Maintaining a healthy lifestyle increases the sustainability of your actions and shrinks your carbon footprint. When thinking of green living, you may picture individuals residing in rural regions and living off the land. Though this regime has its benefits, you can practice sustainability while leading a modern life.

Families can decrease their environmental impact by adopting healthy habits. To understand green health habits and their effect on your family, we must first evaluate sustainability as an independent construct.

What is Sustainability?

When you hear the term ‘sustainability’ on the news or in the media, it signifies environmental conservation. Sustainability is all about maintenance, particularly concerning the climate. When it comes to the planet, conserving the natural resources necessary for ecological survival is essential.

Sustainable lifestyles meet the present needs of individuals without compromising future generations’ access to similar resources. Adopting eco-conscious habits may protect the health of yourself, your children and the planet. You can avoid the overexploitation of natural resources by maintaining healthy habits.

Sustainable Issues with Poor Health  

Individuals who adopt unhealthy habits now have a higher chance of ending up in hospitals later in life. Hospitals are high energy-consuming buildings, using nearly 103,600 British Thermal Units (BTU) of natural gas every square foot annually. When medical facilities become overwhelmed with patients, their energy consumption increases, leading to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The pharmaceutical industry also contributes to environmental degradation. Medical professionals over prescribed pharmaceutical drugs in the west, creating waste. They inappropriately sell and dispense nearly half of all prescription drugs.

Some ingredients in common prescriptions are rare and come from far away regions. Companies also emit greenhouse gases through their production. These factors combined with inadequate disposal techniques have adverse effects on wildlife and the global ecosystem.

When society disposes of medicine in the garbage, it may end up in significant water sources. Pharmaceutical water pollution affects both humans and the environment. Water treatment plants cannot filter out these chemicals, allowing them to seep into our residential water supply. Scientists linked this form of pollution to altered sex functions in marine species and reproductive complications in humans.

Healthy Habits for Environmental Protection

Fortunately, there are ways society can prevent environmental degradation. Optimizing human health can reduce pharmaceutical production and the waste it generates. Healthy habits may also reduce hospitals’ energy demands, keeping intake rates down. Consuming an organic diet, scheduling routine dental appointments, prioritizing your mental health and exercising can increase the sustainability of your lifestyle.

Organic Diet

Organic food consumption eliminates one’s exposure to pesticides. These synthetic growth aids cause short-term health effects and long-term chronic illnesses. Some individuals experience rashes, nausea, dizziness, eye discomfort and diarrhea when consuming pesticides. Others develop cancer, immunotoxicity, congenital disabilities, neurological damage and endocrine disruption when exposed to agricultural toxins.

Pesticides also contribute to ecological destruction. They contaminate soil and water, harming birds, fishing, insects and other elements of the global ecosystem. You can reduce your family’s exposure to these toxins by growing your food.

Installing a home garden can benefit the health of your family and the environment. You can utilize natural fertilizers and crop patterns to optimize the development of your plants. Home gardens also eliminate the emissions associated with agriculture, such as transporting food, using harvesting machinery and more.

You can increase the sustainability of your garden by installing a rainwater harvesting system. These devices gather stormwater to nourish your plants. The system also prevents runoff that carries local agricultural pesticides into significant water sources.

When these toxins invade rivers and oceans, they create oxygen-depleted dead zones, uninhabitable by marine life. You can increase the quality of the global water supply and protect your family’s health by growing your food.

Biannual Dental Visits

Poor oral health can lead to life-threatening gum diseases and other complications. You can avoid the overproduction of pharmaceuticals and hospital visits by scheduling biannual dental appointments.

Many individuals neglect good oral health habits, leading to lifetime complications. Nearly two-thirds of global society has the virus that causes cold sores. Without proper dental health visits, the virus goes undiagnosed, leading individuals to spread it without knowledge. You can protect your health and the environment by visiting the dentist routinely.

Mental Health

You are more likely to protect the environment when you have a clear perspective on it and your life. Our mental health affects how we think, feel and act. Engaging in a sustainable lifestyle is possible when you tend to your emotional and physical wellbeing.

If you experience chronic emotional distress, visiting a therapist may help. Treatment is effective and allows individuals to lead a normal life. Prioritizing this realm of health can motivate you to care for the planet the way you care for yourself.

Exercise

Our elementary school gym teachers instilled the importance of physical exercise within us. Exercise is essential to the health of humans and the planet. Modern forms of transportation pose adverse effects on the environment.

Motor vehicles burn fossil fuels for energy, releasing environmentally degrading air pollutants into the atmosphere. You can replace driving with biking, walking and skating to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions and increase your daily exercise.

Lead by Example

Teaching your children about sustainability is essential to the health of their future. Prioritizing your health and wellness can show them the importance of sustainable living. Explaining the environmental consequences of actions can help children understand why biking is more eco-friendly than driving. Ensure you also involve your little ones in green activities like tending to the home garden to increase their enjoyment of sustainable actions.

What are your tips for sustainable health habits to teach your family?

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