CHANGING
N. Milio
It is a paradox that health professionals, in their efforts to improve people's health-related practices, seem to expect more of the ordinary consumer than they do of themselves. Almost all patient and consumer health education assumes, explicitly, that if people know what is most healthful, they will do it.
Perhaps the most obvious test of this assumption is to look at health professionals themselves. If knowing what is health-generating were directly related to doing, then surely we in the health field would be among the most robust in the nation, slim, agile, nonsmoking, temperate eaters of complementary protein, low fat and cholesterol, low-sucrose, and nonrefined carbohydrate foods, avoiders of drugging levels of alcohol and other artificial moodchangers, evenly paced in our daily patterns. This picture is obviously nonexistent. Nor do we expect it to exist. Most will recognize that it is not much more likely for a physician earning $85,000 a year to change his life pattern than for a $6,000-a-year hospital aide to do so. However, the potential for lifestyle change, the array of options available to these two individuals, may differ considerably.
