Are you part of our health care system, or are you convenience stores?
With slogans like “The Pharmacy America Trusts” and “For All The Ways You Care” it sounds like you really are concerned about your customers’ health, unlike typical convenience stores. Yet if we look at your stores with a critical eye, it seems like pharmacies are selling virtually anything, with little regard for the health of your customers.
The Smoking Gun
Every time a customer steps up to register #1, your prime merchandising spot, there is the proof that pharmacies are promoting their attributes as convenience stores and not concerned about customer wellness. How else to explain the piles of cigarette cartons behind the head of the cashier along with large ads for Marlboros?
Imagine finding cigarettes for sale in your doctor’s office lobby. What message would your doctor be sending? Many neighborhood pharmacies are sending such a message by prominently displaying tobacco products and signage. Instead of focusing on health and wellness, these stores actually promote tobacco use.
Healthy Products And Customer Education Are The Keys To Wellness
Merchants like the pharmacy chains have a huge impact on their customers’ behavior and buying decisions, and pharmacies are the place in our health care system where we spend the most time. If you turned your attention to selling healthier products and educating your customers instead of promoting tobacco, junk food, and alcohol, you would have a substantial impact on our entire health care system.
Our Mission
The mission of HealthyPharmacies.org is to help pharmacies focus their business model on health and wellness through a series of pilot programs proving that wellness is good for customers and good for the stores’ profits too.
Our three-point program for healthy pharmacies is:
1. Help the stores offer in-store customer education programs focused on preventing disease.
2. Help pharmacies display wellness messaging, including warnings about unhealthy products, throughout the stores.
3. Help stores offer a healthier product mix with less emphasis on unhealthy products.
Wellness Is Here to Stay
There’s no better time for pharmacies to drop the convenience store business model. Our entire nation is now focused on health care reform. From President Barack Obama to conservative visionary David Frum to talk show icon Oprah Winfrey, a growing consensus is focusing on lowering health care costs through disease prevention. Pharmacies could lead the movement simply by rolling out comprehensive in-store wellness campaigns and featuring healthier products.
Wellness is here to stay. Disease prevention is the only way to ease the increasing demands and costs of our health care system. Pharmacies need to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Taking the advice of well-traveled cruisers is the best thing for first time cruise passengers to do. After all, why not learn from someone else’s mistakes or mishaps? Of course, you will still have a few of your own, but that is what makes your first cruising experience memorable.
You’ve got your cruise booked and are counting the days until you set sail. However, there are a few things for you to do before you even start to think about packing. Check with the cruise line to see what vaccinations, if any, are needed for your journey. You’ll have to make a trip to your doctor to get current on any shots.
While you are at the doctor, ask them about tips on staying healthy and avoiding the flu or colds before you depart for your cruise. It is no fun having to travel sick or canceling all together. Also ask about seasickness remedies. Some of these medications are prescription only.
Stock up on any other prescription medications just in case they are scheduled to run out during your trip. Often, insurance companies will make exceptions and allow a prescription to be refilled early if you are traveling with no access to a chain pharmacy. One last thing – get a letter from your doctor on official letterhead listing your prescriptions and stating that they were all legitimately prescribed for you. If you have to go through customs, a letter will sometimes keep you from being detained while your medication is inspected.
If you are on a special diet, let the cruise line be aware of this fact when you book your cruise. Most diets are easily accommodated, but it is always better to be safe than sorry. A few weeks before you depart, check in with the cruise line again to go over your reservations and special needs diet.
Pack a small first aid kit for those “just in case” emergencies. Include antacids and anti-diarrhea medications for those episodes of “Montezuma’s Revenge” that seem to strike no matter where you travel. Aspirin, antibiotic cream and aloe vera gel for sunburns also come in handy.
Stow away sunscreen, moisturizer and lip balm in your luggage too. When you are having too much fun outdoors, you tend to forget things like sunburn. Be sure to apply the sunscreen lotion before heading outdoors. Moisturizer and lip balm keep your skin soft. Sometimes the temperature changes from the cold air conditioner to the heat outside can wreak havoc on the skin and dry it out.
In addition to the sunscreen, protect your skin by wearing hats and sunglasses. When you are on the ship’s deck gazing at the waves, the sun’s reflection off the water can be pretty bright. The sunglasses will protect you from harmful UV rays from the sun. Of course, the hats will shield you from the sun’s rays and possible sunburn on your ears and face, two places that people sometimes forget to apply sunscreen lotion.
With the right preparation and precautions, you are well on your way to a healthy and happy first cruise. And when in doubt about something, ask your cruise line. They want to make sure your cruising experience is trouble-free. After all, they want you to sail with them again.
