Does Your Income Affect Your Health?
Does Your Income
Affect Your Health?
Our level of income directly
affects our health. Did you know
that? How much money you make helps to
determine how healthy you will be. Doesn’t
really make sense, if you don’t’ look at the broader picture. In the big picture, however, here is the
view: you are educated, have a degree, and are exposed to tons of information
during your college years. You are
exposed to health classes, athletes, and all sorts of professional people who
already understand the importance of health in your life.
You
graduate college, your income levels are quite nice, and you have the
opportunity to purchase magazines, health and fitness of course. Can you see how your education and
intelligence levels affect your health now?
This is a generalization that has proven itself time and again. All you have to do is observe your developed
countries versus the third world, underdeveloped countries. Standard of living and health are directly
related. Past the consideration of intelligence development, our level of
education and income plays a tremendous role in our ability to educate
ourselves about the health options we should exercise. Affordable fitness
centers are one of the nicer privileges of higher income. Most fitness centers provide their customers
with individualized weight and exercise programs that further advance the
customer’s health.
Having
higher income levels provides us with access to fitness centers, better choices
for our eating patterns, and better medical care.
It is in
the final section of the previous sentence that there is found a real benefit
of higher income, in direct relation to our health. Higher levels of education and income almost
always have access to better medical care. The availability of better care, whether
it is through better company paid insurance, life in a metropolitan area versus
rural area, or simply being able to afford a more specialized doctor when the
situation warrants.
In most
cases, higher income families live in more populated areas, with access to
better doctors and larger medical facilities. Often their employers have nurses
or doctors that are retained, if not on staff, as emergencies warrant.
If the evidence presented above is
not enough to satisfy your curiosity concerning the role income plays in our
health, take the time to visit the US Census.
This information is available through the internet. There you will find
all kinds of statistics, from income averages in areas of the United States,
to education levels in those same places.
Also available is information related to the household. Check for yourself. You can see a direct relationship in many
areas of the country between income levels and health statistics for that
area.
It is sad
indeed, that many of the people who are in the greatest need are not able to
get that need met. Socialized medicine
as been studied as a possible solution to our some of our health problems, but
when studied in detail, socialized medicine really does not improve the level
of health for the population, it just makes medical care free and generally of
less quality.