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Staying healthy in India is becoming something that only rich people can afford. It is really sad that people who do not have a lot of money are not able to get the care they need. Staying healthy in India is a problem for many people. People in India who are not rich have to spend all their money on doctor visits and medicine when they get sick. This means they do not have money for other things they need. Staying healthy in India is becoming very expensive.
Some of the reasons why staying healthy in India is so expensive are because of the cost of hospital visits and the cost of medicine. Staying healthy in India is something that everyone should be able to do. It is not that way anymore. Staying healthy in India is becoming a luxury that only rich people can afford.
Being healthy in India was pretty simple in the past. People used to eat food made at home. They would walk around a lot. Do physical work. When people got sick they thought it was bad luck or because they were getting older.Things are different now. Staying healthy is like a job that needs a lot of things. Money, time, knowledge and you have to keep trying all the time. Staying healthy is really hard now. It feels like you have to work at it every day to stay healthy. People are starting to think that things like gym memberships and diet plans are for the rich. They are also buying sugar- products and getting regular blood tests and doctor visits.They are eating clean food.Most Indians are not doing these things because they cannot afford them. Instead they are eating the food that they can easily get. That does not cost a lot of money. The problem is that this food is not good for them and it is causing them to get sick. Health is not about wanting to be healthy anymore. In India being healthy is something that rich people can do. Poor people often cannot do so. The rich can afford to take care of their health. The poor cannot. This is why health is becoming a luxury like something that only rich people can have and the poor people are left behind.
India is known as the Diabetes Capital of the World. This is actually true. A lot of people in India have diabetes and more people have something called pre-diabetes without realizing it. The thing that is really worrying is that diabetes is not a problem for older people anymore.
Nowadays young people, students in college and even kids in school are getting diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and problems with their hormones. When we talk about this problem, we usually point fingers at sweet foods, like jalebi, gulab jamun or laddoo. The real problem is the sugar we do not see. This hidden sugar gets into our bodies every day. We find it in things like biscuits and breakfast cereals and bread. It is also in sauces and packaged juices and health drinks. Flavored yogurt and diet foods have hidden sugar. These foods all have sugar that we do not know about. The sugar is in biscuits and breakfast cereals and bread and sauces and packaged juices and health drinks and flavored yogurt and diet foods.
Food companies are really smart when it comes to selling their products. They use a trick called the "health halo" effect. When you see words like "digestive" or "high-fiber" or "low-fat" on a package you think the food is good for you. Some packages even say they are "for growing children" or that they can help with "immunity-boosting". Food companies know that when they put these words on the package people will trust that the food is healthy.The thing is, most people do not even look at what is really in the food. The bad part is that when food companies take out the fat they usually add sugar to make it taste good. This happens with food companies and the food they make like food companies taking out fat and adding sugar to the food they make. Some food like a biscuit that looks like it is good for you or a special drink that says it is a nutrition supplement for kids can have a lot of sugar. This sugar can be much as 15 to 20 grams, in just one serving of the biscuit or the nutrition supplement drink. This is the entire amount of sugar that is safe for a child to have in a whole day.
The problem gets worse because sugar is not always called "sugar" on food labels. Sometimes it is hidden behind words like maltodextrin, glucose syrup, invert sugar, corn syrup, dextrose and fructose. For people in India it is really hard to know that these are all types of sugar. What is more, India does not have a system to warn people about sugar on food packages. Sugar is still a problem and sugar is not easy to spot. People do not like to see red warnings on food that say "High in Sugar" or "High in Salt". A lot of products have star ratings or little tables with nutrition information. The problem is that many people do not have the time to look at these tables or they do not know what they mean when they are shopping. So a sugary cereal might look like a choice compared to a regular one. This is because the company that made the cereal is good at marketing sugar cereal. Sugar cereal can look healthy when it is not. This happens because of the way the company markets the sugar cereal.