Obese people usually look towards instant weight loss alternatives. Those who aren’t used to exercise don’t bother to go through the trouble of tedious exercise and low fat diets. On the down side, these instant fad diets and diet pills don’t actually solve the problem if you go all out for your health. It will permanently take some time and hard work before you see the rewarding results. However, the problem of weight loss is better handled when you have your friends and family to motivate you. The added incentive and encouragement really drive one to be healthier and stop obesity.
Diet medications are particularly useful for overweight people. These are recommended to obese individuals to lessen their hunger and handle their food habits. The lessened appetite is best enhanced with stable and healthy foods. The diet medications will just be ineffective if you do not workout and eat healthy meals. Do not be fooled into thinking a diet medication “diet” without the activities and healthy foods will provide you a thin physique. Some diet pills are actually life threatening if this is all you do. Causing a weight loss medication to become ever more dangerous is one consumed without a doctor’s prescription. You should always see a physician prior to taking a diet medication. Many weight loss pills cannot be purchased without a doctor’s recommendation. Visit your physician first so that you buy the quality weight loss medication and diet recommendations.
Weight loss pills consumed without prescription can cause insomnia, allergic reactions, and/or gastrointestinal difficulties. The dangers from these medications aren’t worth it even if you end up with a fit physique. You won’t be enjoying a sexy form after you have fainted on the floor. If you think OTC drugs will benefit, you thought falsely. Over the counter diet pills are usually not FDA approved and may cancel out your other needed medications. You will end up unhealthier than you expected.
Losing pounds is a matter of proper exercise, healthy foods, and diet medications. Their combo effects will prove to be very fruitful and healthy all at once. No single pill can really give you a thin and healthy physique. Weight reduction entails much difficult work and endeavors. it’s not an easy solution. Do not bother believing the commercials selling instant diet medications. Commit to seeing a doctor and knowing what he or she advises. It is much safer to hear a professional recommendation.Self-prescription will only cause disastrous and possibly near-death results.
It is very important to be healthy and maintain a Healthy Life but it is just as important to be happy in your life. Dieting, exercise, this doesn’t have to be hard. When it becomes a struggle to diet and/or exercise, it’s not fun anymore and your happiness in life may deteriorate.
If you need to diet, take it slow. Seek out a proper diet that you will lose over a period of time. Exercise is great but if you are just starting, again, take it slow. Too much exercise, when you’re not used to it, can be harmful.
We now have greater awareness of our bodies through the sciences, the media, etc. The benefits of a healthy life are obvious to us all. To achieve the healthy life is not done by simply going to your local pharmacy and picking up some drugs.
A healthy life and a happy life is a combination of many things acting together. Because of the way our foods are grown and processed today, we need to start with a good, all natural supplement. The next ingredient is eating proper, and in proper portions. And, of course, along with these is proper and limited exercise.
It doesn’t just stop with what to do… now comes when to do it. To maintain the healthy life and happy life, you cannot take a nutritional supplement once in a while, eat proper foods now and then, and exercise a couple times a month. This is what people do that always ask the question, “Why am I not losing weight?”
Once you start a routine, stay on it. Not for a week or a month, stay on it… period.
Think about this, you will not only look and feel healthier, your new eating and exercising routine will also reduce your risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease. You will see other benefits like, reduced costs of health care, reducing illnesses and injuries, fewer visit to doctors, etc.
Diet and exercise will lower blood pressure, reduce weight and lower the risk of developing diabetes. Exercise and a healthy diet helps the body use insulin more efficiently and can help control, reduce and prevent many diseases. Exercising, eating foods high in fiber, weight control, and learn to deal with stress, reduce the risk of heart disease.
Also… If you eat healthy food, exercise and pay attention to your body you will certainly life a longer, healthy and happy life.
Living healthy is important for everyone. This is a truth with which no one can disagree. And the matter is not that you will live longer due to following instructions for a healthy life. The matter is in the quality of your life: it will substantially improve. You will be living a healthy life and thus feel happy, work more efficiently and be able to reach the goals you set.
A few tips to follow:
If you want to make your meals healthier, forget the fast food and ready-to-cook meals. They have artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives that your digestive system will not like. By staying away from these products, you will pretty-much have no choice but to eat more vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, cereals and dairy products. You don’t need a rigid diet, just proper portions of healthy foods plus your all natural nutritional supplement.
Only one more thing to remember, walking. Walk a lot. It’s very good for you and your metabolism. Park your car out farther in the parking lot and walk. Do this at work, at the shopping mall, at the grocery store, everywhere you go. Not only is this good for you, it will also save a few dents in your car from other car doors.
Have a healthy life and a happy life.
