My Spring Break

As you may know, my wife and I had a baby girl, named Maya Kate, on March 22nd at 8:28 am. With that being said, I spent most of my Spring break with this fiery, little bundle of joy. It is certainly amazing to have a child, but at the same time it is hard. My life used to be mostly about doing what I wanted to do, however, now even just getting some sleep is difficult. I can no longer just look after myself and my wife, but now am responsible for a little girl as well. It is an exciting, but scary responsibility.

I will be taking two weeks off to be with my wife and new baby. I will return on Monday, April 14th.  Until then I hope that all of you will work hard with Mrs. Plainfield and when I come back I will be able to see that you were able to complete the work. I hope that I can bring little Maya to school sometime and have show and tell with you all.

I am also very interested in what you guys did over your Spring break. Did you go anywhere special? Did you do anything exciting? What was the best part? What was the worst part (if there is ever a bad part about having no school)? Leave a comment and let me know. Remember to write appropriate comments on the blog!

Maya Kate Enns!!

My wife, Mary, and I had a baby girl on Saturday, March 22nd at 8:28am. She weighed 8 lbs and 10 ounces and was 21 inches long. She is a beauty.

USA Health Care and Medicine - Part 2

Medication, or Pills, for Everything??

Everywhere you turn these days there are advertisements for the next pill that is supposed to cure some sickness or in some way make your life better. Pick up a magazine and you'll find an ad for medication on nearly every other page, along with a page describing the side effects (bad things) that can happen from taking it.

In fact, pharmaceutical companies (the ones making all the medications) spend twice as much money on advertising for their medications than on research and development. That means that they spend twice as much money promoting the use of their medications compared to researching their effectiveness (how well they work) and health risks (the problems that could arise from taking them).

Does it seem like the number one priority of the health community should be promoting their products or services?

Medications are being overused and abused throughout America. Does all the advertising contribute to this?

What can we do to combat the abuse of medicine? Think back to last week's blog post...if we thought more about maintaining health, instead of a cure-all pill, it might make overuse of medicine less of a problem.

USA Health Care and Medicine - Part 1

Treating Sickness vs. Promoting Health

I don't know about your experiences with the health care system (hospitals), but I usually go to see the doctor when I am not feeling well. In the United States we think of getting checked out only when something's wrong. This makes sense because none of us want to have to pay money unless we really need to; unless we are really sick.

However, this affects our thinking. It seems that in the United States we think about treating, or fixing, sickness instead of promoting, or encouraging, overall body health. We focus on pills in this country as the cure for everything without putting a lot of thought into how our lifestyles could be healthier.

What are some ways that people might focus more on promoting heath, instead of just treating sickness? Here are just a few ideas:

• Drinking water - important for many body functions
• Eating healthy food
• Daily exercise
• Seeing a chiropractor or massage therapist once in a while
• Getting enough sleep
• Make sure you have time to relax/kick back
  
• Hanging out and talking with friends - For Real!! - helps us relax and talk about what's going on in our lives (good and bad) with other people
  

What do you guys think?

Do you agree that we focus too much on fixing health problems and not enough on keeping ourselves from having health problems by living healthier?

What are some things you could do to promote health in your life?