The situation in India is really bad because of something doctors call TOFI. Thin Outside, Fat Inside. Lots of people in India look fine, they are not too fat or too thin.. The problem is that inside their body they have bad fat around important parts like the liver and pancreas. This bad fat is more dangerous than the fat you can see. That is why many young people who look thin and healthy are getting sick with things like diabetes, fatty liver disease or heart problems. The thing about TOFI- Thin Outside, Fat Inside is that it can hurt people even if they look okay. People look okay on the outside. Their bodies are already having a lot of problems. This is because they have been eating a lot of sugar and bad food for a long time. There is a problem with livers now. It is called -alcoholic fatty liver disease. This disease used to be very rare. Now doctors are seeing it in teenagers and young adults who do not drink alcohol. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a deal because it is happening to people who are very young and have never had a drink.
If you look around you will notice how big of a problem diabetes has become. Diabetes is a big issue in many major cities in India. Doctors in India say that every other grown up is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. You will see a lot of people in hospitals who are sick because of the way they live.
News outlets talk about how fast diabetes and obesity're rising in India all the time. Diabetes is a concern. Even the people who fix teeth are worried because more than half of the grown ups in India have teeth because they eat too much sugar. Diabetes is a deal and it is getting worse. The scary thing is that a lot of people do not know they are sick until something bad has already happened to their health. Many people do not understand they are unwell until it is late and significant damage has already occurred to their body. This is what makes health problems so frightening people do not realize they are unwell.
We have a problem to think about: why is it getting so hard to afford being healthy? The main reason is that food is getting really pricey. Things like fruits, vegetables, nuts, good protein and meals we make at home are getting too expensive. On the other hand foods, like biscuits, instant noodles, cheap snacks and sugary drinks are easy to buy and fill our stomachs with good taste and companies tell us to buy them all the time. For families struggling to pay rent, school fees, and daily expenses, opting for cheap packaged food over pricier healthy options is often not a choice but a necessity.The second reason is that people have to deal with the cost of being sick all the time. Things like diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid problems and fatty liver disease need to be taken care of forever.You have to get tests done all the time, take medicine and go to the doctor. Sometimes you even have to go to the hospital.This becomes a financial problem that just keeps going on and on.For people who have a lot of money it is just annoying.
For families that're not rich but not poor either it is very stressful.For people who do not have money the cost of illness can be very bad, for them financially. A lot of people keep going to work when they're sick. They will even skip getting tests or stop taking their medications. The reason for this is that they just cannot afford to pay for these things. People continue to go to their jobs when they are not feeling well and they skip tests or they stop taking their medications because the cost is just too high for them to pay.
The third and most hidden problem is that the rules are not strong and the government is not doing anything quickly. People in India have been talking about putting warnings on food that is not good for us. The companies that make food do not want to put warnings on their food that say "High in Sugar". So the whole process is moving slowly and people are getting confused. In some countries like Chile they actually put these warnings on food. It helped people eat less junk food. India is stuck between what the food companies want and what's good for people's health. The food companies do not want to change. India needs to think about the health of its people. India needs to make a decision about what to do with food that's not good for us like food that is high in sugar.
The situation puts all the responsibility of staying healthy on the person. People must be smart enough to read food labels, have money to buy good food, be strong enough to stick to exercise and lucky enough to find out about health problems early. If the individual person makes a mistake at any point the healthcare system quietly pushes them closer, to ending up in the hospital. The individual person has to be careful all the time to stay healthy.
The answer to this problem is not just telling people to eat sugar or exercise more. This is not something that people are doing wrong, it is the system that is failing. India needs to make sure that the food we buy has labels that tell us what is really in it. The government should make rules to stop companies from advertising food to kids. They should also make sure that healthy food is cheaper and that junk food is more expensive. Schools should teach kids about food. What is good for them is not just what is in a book. The important thing is that people need to start asking for the truth about what they are eating instead of believing what they see on television. India needs to make some changes to help people make better choices about the food they eat.
If these changes do not happen we are heading toward a future where being healthy will really become a status symbol. This means that only the wealthy people will be able to be healthy because they can afford it. The rest of the people will have to pay money for medical care because they eat cheap food that is not good for them. Being healthy will be something that only wealthy people can have. That is not fair. We need to make sure that everyone can be healthy, not the wealthy people.
Health should never be a luxury. It should be a basic right. But sadly, in India, it is increasingly seen as a privilege.
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