You probably know that our community is affected disproportionally by many chronic health conditions like heart disease (stroke), diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia, and mental health as the stress we suffer due to racism. Spoiler alert: this is not the end of the list. If diseases like these affect the Black community at large, then it’s reasonable and possible that these health conditions trickle down to your own family. Think of the way bad health concerns are a part of your family history as your health legacy. It’s unfortunate and unfair, but if you are aware and proactive, you can reduce the risk. Act and live better and that awareness and a few lifestyle changes can become an excellent response to a wake-up call that could buy you another decade of health and life. Instead of passing on bad health, reconstruct the legacy to include better health and longer life with continued wellness. If you don’t know which of the top chronic health conditions affect your family, take the first step, finding out how they affect us as a people, then getting screened and encouraging other family members to do the same. It comes as no surprise that most of them start with the heart’s health.
The silent killer that preys
Is this you? You may be entering the prime of your life at whatever age that looks like for you, but usually, it’s in your young twenties up into your late thirties when you have this luxury. Perhaps you never had any serious health problems. As time passes, however, things change. This may have made you feel like you are invincible, so you don’t take any serious notice of your changing body’s symptoms that are trying to warn you to pay closer attention to them.
You lead a mostly sedentary life from car to cubby to living room couch where you sit for the rest of the night. After that low-cardio triathlon, collapsed in front of your TV, you shake additional salt or add a packaged sauce to your already processed food. You gulp down this questionably qualified “meal” that bears a label on its box or wrapper and shows how what you consumed has enough sodium in it to exceed your daily limit for a week. After a mindlessly eaten dinner, you light up a cigarette and puff away on the first of several to take the edge off a punishingly long and stressful day. You wash it down with a six-pack of beer to further dull the senses. This daily routine is not full of heart-healthy habits in the categories of a balanced diet and regular exercise beyond reaching for and operating the remote. When it comes to controlling your weight, eliminating the salt, taking it easy on the alcohol, and finding better ways than the television as a passive way to manage stress, none of this makes the grid of your to-do list. The next thing you know, you have a stroke.
This puts you in the same league as your elderly auntie and them. You just contributed to the family’s health legacy, and not in a positive way. Add to that risk factors like high blood pressure (hypertension), diabetes, high cholesterol, stress, and smoking and it’s not just your auntie, but each branch of the family tree is affected and liable to drop off. If the rest of your family is living the unexamined life when it comes to the health conditions list that all of us are prone to and if your family members consistently skip suggested screenings, then it can feel like you and yours are powerless and helpless once a diagnosis or, much worse, a death occurs. However, all hope is not lost.
Things can change a negative health legacy such as this into a positive one with one small act with huge benefits. Many of the health conditions that we as a people experience as a greater community become more real when a diagnosis of poor health resulting from poor life choices comes knocking on a member of our family’s door. Uplifting advice usually requires us to make a lifestyle change that will help the heart and shows how heart health affects many different conditions that typically affect us. What are the necessary changes for multi-generational health wealth? It’s almost always the same for each of many of these health challenges to decrease the risk for the individual, and, likely also, future generations to live well, better, and longer. Family history is not the only deciding factor; the courage and consistency to change also have a strong part in playing a role that reduces risk.
We are family.
Before it’s too late, look at your family and take serious stock of what you might be facing. Get to know everyone in the fam from the older folks with the experience up through your peer group who think they’ll live forever. You are a family, and their health issues could become yours someday. Many conditions travel in clusters together, so if auntie, granny and cousins all have type 2 diabetes and you’re pre-diabetic, you don’t just need to be vigilant and more health conscious about that disease, but also about others that can accompany them, like high blood pressure, bad cholesterol levels, and failing eye health. Your health legacy, for these reasons, is complex. What if, instead of a picture of gloom and doom, you could make changes that would move your family’s health legacy from loss to longevity?
What is the legacy worth to you?
Gaining insight into your family’s health history comes with advice that is the same for many of the conditions. It requires a heart-healthy lifestyle of heart health habits that you can build and continue throughout a lifetime: maintain a moderate weight, incorporate more movement, stop adding salt, cut back on alcohol, and stop smoking. When you hear about a relative receiving a chronic health diagnosis, use it as a wake-up call and share the health wealth with all the family members who could stand to benefit. Passing on the benefits of good health is just as important as passing on generational wealth in the form of money, investments, or property. What good is the latter if you don’t have the former in check to be able to fully enjoy your material inheritance for as long and as much as possible?
Be proactive with health screenings and your responsibility to stay well, but also be proactive about keeping tabs on your extended family’s health. If your health legacy is important to you, be the one who reaches out first. Ask “How are you doing?” and actively listen to and care about the answer including the hopefully big positives and the negligible negatives. Fortify your family tree’s branches at the gatherings that occur throughout the year and take the time to make those phone calls and send texts to check in on one another. Let those special family reunions that don’t happen every year celebrate the blessings and greatness of family fellowship as a strength. Interact with those who are still with you and remember those who have passed away and are not. Use every opportunity you’re afforded to check on your family’s health and well-being. You are each other’s legacy, and your health is interwoven and important.
