Why valeology is not popular in Ukraine

Which investment is better, one made in a healthy or sick person? On the one hand, leaving ailing people to the mercy of fate is inhumane, considering what meager help (if any) they receive from the scarce health care budget. On the other hand, constantly thinking of the sick may well convince one that the death rate will never go down and the nation will never get well. For the time being, the Ministry of Health solves the problem unambiguously. “I have a TB epidemic, 42,000 HIV-infected, 700,000 oncology cases, and a million diabetics. Where am I going to find the money for preventive medicine?” says Minister of Health Vitaly Moskalenko, echoing his predecessors. Simultaneously, the WHO insists that the priorities must be changed, considering world trends. They believe that twenty-first century medicine must forget all about defense and turn into a health designer. Also, the new approach appears to be profitable. Thus, a dollar invested in preventive arrangements allows saving seven dollars on treatment.

After the economical Americans grasped the idea and proceeded to invest considerable sums in nonmedical health preservation methods, they received staggering results. Owing to skillful promotion, persuasion, and coercion, over 20 million Americans quit smoking in a comparatively short time, changed their views on diet, and took up exercise. Without doubt, one stimulus was the fact that they would otherwise have to cut on their family budgets, as many firms simply refused to employ smoking and overweight individuals, while insurance companies started paying less indemnities to people with a low health index.

We in Ukraine are not that radical, yet we also practice effective methods now and then. Eager to win prizes, 78% of the participants in regular contests held under the International Family Program spent several months without smoking; in the end 28.5% kicked the habit and 34.5% cut down on smoking. In a word, shaping an ideology of good health has everything to do with motivation, which is absent in 75% of medical students, polls show.

Valeology is a science meant to correct the mentality of individuals caring little for their physical condition. It is also known as a gem of Slavic thought; no one has ever thought of singling health out as a separate category. It was planned to include valeology in school and university curricula, with the emphasis on junior and middle grades, as children at this age are more open to new ideas. But then the engine driver ran before the locomotive in Ukraine as well as in Russia, as the saying goes. There were no trained valeologists, yet the subject was already in the curriculum, so school principals started inviting clairvoyants, sectarians, and all kinds of faith healers as “promoters of a healthy lifestyle.” The result was quite dramatic. A bureaucrat of the Russian Ministry of Education took a Soros grant for sex education in the schools. The resultant lectures in the junior and middle grades were, mildly speaking, ill-timed, and parents vehemently protested. It was the beginning of valeology’s end as a school subject, accompanied by a wrathful letter addressed to the Russian ministry, signed by 140 most influential Russian figures. A practically identical situation developed in Ukraine, albeit with less reverberations. Valeology was deleted from school curricula at 13 lawmakers’ initiative. It is still branded as a pseudoscience and an information weapon meant to destroy traditional national values and impose alien practices. In actuality, this so- called pseudoscience holds simply that a man’s lifestyle is his main health reserve, that it determines social health by 50% (20% by the environment, 20% by heredity, and 10% by health care authorities). Hennady Opanasenko, MD, chairman of the valeology problem committee, Ministry of Health and National Academy of Science, long ago reported two phenomena: a safe health index and self-developing pathologic process. The former comes down to a certain degree of health when diseases do not develop. The latter has it that ills, after leaving the “safe zone,” start progressing regardless of all external factors. Man hardly recovers when he takes ill again. Prof. Opanansenko’s study shows that there were 5-8% “safely healthy” residents of Ukraine in the 1990s and by 2001 the number had dropped to less than one percent. True, this is not characteristic of Ukraine only, the West shows similar statistics, and a great many ailing individuals recover only thanks to a well developed health care system. As a result, Ukrainian life span is the lowest and cardiovascular death rate the highest in Europe.

Viktor Ponomarenko, director of the Institute of Public Health, says they are actively “working to correct mistakes.” The program, “Health of the Nation,” adopted not so long ago, has separate clauses dealing with preventive treatment and promotion of a healthy lifestyle. Health care strategic tasks are also being revised and new disciplines appear, including social medicine, health culture, along with antismoking and anti-alcohol campaigns. He believes that family medicine is also a very important factor. Physicians will deal with family psychology and practice regular checkups to predict diseases. In a word, the individual will be actively involved in his own health building process. True, some insist that the process will be quite painful and complex, because there will be obstacles left by the Ukrainian historical past and mentality. Sharing a festively laid table has since time immemorial been a favorite Slavic pastime, and a Cossack who did not smoke and drink could not be regarded as a member of the fraternity. Centuries later ills were “encouraged” by the Soviet system of sick leaves, privileges, and resort accommodations. Hennady Opanasenko is convinced that a new public consciousness must be formed to raise the index of the nation’s health, even if slowly. At this stage, he says, we can use electoral and other manipulating technologies. The main thing is to have the determination and motivation. In other words, the scientist attaches primary importance to psychologists in reviving the national health, because they lay the grounds for physicians.

That a handful of psychologists practicing in Ukraine (ranking among the last in Europe by number per capita) agree with him and emphasize that conservatism must be suppressed and psychosomatic (what? — Ed. ) methods upheld. They maintain that people should take care of their mental hygiene, because the notion of a healthy lifestyle implies conduct to preserve health and a fitting mentality.