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Dr K M Vani is a specialist gynaecologist in KIMS Bahrain Medical Centre in Um Al Hassam and has 30 years' experience in the clinical field with special interest in infertility and its treatment.
She says the number of infertility cases is on the increase and there is strong evidence that unhealthy lifestyles are a contributing factor alongside a number of other lifestyle- related diseases.
She is a strong advocate in implementing and propagating healthy measures to contain 'this industry-driven malady'. To this effect she has given lectures in various associations and clubs in Bahrain and published articles on the subject.
Dr Vani, left, believes healthcare centres should take special precautionary measures in order to reduce preventable conditions and illnesses. Patient-centred care is the watchword in today's delivery of healthcare. She has gained internationally-recognised training and certification in patient safety and risk management.
Could this economic recession be the prescription for a healthy lifestyle?
Maybe this could be the God-sent answer for the man-made malady 'obesity'.
The World Health Organisation is very concerned about the rise in obesity and other lifestyle-related diseases. Bahrain too is not exempt from it.
In an article in the New York Times titled 'In bad economic times - Are people healthier', it is said that people tend not to take care of themselves during boom times. They drink too much, dine on fat-laden restaurant meals, skip exercise and doctors' appointment due to work-related time commitments. "The value of time is higher during economic times," said Grant Miller, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford.
The human system has got the remarkable ability to mould to physical and social turbulence and the psychological immunity adapts to thrive in a world people are put to.
Though the initial apathy due to unemployment and salary cuts would lead to a reactionary stress, binge eating, increased tendency to self-harm and suicide, the long-term effects seem to bring out a positive physical health.
In the US for every one per cent rise in unemployment, the mortality rate goes down by 0.5 per cent, states Dr Christopher Ruhm, professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina.
Recession has lead to downsizing of heads in the corporate sector. Individuals who were given jobs to meet the industrial lust and corporate greed are left jobless, or live in perennial fear of losing it.
Auto majors are closing down their redundant units, set up in much pomp, to roll out state-of-the-art vehicles to suit the palate of pleasure of the affluent ones. Many of the time-tested multinational food industries are facing mergers or shut down.
The economic meltdown has made many think-tank to find out ways and means of cutting costs and revamping the system to suit the present day shakeup and onslaught it has suffered.
The G-20 nations concluded at a recent summit in Pittsburg that a new world order in economic policies should be instituted to bear the brunt of the burnt out economic candle.
The governments are dishing out special stimulus packages which disappear like a drop in the ocean.
And, this is how the whole world, the governments and the society are bailing themselves out of the financial tsunami and the aftershocks of it. It is as if the clock has rewound itself by a decade or two to offset the effect of the fast forward economic pace, with which the world was rocketing to, before it could come to a grinding halt.
Needless to say that it has affected each individual who are the axons of this global network. This has set the stage for much research activities and counterintuitive dialogues on the ripples created and specifically on each individual and his health.
Pension and life insurance provider, Friends Provident, has revealed that 10 million British people were feeling fitter and healthier now than at this time last year, due to recession-induced lifestyle changes. Fifty-seven per cent of the people intend to do more to keep their body and health under care.
This means fewer people are eating readymade meals and takeaways. This has also made them 'dust their cook books' and started preparing homemade food and replacement of junk food with home grown vegetables. Twenty-eight per cent of the respondents have taken to less drinking. The financial pressure coupled with personal motivation has led them to view their health and life with priority.
Many have plans to quit smoking. In The UK, the No Smoking Day charity found that one in three is thinking about or planning to quit smoking as a direct result of the financial crisis.
Arguably, this may not hold water for the economically underprivileged, and I may sound like a devil's advocate, but it is for those at the affluent end of the spectrum, with obesity and lifestyle-related diseases. Thus, positive attitude in a negative financial downturn makes way for a healthy life.
As the credit crunch bites, let us learn to take smaller bites and start tightening our belts. And ... let us not forget the adage ... HEALTH IS WEALTH.
