Health in the news
Do you notice how health news is usually news about illness, injury, and disease? Do you notice that mass media's information about how to improve your health is usually a catalogue of things to fear, accompanied by exhausting lists of rituals to ward off dangers lurking everywhere?
In his book, Don't Worry, Be Healthy, Dr. Martin P. Solomon suggests that our conventional media interpretations of health "news" should be preceded by a warning:
"The following health news may be irrelevant and unproved. Action taken on the basis of what you are about to hear or read may be dangerous to your physical and mental health."
Unquestioning exposure to these well-meaning but anti-well-being messages and misleading information about health is guaranteed to keep you in good standing in the ranks of the Worried Well. If worrying is harmful to your health -- and it is -- then the mind-body prescription is to tune out this kind of news, learn to read it critically, or laugh it off.
In that spirit, Health in the News examines some unconstructive health dispatches and neutralizes them with health-promoting mind-body perspectives.
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