As an African I usually read more about problems that affect Africans. I learned from most studies I read that more African Americans have diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. I wanted to find out why we suffer as a group from all these diseases. Is it because of the genetic background or is there something else to it? Since I thought the best place to start my study is at the source, I focused on studies done in Africa.

The Africans that live in Africa also have diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. The only difference is that the people who live in the city are affected more than those that live in the country. I suspect that maybe what the rural Africans lack is what everybody needs.

I read studies that compared the Africans that live in the cities and those that live in the country. I even found similar studies done in some countries in Asia and the Middle East. I noticed that all the studies reached the same conclusion. The studies compared two groups of people in one country. One group lives in the city and the other in the country. I found out that people living in the cities are more likely to suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease than people that live in the country. Some studies even compared these two groups with people that used to live in the same country but now live in Europe. They found that the people that live in the city and those that moved to Europe both similarly suffer from the above diseases. Does it mean there are some common diet and lifestyle factors that may be responsible for this?

The difference in lifestyle was that most city people were rich, educated and the majority did not have enough activity in their life. Most people that live in the country were poor, mostly not educated and were unskilled workers. Country lifestyle in most of the African and Asian countries is composed of farming and hunting. This is a lifestyle with less food supply and hard physical work. The people that live in the city have easier access to food and they exercised less. Less physical exercise in city life causes one to gain extra body weight. In addition, the social and financial stresses that are related to city life can increase blood pressure. For this reason, city dwellers have a greater chance of getting diabetes and heart disease as their blood pressure and body weight increases.

The one exception that I noticed in most studies is the "urban poor." The urban poor are the persons that live in the cities but do not share the qualities most other city people have. The urban poor do not have easy access to food and may need to exercise more in search of food. And most of them may not have as much stress as the rich people. These reasons may be why most of them do not have high blood pressure. This is a group that has a lot in common with the people that live in the country.

The message I like to relay here is not for the reader to go back to farming and hunting. It is not for the reader to move to Africa or Asia. It is also not for the reader to become the "urban poor." However, it is to show the reader that as an educated reader, we can take the portion of lifestyle from those healthy people and use it to better our own. Regardless of the kind of work we do, or the country we live in, we can learn from each other's life styles. As for myself, I have decided to exercise at least three to four times a week, drink less alcohol, decrease stress, and stop smoking. How about you, are you willing to learn, or are you going to be a victim of your life style?