There are lots of health risk factors that help determine your overall health, including your environment. But there’s more to this risk factor than just your physical surroundings.
Your health is determined by a wide variety of factors. Some of these are obvious, such as your diet, and some are less obvious. However, even a relatively obvious health risk factor such as your environment is more complex than it seems. You probably know by now that your environment helps to determine your overall health. But this factor affects more than just pollution levels and geographical factors. In fact, it influences and determines a lot about your life and your wellbeing.
Where you grow up, live, and work has an important influence on your health in several ways. Some of these are fairly obvious ways, and others you might not have thought about before. Here are just some health risk factors that your zip code influences:
The effect of your environment on these health risk factors can be difficult to calculate. And their effect on your health is even more complex. However, medical researchers now believe that the influence of environment on your health is even more complicated than previously thought.
A recent study has suggested that fast food accessibility may be a health risk factor. This is one unexpected and slightly strange way that your environment can impact your health. The study was performed by the European Society of Cardiology and involved Australian heart attack patients. 3070 patients who were admitted to hospital with heart attacks between 2011 to 2013 were involved in the study. The researchers used the patients’ postcode to analyze their environment and fast food access.
The results were startling. They showed that areas with higher numbers of fast food outlets had higher heart attack rates. In fact, for every additional outlet, there were 4 more heart attacks a year per 100,000 people.
There are other factors involved in this kind of analysis too. This includes the exact definition of fast food as well as ease of access. However, the results are fairly simple and can be used to adjust your lifestyle. You obviously can’t change the number of fast food outlets in your area. And moving is probably out of the question. Instead, it’s your behavior that should change because of these results. Even if you think you don’t eat fast food, you probably do on occasional because it’s quick and cheap. And it’s this kind of behavior that should be addressed.
If you want to lower your risk of heart attack, it’s simple to do this kind of analysis for yourself. You can calculate the number of fast food outlets near you and assess if this increases your health risk. This will help motivate you to change your fast food consumption and any associated behaviors.
Obviously, the best strategy is to eliminate fast food from your diet. But if that isn’t possible, try to think about other strategies. Firstly, you could reduce the number of times you visit an outlet each week, month, or year. And secondly, you should also assess the meals to discover which are less harmful. This will allow you to take advantage of the convenience with less health consequences. And if you manage to modify your habits in these ways, integrate these improvements into your health risk assessments. This will give you a more complete view of your health and wellbeing.
If you’re concerned about a health risk, try using HomeLab to keep track of your condition and any preventative measures you take. And if you see signs of a significant problem, you should check with your doctor as soon as possible.
Tags: health risk, heart attack