Healthcare is not just your doctor's responsibility Published Oct. 23, 2007 By Col. James Carroll 314th Medical Group commander Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark. -- When was the last time you went to see your primary care manager when you were not sick? If you are like 80 percent of the U.S. population, you only saw your doctor because you were sick and wanted to alleviate the uncomfortable symptoms. Our society has gotten into a paradigm that is more reactive than proactive when it comes to our health. The basic problem behind, or in front of, most Americans is they have been getting larger and more sedentary for the past two decades. It's not hard to predict the "train wreck" when you couple this with the increased prices of pharmaceutical products, reduction in healthcare providers, increased healthcare insurance premiums, frivolous lawsuits, a society that believes a pill will solve all their problems and a population that has become accustomed to copious amounts of fast food. So what can you do? The most simplistic answer is to take care of yourself and get fit!!!! Does this mean you have to run 10 miles a day or be in the gym for hours? No, it just means you have to manage the food you eat and your exercise levels. Losing weight is not rocket science - simply put, if you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight and if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. You can eat anything you want, as long as you burn the calories off. If you have limited mobility than use strength training (lifting weights) to tone your muscles and make your "engine" a fat burning machine - fitter muscles burn energy even when you are not using them. Get off the couch and start living - this will improve you and our healthcare woes!