, while it’s less common in Africa. 

It's time for advanced countries to stop underestimating Africa and learn something from that continent. Africa is called a poor continent, but Europe and America forget that they made the continent poor by depending on its resources.

A GENERATION OF DISOBEDIENT CHILDREN

A defiant child

" A wise child accepts a parent's discipline, a mocker refuses to listen to correction."

There are so many verses in the Bible that speak about children. The one stated above at 'Proverbs 13:1' is my favorite. Parents can never be happy when a child fails to listen to them. 

Every adult was once a child, but not every child has reached adulthood. Parents, therefore, have the experience to bring up a child in the most disciplined manner to build a good future for the child.

It's unfortunate that today, our children are those who are trying to tell their parents that they know better than them. The way children are stubbornly behaving these days evidently tells us that we are now in a very wrong generation. 

Imagine your only daughter, whom you want to give the best education, is now pregnant at the age of fourteen because every correction given to her was ignored.

I visited a family in Antwerp. I have been there many times to see them because Sabrina's husband helps to fix my computer any time it breaks down. 

My last visit was a very sad one. I have made up my mind never to go there again due to what I witnessed. Out of her children, one of her daughters, at fourteen, is the only one who is bringing misery, disrespect, and discomfort to her family.

"Imagine my own child calling me a prostitute, throwing things, including a knife, at me. She has been throwing any object her hands could get at me and her father." Said Sabrina in tears. 

"It hurts so much when a child you love turns against you because of correction. At the age of fourteen, she wants to go out. I did allow her once, but she came home very late. 

We were scared of her safety, so we decided not to give her that chance again. This made us a devil in her eyes." Sabrina concluded.

The question is, "What is happening to our children that they simply do not like to listen to corrections? What are they looking for? It is now a fashion to see children smoking and sleeping around with young boys. 

It is like when a child hasn't had sex with a boy, she is a 'Mummy's child'-not brave. So young girls are now having sex indiscriminately with young boys. 

These young boys team up at cinema houses, squares, and amusement places to discuss the sex they had with these girls. This is morally wrong.

Would a mother spoil the child and spare the rod, because the child wouldn't listen? That mustn't be the solution. Whether a child is difficult or not, it is always the responsibility of the parents to put a little common sense into the child's stubborn head. 

Parents mustn't forget that whenever anything bad happens to the child, they will be held responsible. So parents mustn't give up. They can always seek the best counseling for a troublesome child through many organizations.

GOD CAN'T BE BLAMED FOR OUR OWN ERRORS

The beauty of God's creation

Once, a couple desperate for a child but never had one, said to me, "It's hard to live without a child when you love your wife dearly. We aim to have children, but we have never had one." 

I asked the man, who is in his early forties, if he had ever made that request to God.

"Is there any God at all? If there is, then he is a very wicked God." That was his answer. I asked him, if you do not believe that God exists, and never seek for him, why then does he seem wicked to you when you have no experience with him?". He laughed.

Mistakes, crime, frustration, drug addiction, and sins are caused by individuals. Everyone knows right from wrong, but simply ignores doing the right thing and follows their desire, lust, and selfishness, without thinking of the Holy Bible or God. But when things get bad along the line, God is always blamed for our wrongdoings.

For example, a pregnant woman knows perfectly well that smoking and drinking alcohol are health hazards to an unborn child. Yet they ignore all those health hazards, by smoking, drinking, and even doing drugs sometimes. 

Yet after delivery, when the poor baby becomes a handicapped child, the blame is shifted to God. Many handicapped children were caused by the parents themselves, even though some were caused by biological problems or heredity.  

One may never experience the spiritual presence of God if you don't seek his face. The sweet flavor of a food doesn't guarantee its deliciousness; one needs to taste it. 

Another point is, alcoholic pregnant women, giving birth to handicapped children, must desist blaming God; instead, they must refrain from alcohol, smoking, and drugs during pregnancy.

ADOLESCENT NICOTINE VICTIMS LACK BRAINS

Nicotine effects

How smoking could affect the brains of the young

Adolescents who smoke bring irreparable damage to their brains. Their concentration decreases, and impulsivity increases. 


"This could mean that early smoking contributes to the development of attention and impulsivity disorders such as ADHD," said Sabrine Nail (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

A university in Amsterdam, examining the effect of nicotine, put rats into a cage where lights were installed in five holes. 

If a light was burning, the rats had their snouts as quickly as possible through the corresponding hole, stabbing. Which yielded a reward. Rats that underwent puberty got nicotine administered, and performed 5 to 10 percent worse.

At the time that a lot of attention was requested, they missed a light, "says researcher Sabine Spijker of De Volkskrant. Their concentration was found due to nicotine bloodstream deteriorating their impulsiveness.

LESS CONCENTRATION

If you translate this to people, you're talking about young people who start smoking between the twelfth and sixteenth, "says Nail. In later life would be that workers who do it are fine. 

But once it becomes extremely difficult, they seek to hook them off sooner than others. They can not quite keep their attention.

The researchers discovered that nicotine in adolescents leads to a permanent reduction of a specific protein, mGluR2, in the part of the brains that regulate attention and concentration. The protein can be stimulated with drugs, and that can also lead to less attention stimulated, but this only works temporarily.

ADULT BRAINS

All rats that indulged in nicotine in adulthood had no problems with continuing problems because their brains were already formed. The brains of rats and humans are very similar. 

The researchers are therefore observing comparable effects in humans and cause so addictive substances like nicotine permanent damage to young brains. 

But such research is not repeated in humans, for ethical reasons: the young people who would participate in smoking and thus would learn would be at a big risk of getting addicted to cigarettes.