Requiring a Healthy Eating and Exercise Check-up?

The dental field is intricately linked to health care… if not one in the same. A major breakthrough with dental health came in the way of fluoridating city water systems. Dental researchers have shown that just introducing fluoride into a (previously unfluoridated) city's drinking water supply can reduce its inhabitants' rate of tooth decay between 40 and 70 percent. At a minimum cost to the city, patients (particularly children) will have less decay and hundreds and thousands of dollars will be saved with every patient. Furthermore, educating people about the importance of flossing and brushing (which are all preventative habits) also save patients tons of money. The same can be done in terms of educating people about the importance of eating healthy and exercising. If aggressive strides were made in getting patients to eat healthy and exercise regularly I am sure the rate of cardiovascular disease for example will come down dramatically.

Unfortunately we live in the real world and requiring physicians to give yearly “healthy eating and exercise” check-ups will be hard to enforce… But I believe as a health professional, we can all push for a requirement for all patients to get a yearly “healthy eating and exercise” check-ups.

For example, a policy I could think of is: States and the federal government can require a Healthy Eating and Exercise Check-up as a requirement to attend high-school…these children can grow up to be healthy adults and even educate their parents. Don’t see this happening anytime soon, but one can dream right?