Healthy living

Living a healthy lifestyle is something that tends to elude us. In theory we have a vague understanding of what it involves, but when it comes to actually putting it into practice, many of us fall short and struggle. Often, it’s this struggle which causes us to quit before we even get properly started. So just how important is a healthy lifestyle when it comes to our long-term health?

“I think [a healthy] lifestyle is massive because, for example, we know a third of cancers can be prevented through good lifestyle choices and that’s just fact. So many of the common things we die from in this country - heart attacks, cardiovascular - so many of the risk factors linked with those are directly linked with lifestyle,” says Dr Sinead Beirne, a GP with TV3’s Doctor in the House.

When it comes to the Irish mentality, we tend to be in denial about just how important it is for us to embrace a healthy lifestyle.

“I think a lot of people know the right thing to do. It’s just not always easy to do the right thing. From doing Doctor in the House, what I love about the programme is that it’s very realistic. You’ll see some houses, you know they’re given all the right tools and they know everything to do and they even have the pressure of the camera being on them, but you can see that some of them just find it really hard and that’s the reality – it’s very difficult to change behaviours,” says Dr Beirne.

These behaviours are usually ingrained in us from a young age. We witness our parents eating and exercise habits and it’s not surprising then that we struggle to change these established behaviours as we get older. The best thing that you can do for your children, says Dr Beirne, is to make healthy the new normal.

“As parents the best gift you can give your kids is the gift of a healthy lifestyle – that it’s normal for them… It is extremely hard to change habit, even if you know a habit is bad. Take smoking, for example. Everybody that smokes knows that it kills you, yet it’s so difficult to change that habit,” says Dr Beirne.

“If someone is a parent, they can let their kids have good habits as part of their normal day, so eating vegetables? That’s normal and that you don’t get treats every day and that it’s normal not to get treats every day and that going out and running in a football field or going out for a walk every day, that that’s normal and you do it because why wouldn’t you do it? That’s just what you do every day.”

Dr Beirne is sympathetic to busy parents though.

“It’s very hard now when parents are working and I think that when you come [home] tired, the easiest thing is to turn on the TV and everybody’s exhausted and the easiest thing as well is convenience foods. But it just takes a little bit of thought to actually prevent that from happening. So I think these programmes [like Dr in the House] are brilliant in the fact that you can see the direct result of a lifestyle. We don’t sugar coat anything. We give people exact results and say, ‘This is what will happen if you continue.’

“I think it’s good for people at home watching that and I think that the people who go on the show are very brave because it’s so much personal information [to share] and they’re opening up. But it is hugely important for people watching at home. You can learn a lot and see what happens to you heart or what happens to your liver if you make those bad choices every day.”

So what advice would Dr Beirne have for someone who wants to change their lifestyle for the better but feels overwhelmed when it comes to taking the first all-important step?

“Say it to your family members, people that you know really care about you. Say, ‘I just want to make small little changes to make a difference.’ And start small. Don’t set an unrealistic goal and don’t go on a diet. If you go out for a walk, walk 10 minutes more than you normally would. If you get off a bus at a particular location, get off a stop earlier. You don’t even have to brag about that or say anything. Even 10 minutes extra in your day can make you that little bit fitter and it’s protecting you that little bit more.”