*Staying Well: Why the Good Life is So Bad For Your Health* by Richard Ecker. This book was published in 1984 by Inter Varsity Press (no photos available). Mike was assigned this book while he was working on his master’s degree. We recently found it while going through a box in the garage and I decided to give it another read.
He begins the book by challenging the assumption that we are living longer these days. His stats show that if you survive infancy the expected life rate isn’t much higher than its been for generations. We’ve conquered diseases that struck fear into our ancestors but we’ve replaced those diseases with a 50% increase in cardiovascular disease, cancer has tripled and 1 in 5 Americans develop adult –onset diabetes (which NOW 20 years after this book was written is setting in with children).
The basic premise of this book is that God expects us to be good stewards of our health. He says that Christians are responsible to make the tough choices. Mr. Ecker states that we have allowed satan to entice us to make lifestyle choices that lead to degeneration.
Mr. Ecker states his goal in writing this book is to: “explore the tremendous influence our choice of lifestyle has on health, well-being and life expectancy; to demonstrate some specific kinds of lifestyle changes we can make to avoid unnecessary disease; to assess such changes in the light of commitment to responsible Christian stewardship; and to provide a scripturally sound strategy for implementing desirable changes.” He succeeds in his goals.
This book was a bit heavy on facts and stats in places, but is easily understandable. I especially found the section on aerobic and anaerobic exercise to be interesting. I know there are many books out now on Christian Health….but this little book seems to have laid out the principles over 20 years ago.
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