The "regular" check up

A routine check up with your primary physician actually leaves you more in doubt about your health than before. First of all, you have to summon all your reserves to move yourself from the confines of your daily comforts to set up a regular health check up. The "regular" is not actually regular. If it is regular, do you go there daily? There should have been a more appropriate word in English to describe the "regular".

Anyway, as a part of the annual corporate policy, I had to undergo a "regular" health check up. I generally do not prefer these kind of situations. It is as though you are pressurizing your physician to let you know what is wrong with your body. The whole concept of health check up is seriously baffling. You are doing absolutely fine, but at the same time, there might be something wrong in your body without your knowledge, and the protagonists are itching to tell you what is wrong. You have absolutely no doubt that you will live till a hundred without any doubt, with all the outrageous food habits. So, why find out? The equation in terms of the mortality does not change. You will still live a hundred years, but have to survive on daily diets and complicated nutrition schedule. All of us know that if something is nutritious, no way in the world is it going to be tasty.

So, the conversation between me and the physician goes on like this. After some basic calculation of height and weight, she told me "Oh, your weight is optimum, but you can definitely put on more. You should be eating a lot more cheesy food."

That's definitely not hard, I thought. I made a mental note of the fact that I had an unopened pack of Fritos cheesy chili corn chips, and that I should finish it up first thing after work. I felt hungry. I had not eaten anything for the last 12 hours!

Few more tests, the blood oozes out of the needle, and I have that tired look as though all the blood has been drained off my body, when actually it was not more than a drop.

My blood is transferred to different measuring objects to calculate the amount of sugar, cholesterol and all the unwanted details that my not so active brain can comprehend. As soon as she mentioned about sugar, my mind went back to those dreaded biology classes. Oh, how I struggled to learn those terms - Diabetes mellitus and Diabetes insipidus!

She looked at me, as though reading my thoughts, and said "Your sugar is fine. Make it a point to eat a lot of fibres." If my sugar is fine, why can't I continue what I am eating daily, I thought.

We moved on to cholesterol. There are so many different types - HDLs, LDLs, triglycerides, HDL - LDL ratio and what not. Now what? I asked. She made some calculations with the data she had assimilated from the various devices, and said, "You should follow a good exercise regiment with a healthy supplement of fibres and proteins, low fat and good carbohydrates."

What about my cheesy diet? I remarked. She had a grin, "Oh forget the cheese. Your weight is perfect."

Then, what about the body mass index, I queried, absolutely innocently.

Just take care of the diet, she said.

All in all, it means, "God alone knows how you can get to shape. There is no point in telling you anything."

And, I am not going back until the next "regular" checkup.