Living in a land that offers plenty; plenty of food, transportation, entertainment, and easy access to the electronic age leaves a burning question for me. What are we lacking if so many things are so easy to obtain?
What could we be lacking when cars, busses, fast food, movie theatres and golf courses are everywhere. How have human connections been impacted? I’m not referring to a 30 second conversation when ordering a meal with the waiter, or even a longer “relationship” with the person who is selling us a car.
I have to wonder in what ways our familial and close community ties have been impacted and if so, has that also made any difference in our health?
Fortunately, there are a number of specialized researchers out there who apparently ponder some of these same questions – and have the means and desire to find out some answers as well.
“The Roseto Effect” is a fascinating study conducted by psychiatrists amongst an Italian-American community in Pennsylvania in a town called Roseto. This study spanned over 30 years starting in the 1950’s involving this group of immigrants who were very poor but shared many of the same eating habits as neighboring areas.
In short, the study found that these people had longer life spans and were overall much healthier than their neighboring counterparts. This was true in spite of the aforementioned risk factors including smoking and lack of regular exercise.
The conclusion was not that this group of people was somehow genetically gifted – as future generations began to decline health wise. Rather, it was determined that initially while they maintained their very tight links to their families and community they also maintained good health. Over time, they started taking on the same self contained habits of the outer lying areas, and in essence acquired the same poor health issues.
Close personal connections, especially feelings of love and perhaps caretaking directly and positively affect our health even when habits traditionally considered bad for us are still present. This is further supported by something I philosophized on in a previous article relating to how pets lead to these same feelings of love and in return positively affect our health.
We do not have to be part of a large family to inject ourselves into a community. We may just have to be a little more creative and open in order to acquire the sense of community. Watching a movie can be great entertainment, but it is a very solitary activity which requires no interaction with anyone else.
On the other hand, discussing a movie, book and personal values with others does create a connection. Asking the waiter where he or she is from or going to school etc. rather than just inquiring about today’s special also initiates closer personal ties.
Being self entertained can still be good and force some internal reflection in understanding who we are as people. But denying these very important family or community ties will ultimately shorten our lives unless we tend to them the way we might tend to our cars insuring they are clean and running properly.
I always encourage a healthy lifestyle that includes nutritious meals and physical exercise. But I also strongly encourage all of us to treat our personal relationships with the importance of needing food to sustain life.
I am pleased to share my all natural alternative health programs as well. All programs involve easy to implement exercises and can be done with someone you love who might be struggling with certain health issues. You can check them out on my blog located on the right hand side.
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