"We Can Conquer the Health Insurance Crisis...

...if we are willing to admit what the true cause is and if we are willing to correct it." So says Dr. Josef Arnould, author of Stronger After 40, a newly released book on exercise healthcare.

Forty million Americans have no health insurance, millions more have inadequate coverage, and Medicare—our only current form of national health insurance—is headed into a deficit so deep that the financial prosperity of our nation is imperiled. "But," states Dr. Arnould, "the primary cause is not greedy insurance companies, chintzy employers, or inept government. The cause is us. We have allowed ourselves to become so severely unhealthy that the extensive medical services we now require are more expensive than even the richest nation in the world can afford. Our present health insurance problem is merely a result. The crisis is our poor health."

The strongest evidence that we are severely unhealthy is the prevalence of obesity. Two out of three American adults are obese or significantly overweight, a ratio that has been rising for decades. Secondly, we suffer from sarcopenia—the premature loss of muscle mass and strength due to insufficient physical exertion—which accelerates obesity and causes massive physical disability. As a result of these two disease processes, a typical adult loses about 1/2 pound of muscle and gains 1 1/2 pounds of fat each year. Between the ages of 25 and 55, an average American loses 15 pounds of muscle and gains 45 pounds of fat. The combined effect to these two diseases is devastating. Obesity causes and/or complicates many other deadly diseases—such as diabetes, heart disease, strokes, and cancer—which are usually disabling and always expensive to treat. Sarcopenia not only increases the rate of obesity, it destroys our functional health—the ability to perform the necessary and desired physical acts of our lives. Due to sarcopenia, many of us who are only in our 50s have become highly dependent upon others to help us dress, bathe, clean our homes, and walk.

Ironically, it is well-known that obesity and sarcopenia are preventable and reversible for most people who exercise vigorously and regularly and who eat nutritious foods. Unfortunately, thus far a majority of us have not been willing to take these two steps toward excellent health. Most of us have been counting on the discovery of a new miracle drug or another genetic breakthrough to save our health and make unlimited health insurance affordable again. The reality is that no matter how many drug and genetic advances are made in coming decades, they will be very expensive to achieve and they will not provide complete health. If we do not exercise more vigorously and eat more nutritiously than we do at present, no scientific miracle and no form of health insurance will meet our basic health needs, let alone enable us to attain the health excellence we all desire. On the other hand, if a greater percentage of us begin to exercise daily and to eat well, we can reverse the rates of obesity and sarcopenia, reduce our dependence upon expensive medical care, become healthier and more independent citizens, and be able to afford insurance coverage for those health conditions that cannot easily be prevented.

Enter Stronger After 40, in which Dr. Arnould lays out a comprehensive plan to rebuild muscle mass and strength, condition the cardiovascular system, and eat nutritiously to reverse the epidemics of obesity and sarcopenia. Rather than a mere hypothesis, this program is based upon the actual adult exercise system that Dr. Arnould and his colleagues have developed and implemented over the past two decades in their clinic in Northampton, Massachusetts. Stronger After 40 not only contains more than 400 pages of detailed directions and pictures of exercises, but also another 200 pages of essential information for every adult who wants to exercise safely and effectively to achieve excellent health for life. More than any other book in the health and fitness field, this work helps us to understand how profoundly our health is dependent upon the stimulation of exercise, how we can enjoy exercise so much that we will want to continue to do it throughout life, and how   we can conquer the current health crisis in order to make healthcare services and health insurance available to everyone.

Stronger After 40 can be ordered from the Strength for Life^® Health and Fitness Center, 225R King Street, Northampton, MA 01060: call (413) 586-4400; fax (413) 584-2221; or online here. The price is $69.95 plus $5 shipping per book.

Dr. Josef Arnould has practiced chiropractic in Northampton, Massachusetts for more than 20 years. He has devoted himself to teaching patients and others how to exercise effectively and enjoyably in order to fulfill their needs and desires. Seven days each week he can be located in the early morning as he enjoys exercising with his fellow and sister trainees.