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At one point or another most people experience stress which the World Health Organization defines as a state of worry or mental tension and how the body responds to that.

Americans spend more on prescription drugs than any other country. One of the agendas of the Biden-Harris Administration has been to focus on lowering prescription drug prices and making them more affordable for American families.

The fear of Covid-19 virus may have vanished in thin air, with health planners and citizens in India treating it as an “almost-over case”. But it is not. Given the news about long-term Covid infection still rattling many around the world, there is one worrying factor. It is the deep impact the virus has left on the mental health of many, including in India, where the population is ageing, underserved by the health care system, and is uninformed and poor. While we kept analyzing Covid-19 impacts primarily from business, jobs and economy angles, the pandemic has, in fact, exposed the fragility of the health system in India. Further, Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, in his latest 304-page book, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic, talks about these fragile health systems and the need to develop a strong infrastructure to combat pandemics in the future.

Growing waistline is not only an American health worry. For Indians too, it is fast becoming a troublesome public health issue, say top US public health experts, including some of Indian origin, who have seen it growing and now becoming a real health challenge. Having lived for 50 springs in India, and now seeing it bloating from the waist worries me too. It’s time to cut that flab before it triggers more unhealthy signs. For these health experts who spoke to The Sunday Guardian at length, the biggest challenge lies in how to beat the post-Covid-19 effect. Their fears come from nearly three years of erratic eating habits, a non-exercise routine which most of us followed during Covid-19 along with our growing love for the couch and binge OTT watching. To them, a return to Indian home-made platter holds the key to beating obesity!

The long Covid-19 lockdowns and the threat of health risks outside kept people isolated, holed up in their houses, and glued to their TV screens, laptops, and mobile phones in India. This sedentary lifestyle didn’t spare the children either. Even young preschoolers have started to spend more screen time—using mobile phones at an alarmingly high number of daily hours. Screen-watching among Indian preschoolers and children is much higher than the prescribed screen-watching limit set by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Parents of teens and young adults, beware. Smoking, including vaping, continues to be the biggest health risk. A US-centric multi-authored study finds that in the age group of 18-24 years, nicotine and cannabis remain high-risk consumption items. Additionally, young adults in America are also consuming the deadly cocktail of alcohol and cigarettes. Globally, smoking and drug abuse continue to affect nearly 14% of the youth, and over 5.6% of the world population in the age group of 16-64 years is consuming drugs, say the study experts.

Clinical depression, a serious mood disorder that causes persistent feelings of sadness and detachment, is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States, affecting more than 11 million Americans a year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

More sleep at night, fewer or no sleep problems, and low levels of professional burnout were associated with a lower risk of developing COVID-19 among healthcare workers considered to be at high risk for exposure to patients with COVID-19, new evidence reveals.