In my pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle, I gave my view on the some­what sen­si­tive is­sue of obe­si­ty, high­light­ing the ef­fects of ‘fat sham­ing’ on peo­ple’s men­tal states and their prob­a­ble re­sult­ing be­hav­iour from such hu­mil­i­a­tion. I want to con­tin­ue a bit down that path to­day. Let us talk about the im­por­tance of be­hav­iour change, us­ing obe­si­ty as the pri­ma­ry ex­am­ple.

With em­ploy­ees spend­ing longer hours at the job and health is­sues tak­ing a toll on cor­po­ra­tions’ bot­tom lines, cor­po­rate well­ness pro­grammes are an im­por­tant pre­scrip­tion for this grow­ing glob­al prob­lem. We know the dis­eases that ac­count for the ma­jor­i­ty of health­care costs such as, heart dis­ease, di­a­betes and can­cer, can be pre­vent­ed by a healthy di­et and lifestyle, hence the term ‘lifestyle dis­eases.’ Yet the in­ci­dence of these chron­ic con­di­tions con­tin­ues to rise. That is why it can’t be “busi­ness as usu­al” for cor­po­rate well­ness.

You may have heard many per­sons say­ing that it is an ho­n­our and bless­ing to care for a par­ent or some­one else. Al­though it is a re­ward­ing ex­pe­ri­ence to be a care­giv­er, there are al­so many chal­lenges that come with it; some that may lead to ex­treme health con­di­tions, not for the Ca­ree in this case, but for the Care­giv­er.

Dry eye syn­drome or dry eyes oc­cur when eyes are un­able to ef­fi­cient­ly pro­duce nat­ur­al tears. Tears play im­por­tant roles in en­sur­ing healthy eyes. An ad­e­quate and con­sis­tent lay­er of tears on the sur­face of the eye is vi­tal to keep your eyes healthy, com­fort­able and see­ing well. Tears keep the eye’s sur­face moist and wash away dust, de­bris and mi­croor­gan­isms that could dam­age the cornea and lead to an eye in­fec­tion.

World Im­mu­niza­tion Week—cel­e­brat­ed in the last week of April—aims to pro­mote the use of vac­cines to pro­tect peo­ple of all ages against dis­ease. Im­mu­ni­sa­tion saves mil­lions of lives every year and is wide­ly recog­nised as one of the world’s most suc­cess­ful and cost-ef­fec­tive health in­ter­ven­tions. Yet, there are still near­ly 20 mil­lion un­vac­ci­nat­ed and un­der-vac­ci­nat­ed chil­dren in the world to­day. The theme for World Im­mu­niza­tion Week this year as se­lect­ed by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) is Pro­tect­ed To­geth­er: Vac­cines Work! The cam­paign will cel­e­brate ‘Vac­cine He­roes’ from around the world—from par­ents and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to health work­ers and in­no­va­tors—who help en­sure we are all pro­tect­ed through the pow­er of vac­cines.

This week­end is East­er, which means most of T&T has from Holy Thurs­day to East­er Mon­day off (from work). Most peo­ple use the days off to go on a mi­ni va­ca­tion or spend time with fam­i­ly, but if there are no plans on your agen­da, here are a few tips to help you use it wise­ly.

“For just as the body is one and yet has many parts, and all the parts, though many, form one body, so it is with Christ.” 1 Corinthi­ans 12:12 (AMP)

Stress and anx­i­ety are huge is­sues for a lot of peo­ple, but one of the biggest stres­sors for many, is the be­lief that they do not have enough time to get things done. I am sure you have thought about how much more you would achieve if you on­ly had a few more hours in the day. Doesn’t it seem that if you had more time, you could ac­com­plish more every day and move to­ward larg­er goals even soon­er?

Morn­ings are usu­al­ly a rush and be­cause of that, many peo­ple eat the same thing every day for the week. While eat­ing the same foods every day makes meal plan­ning sim­ple, when you eat the same foods re­peat­ed­ly, you are miss­ing out on oth­er im­por­tant nu­tri­ents in all the foods you are not eat­ing. If you are stuck in a rut when it comes to break­fast ideas, here is a week full of op­tions to keep the va­ri­ety in your first meal of the day.

The feel­ing of be­ing caught be­tween a rock and hard place, is so re­al when you are a care­giv­er. The ex­haus­tion and feel­ings of help­less­ness, and hope­less­ness bring with them neg­a­tive thoughts. It is im­por­tant to un­der­stand and re­alise when these neg­a­tive thoughts oc­cur, it is a sign of de­pres­sion and may not ac­cu­rate­ly re­flect the sit­u­a­tion.

Why did my child de­vel­op autism? It’s a ques­tion of­ten asked by par­ents who have a child with the de­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­der. As physi­cians, we try to ad­dress that ques­tion through­out our prac­tice, but autism, in fact, is not a sin­gle con­di­tion; it is a spec­trum of dis­or­ders. At one end we have a child who is non-ver­bal and can­not speak, so he us­es tech­nol­o­gy to com­mu­ni­cate his thoughts and his con­cerns, and if he gets up­set enough, can be­come vi­o­lent to­wards oth­ers or him/her­self. At the oth­er end of the spec­trum, we have a child who is quite re­mark­able and gift­ed in math­e­mat­ics, yet, when it comes to try­ing to have a con­ver­sa­tion or be­ing so­cial, these things are for more dif­fi­cult to him than oth­ers. What be­comes con­fus­ing to many par­ents, is that both of these chil­dren have the same di­ag­no­sis of Autism Spec­trum Dis­or­der (ASD).

For some­one who isn’t look­ing to get a sug­ar high for East­er, a bas­ket filled with a va­ri­ety of teas may be a bet­ter op­tion. Get a range of teas with a pur­pose such as sleep as­sis­tance and im­prove­ment in gut health or di­ges­tion. You’re not on­ly as­sist­ing with the re­ceiv­er’s health, but giv­ing them a means to re­lax and en­joy a sooth­ing sip.