From this month's editory

New Internationalist, Jan-Feb, 2001 by Richard Swift

Health is something we don't think too much about, until it deserts us. Then we immediately think about how to put things right -- and that usually involves a visit to the doctor. But health actually has little to do with the health system of which doctors are a part and which only steps in when something is already wrong. If we do think about our health before we reach that point, it is usually in the form of a nagging sense that we really should quit smoking or get more exercise. We just assume that if we live right we will be the captains of our own fate -- especially in these New Age days of the holistic, alternative, organic, naturopathic and complementary.

But can we be? When you delve into a subject things that seemed obvious sometimes dissolve before your eyes, while others that you'd only vaguely thought about become crystal clear. So it was for me with the degree to which we get to choose a healthy lifestyle. When you examine the deeper reasons why some people are more prone to illness than others, they have a very familiar ring for NI readers: inequality, poverty, pollution, type of job and a system that values money too much and people too little. Our real choices are often frighteningly narrow. A good deal of important energy has gone into fighting to maintain an accessible system of medical care; not enough energy into fighting against those things that create illness in the first place. This is where we need to begin -- and it is the starting point of this issue of the NI.