here’s to health
Staying by Tony Akinyemi
Young
“You can live to be a hundred if you give up all things that make you want to live to be a hundred. - Allen”
I
Picture: Lemosh
t is everyone’s desire to live long, but living healthy is another matter. Without the effect of growth hormones, food processing, refining and additives on the food we eat daily, physical maturity comes naturally, with greater prospects for the future. The book of Genesis establishes the limit of man’s age at 120 years while David (Ps 90:10), laments about man’s inability to live a good life beyond seventy to eighty years, depending on how cautious we have dealt with ourselves. You only need to look around to see the truth of it. How many 70-year-olds do you know who are without health complications or free from arthritis, hypertension, prostate disorders, cancer, diabetes, strokes and heart conditions? It is my firm belief that with a good lifestyle, proper diet, a dynamic relationship with God and faith in His promises, we can have a good, healthy, and productive life right up to age 100 and more. It is only a matter of choice. Dr Margaret Drickamer, Director of Integrated Model of Aging and Geriatric Education at Yale University School of Medicine says, “there is a difference between those who live to be 100 and those who survive to be 100.” Old age is not toxic nor is it in itself a disease. Apart from hereditary cases, common diseases that are often blamed on aging turn out to be either caused by poor lifestyle or poor diet- the first a problem of over indulgence and the other a life condition. When a person takes the wrong kinds of food and drinks, sooner or later, the consequences become evident. Pay-day is always sure. I cannot agree more with Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, who admonishes that we ‘mind in the beginning, the things that matter in the end.’ The fact that a person is old does not say he should be in poor health. Our heavenly Father expresses His
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gemwoman | July/August 2007
