Health, worry and the human stomach

SIKAMAN is gradually becoming a health-conscious nation because piles is now a national disease. Some natives claim that piles, alias kooko, has gone on strike and has attacked different parts of their bodies — buttocks, forehead, inner ear, inner nose, lips, and hair. Now they do not know where next it would attack, and soon a petition would be sent to Parliament to declare piles a national tragedy.

It is interesting when you consider the way people assume that even common malaria is caused by kooko. Well, the medical authorities have come out to say that piles is a disease of only the last end of the alimentary canal. It has a name. Go and check the name in your biology textbook, or ask the nearest herbalist.

The health consciousness of the average Sikaman native is not limited to kooko, though. People are becoming very much aware of their pot-bellies. They can’t be carrying it all their lives, taking into consideration that half the time, it is laden with gallons of beer.

Even Kwame Alomele is gradually trying to unload the burden that precedes him. “I no longer have the stamina to carry a pot. I am now health-inclined and want to be a slim-macho, doing a sport. I am applying to be a member of a golf club and hope to do wonders with the tiny ball. Fact is I want to be up-and-doing like Gordon Avernogbor, the Grandmaster of GBC fame.”

The media have helped to carry this health idea far. Ghana Television does weekly health programmes, and the FM stations have various programmes and tit-bits on health. Radio Gold is on a Diabetes Month health beat, and patients are made to acquire some knowledge about what they may be suffering from and how they can manage their conditions.

In the print media, the Weekly Spectator has singlehandedly launched a powerful health crusade, and the sky is the limit. In fact, the Spectator has been hailed in medical circles as one of the papers that have zealously carried the health mantle aloft in recent times. The Mirror also runs a health column with my good friend Dr. Anyah in the chair.

Tune in to any of the FM stations and you’re likely to hear a health tit-bit that can be useful to you. You’ll hear something like, “if you eat too much yorke gari, you’ll develop coccidiosis, which is a fowl disease. So check the level of gari and beware of zorzor.”

COCKROACH DIET

Well, healthy living in general has to do with healthy eating. At least, that is what the nutritionists say. And the cockroach has been the most qualified nutritionist in the world. The reason is that the common cockroach is so health-conscious that it eats only a balanced diet — anything from rotten fruit to human excreta. It doesn’t reject food.

The experts say fruits and vegetables, which are alkaline in nature, are good for the human body. There is some truth in this. The silver-back bear, perhaps the most powerful animal in the world, is a vegetarian. It can uproot a tree almost effortlessly, and the power in its arms is attributed to its vegetarian diet.

Anyhow, man cannot continue eating fruits and vegetables perpetually as the main diet. The stomach would get bored, the tongue will revolt, and the human body will subconsciously start crying for banku and okro soup plus giant crabs.

Ideally, a balanced diet — carbohydrates, protein, fats and oils, vitamins and minerals — in their correct quantities are enough to ensure healthy living. It means that you can’t fare well when you eat bread in the morning, bread in the afternoon, and kenkey and shito for supper. There would be a traffic jam in your intestines. And believe me, the traffic lights will also go off.

The killer menu is maintained for three days, and you’ll have what is termed as “treasonable constipation,” a sin against your body. No purgative can save you unless rice and okro soup. That combination is the best purgative in town. In 1983, it used to be one of the famous diets in Legon when famine besieged Sikaman. Students had to abandon lectures and stay close to the WC. Anything can happen. You can’t trust your own stomach.

Exercise also begets health, and brisk walking is the golden rule. I have a friend who is a positive thinker, and he told me walking is no problem to him. He once walked from Osu Christianborg to Circle to Abeka and back to Christiansburg.

No ice-water. No one gave him an award, but I congratulated him. Not that the guy is broke and can’t fix himself up in a trotro or taxi. Walking is his hobby. And his health is always excellent, his appetite ever-ready — no need for bitters. As for his sex life, your guess is as good as mine. He can deliver more than AK-47.

Exercise is good, but it must not wear you down. Do not over-exert. What about sex? Research has shown that excessive indulgence in sex is harmful to the central nervous system because it drains the body of its vitality.

Sex is basically for reproduction, but Ghanaman thinks quite differently. Some experts say twice a week or less is just what the body can cope with. Others say abstain and live long.

But what is the body’s most formidable adversary? It is WORRY. Worry has killed many more people than the Second World War did. About 90% of the population are chronic worriers. People are so addicted to worrying that even when there is nothing to worry about, they worry that there is nothing to worry about.

Worry causes hypertension and its attendant complications of heart disease, stroke, renal failure, and mental illness. The question is, how can man stop worrying? There is a formula by which you can stop worrying.

Make a date with Sikaman Palava in the coming weeks and get your formula for longevity, your life without worry.

This article was first published on Saturday, August 16, 1997.