Discuss your opinion on how modernism can affect our health
Answers
Modern life can be very taxing. Today, we live faster, work more and have less free time than ever before. In addition, our conveniences come at the expense of the purity of the environment. In this essay I intend to delve into the negative effects of modernism on our health and the steps that can be taken to overcome them.
There is an age old saying, “We are what we eat”. This holds good even today. Nowadays, good food is hard to find. Many people are eating the quickest and the cheapest foods they can find, which, unfortunately, are the least nutritious. They lead to obesity which can predispose to many diseases such as hypertension and obesity.
The second major effect of modernism is lack of exercise. Machines and the automobiles have made our lifestyle very sedentary. In addition to it, the fast paced lifestyle and the IT revolution have increased our expectations from work. Not only that, the consumerist society also makes us work more. This makes us workaholics and as a result we suffer from stress which has led many to a nervous breakdown.
Many steps can be taken to combat the negative effects of modernism. The best way to do this is to start educating people on how to live a healthier life. This has to be done on a large scale. The government can take the help of the media for this purpose. There should be a ban on the ads of fast foods. People have to be told the difference between a healthy meal and a fattening one. Secondly, exercise should be incorporated in our daily routine. For short distances, people should be encouraged to walk. This would kill two birds with one stone as people would be healthy and also pollution from vehicles would reduce. This pollution also causes health problems. Finally, government should fix working hours. This would give people more time to relax and exercise.
To put it in a nutshell, I pen down saying that, modernism can affect our physical and mental health but government can take many steps to lessen these effects.
It is obvious that there are numerous demerits of modernisation especially on our health. To start with, one of the negative aspects of modernism is a change in eating habits. Nowadays, most of the people prefer fast food and processed food which are less nutritious with high fat and salt content, instead of home cooked and organic food. As a result, people have become overweight which is one of the risk factors for heart disease, hypertension and high cholesterol.
Another disadvantage of modernism is encouraging people to do less exercise. For instance, most people choose to use lift or escalator rather than staircases, drive rather than walk and enjoy doing indoor rather than outdoor activities. It is undeniable that these modern behaviours and lifestyles are contributing to our ill health. Last but not least, consumerism and materialism which are the outcome of modernism make people workaholics and provide unnecessary physical and mental stress. Therefore, many people have had