Soc 490: What can we take from Italy Health to the U.S?

                While studying in Rome, we have learned many important things about the Italian lifestyle including how they live, their daily routines, their abundance of walking, and their hectic roads. Italians for the most part, do not put an emphasis on health. For example, in the U.S there are banners and such that promotes no smoking saying it can cause lung cancer, dependence, etc. In Italy, there is no such thing. Almost everybody smokes here because there are no efforts to stop it such as the posters I mentioned.

                One aspect that we can take from the Italians is the amount of walking they do on a day to day basis. The transportation within Rome is not the best and some people do not even own a car. This means they either have to take public transportation (which costs money obviously) or simply walk. Many choose to walk which helps them to maintain a healthy weight while getting the heart rate up for a while. In the United States, it is hard to walk everywhere because everything is so spread out. Therefore, we simply hop in the car and drive to our destination. Overall, Italians get more of natural exercise which is something we should incorporate within out daily routines to stay healthy.

                Our book on Universal healthcare talks throughout the book on whether or not Universal healthcare is something the U.S should do or not. There are many debates to this which is what the emphasis of this class is based on. There are many people (not including myself) that believe the U.S should take the ways of Italy into consideration and switch over to a universal plan instead of private. Although not an advocate for that myself, these people believe the U.S citizens are being neglected because they cannot afford the price of insurance. Also, insurance companies deny people based on preexisting conditions such as those you were born with. Advocates believe that having a universal system would help out our countries “statistics” within our health.”

                Looking at this question at a different angle, we can take a look at mental health instead of just physical health. Mental health is just an important as physical. Italians have a very different viewpoint on life itself. They know how to take time out of their day to enjoy it. This promotes healthy mental status. In America, we usually get stuck in their daily routines which prevent us from actually taking time out of our hectic schedules to enjoy the little things in life. Americans can learn from Italians that life is supposed to be fun and not all about work. Taking time out of the day can help keep the mind in the right place and even help to excel at work instead of always rushing around to get things done.