Hey everyone, did you know that June is National Men’s Health Month?! Now, even if you aren’t a male reading this, it’s likely that you know one, whether that be son, husband, nephew, brother, or so forth. So, let’s quickly go over why National Men’s Health Month is important. Some of the most important reasons as to why it is important is because it allows for a heightened level of awareness for some potentially preventable health issues that may arise later in life (1). Not only this but it allows us to encourage some early detection and treatment of these potential issues, which can range from heart disease, to depression, and everything in between (1). Next, one may ask, how do we observe and participate in Men’s Health Month? There are a ton of ways, however, for brevity’s sake, we’ll just cover a few here. Number one, is to get educated on the most common health issues that men specifically tend to suffer from, in efforts to know what the issues are, and then moving to the next step of addressing them. Then, when addressing the issues, outside of a medical perspective, is to be process oriented. Meaning, set some S.M.A.R.T. goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timebound. As an example, this could range from losing weight, to eating healthier. But with those goals, it is important to make them more specific than that general idea. So instead of saying lose weight and eat healthier, how much weight do you want to lose, and why. How do you measure that (the scale, how you feel, etc.)? Then make sure it is a realistic goal that is attainable and time bound, for example, like losing 5lbs over a 4wk time span, breaking it up and focusing on eating/moving well each week, looking for about 1.25lbs of weight loss per week. This way, you can commit to the process that ties to the goal, rather than just looking so far out and losing sight if things go astray. With the help of setting some S.M.A.R.T. goals and being committed to the process, we can all collaboratively come together to keep either ourselves, or the men we know as healthy as possible and free of issues as best we can!
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