Healthy Privilege, Social Fabric, Education — Perspective means a lot.

Perhaps writing about health matters from the perspective of a cardiologist/bike racer is a little like parenting: At times the message seems less than compassionate, even though it’s born out of concern for others, knowledge and a tincture of middle-age experience. The many excellent comments on my recent telomere/heart-health post stirred me to write a little more–about perspective and mindfulness. Let’s just get to the comments and I’ll expand. The first one comes from Carolyn Thomas of the HeartSisters blog. My hunch is that you are speaking from the perspective of a competitive cyclist, meaning that you enjoy what Dr. Ann Becker-Schutte calls “Healthy Privilege”, and for whom the prospect of patients (never mind AHA presidents) being unwilling/unable to embrace Ornish lifestyle makeovers is hard to comprehend. Perspective is an important consideration. I like to talk about parallax—that is, how the same image can look differently depending on the position of the lens. The truth needs to be told about my perspective. It is true that I have been gifted good enough health to race bikes competitively (locally at least). It’s also true that I once was overweight, out of shape and hypertensive. In medical school and residency, I weighed well over 200 pounds. I got that way by eating too much and moving too little. One Sunday, after a Jim McKay broadcast of the NY Marathon, I went for a run. It felt good. The next day I went for another run. Then I bough...
Source: Dr John M - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: blogs