"How many times have you been to the doctor and received advice about giving up, cutting out or eliminating enjoyable behaviors and activities?" he asks in the book's introduction. He then poses a similar question to himself. "How can I prescribe something fun and pleasurable to help people live longer and happier lives instead of dispensing those negative prescriptions?"
Davis has centered his new approach to health care on the concept of PRO-vention. "Prevention, a term most of us are familiar with, means trying to keep something negative from happening," he writes. "The goal of PRO-vention, on the other hand, is to make something positive happen."
The concept seems simple enough: Live well. Be happy. Get laid. It's all good for you. But then Davis tries a little too hard to make his neologism into an acronym. "PRO-vention has three components," he writes. " 'P' stands for Pantry Prevention, which deals with what we eat and drink." Huh? Now we're a little confused. If the whole book is about PRO-vention instead of prevention, then why does the first component have the word "prevention" in its title? "That was just for alliteration purposes," Davis tells us. Okay…
" 'R' is for recreation." Fair enough. That works. But here's the kicker: " 'O' comes from 'emotion,' or the attitudinal and spiritual aspects of our lives." What? Call us crazy, but doesn't "emotion" begin with the letter E, which ends up spelling the word "prevention" all over again? When we asked him about it, he replied, "I just took a little poetic license there." It must be getting easier and easier to apply for a poetic license these days…
But we're picking on the good doctor. In the end, his book is chock-full of good advice for living a full life, even if some of it is just the same old preventive song-and-dance cloaked in proactive terms. Here's a sampling of why you should feel good about being a little bad: "Sipping a little java in moderation has no ill effects on health." "Chocolate contains chemicals that protect against heart disease and cancer." "Positive health effects of moderate alcohol intake include protection from the top 10 killer diseases." And our personal favorite: "If you have sex twice a week, you lower your risk age by almost two years. That means your health risks are the same as for someone two years younger than you. If you increase your frequency of sex to five to seven times a week and are happy with your sex life, you decrease your risk age by almost eight years." All right!
These are just a few samples of how Davis advises us to eat, drink and be merry in his book, which makes for a crisp, enjoyable read. "The ultimate compliment was when a guy told me it's great bathroom reading," Davis boasts. We agree.
To order a copy of Health Yourself: The Candy, Booze and Sex Prescription, call 281-297-6300, extension 8558 or visit www.health yourselves.com. $14.95.
