As we were doing our zakat rounds during Ramadhan last year, we noticed that many of the poverty-stricken families were inflicted with various diseases and health problems: Diabetes, High Blood pressure, stroke, gout, etc..
It was particularly surprising at first, considering that most people would consider these diseases to be common amongst the more affluent and wealthy parts of society that would afford more luxury.
As we did our rounds, though, I noticed a similar pattern amongst these families – and many of them are associated with poor bad lifestyle habits: and nothing have to do with the fact that they have shortage of wealth. These habits are
1) Lack of exercise, physical inactivity
2) Not drinking enough plain water
3) A psychologically unhealthy environment
4) Smoking
When these habits drag on for decades it’s no surprise why they would lead to such chronic health issues as they grow older.
1) Lack of exercise.
A big number of the families live very inactive lifestyles, confined to their houses on entire weekdays and weekends.
Poor or affluent, this issue a serious concern, particularly amongst the Muslims today. I’m no exercise expert, so I’ll just say this: just do it and stick to it. Jog, cycle, take a walk, look up the thousands of simple cardio exercises on YouTube.. there are so many free options.
Enough excuses. Our bodies are a trust – an amanah – from Allah. If we don’t care of something we are entrusted with, that speaks something of our integrity. The Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said,
نِعْمَتَانِ مَغْبُونٌ فِيهِمَا كَثِيرٌ مِنَ النَّاسِ، الصِّحَّةُ وَالْفَرَاغُ
“Two blessings which most of mankind are cheated (i.e. fail to capitalize or make full use of when they still have them) : good health and free time” (Narrated by Al-Bukhari)
Be proactive and maintain your health while you still have it. Don’t wait for the doctor to warn you of your cholestrol levels, BMI, or high blood pressure before you dust off those running shoes.
Go go go!
2) Not enough plain water
Another apparent common issue amongst our people is the habitual affinity towards sweet drinks : sirap, milo, teh tarik, ribena – but not water.
When I was a kid I used to wonder why my Chinese friends would carry these huge tumblers of plain water to school (as if our school bags weren’t heavy enough); it looked goofy and inconvenient, and what’s the big deal with water anyway?
Fast forward till today, after several gout attacks at a very young age (which is shocking news even to the doctor), attributed to the high uric acid in the blood and low water diet, it makes perfect sense now.
Again I’m no health expert but suffice to say, an important aspect of maintaining our good health is to drink lots of water every day. ~2 litres a day seems to be the prevalent recommendation.
So keep them flowin.
3) Psychologically unhealthy environment
Sress affects the body in many ways – modern health experts have linked stress with cause for diabetes, heart disease, anxiety/psychological disorders, and even cancer.
In fact it’s interesting to note, many even advise that a happy, positive and stress-free lifestyle can go so far as to cure cancer.
Many of the families we noticed seem to watch TV a lot. A lot. Now, think about what this does to you in the long run : you are aren’t that well off, you don’t go out of the home much, and here you have this machine consistently feeding you with constant advertising, dramas of attractive men and women, fictional stories of fantasy, depressing news (seriously – when is news actually ‘uplifting’, optimistic or motivating?), and ridiculous ‘reality shows’ – what do you think this will do to your overall psychology?
To top that off, many of them aren’t very motivated to alleviate their current conditions, seemingly ‘give up’ on changing their circumstances.
It was interesting to note that, perhaps due to the prevailing negative influences, rarely do we hear positive words being exchanged between their family members.
So make your home environment – in fact every environment that you’re in – a positive and happy one. We can blame the environment as much as we want, but we are part of the environment too – so what impact have we had upon it?
Another startling finding is also a serious lack of spirituality and religiousness amongst these poorer families. Some don’t even perform the obligatory 5-daily prayer (we didn’t speculate, they admitted to it). Some of them smoke during daytime in Ramadhan (fasting) month.
Poor spirituality will eventually effect our psychology. Without anything to look forward to in the Hereafter, this life will seem like a hopeless dead end.
Religion and faith should be a built-in internal mechanism to keep ourselves happy. For Muslims, keep ourselves motivated with our good deeds, and the Qur’an – knowing that we are working towards a beautiful destination – that we look forward to Meet our Lord, to reap the rewards He Promised, and to finally enter His beautiful Paradise.
4) Smoking
Of all the ikhtilaf (differences of opinion) in science, we can all safely say one thing – there is undoubted ijma’ (universal consensus) that smoking is absolutely harmful to our health, in many more ways that one.
So it actually pains us to see these families – who barely earn enough to pay rent or the electricity bill – still continue to waste their money on these health-wreckers… AND infect the little passive smokers living in their small homes, including the infants.
When one diabetic uncle - who recently had his leg amputated - was advised to quit smoking, he replied simply by saying “Smoking has been part of my lifestyle. I can’t stop!”. The year after, when we went to visit hiim again, he was not at home. He died.
Smoking is a serious concern, and the irony is despite national and international fatawa being issued on the fact that it is absolutely Haram (prohibited)- up till today, the big portion of smokers in this country are… well, it goes without saying.
Allahu a’lam… There are other issues, but these are the prevailing 4, that can really be remedied by discipline, and by simply changing our attitude, regardless of our income bracket, and applies to every single one of us.
Brothers and sisters, we need to be serious about taking care of our health. Our health, our bodies, are a trust by Allah. It is with this body that we worship Him and seek His Pleasure, and it is with this body we prove our amanah.
So let’s get out there, get some exercise, drink some water and be happy in this world and the Hereafter.
May Allah make us amongst those who take care of our health - physically, psychologically and spiritually. Ameen.
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