China's Vice Health Minister Wang Longde wrote an article for the People's Daily yesterday, indicating that many diseases have a close relation with unhealthy habits in people's life. In order to get rid of bad habits, Chinese people need a widespread and thorough "behaviorist revolution."

How could China carry out this "behaviorist revolution" to realize the goal of improving Chinese people's health level?

In many rural areas, residents' houses are very close to livestock and poultry sheds and their contacts with domestic animals are quite frequent. Moreover, a majority of animals' excrements fail to get non-hazardous disposal; as a result, the environment in rural areas abounds with some pathogenic microorganisms. This is the widest gap in sanitation and health between China and developed countries and is also the main factor that affects people's health. In order to prevent diseases which infect both people and domestic animals, the first step is to separate people's living environments from domestic animals' habitats.

In addition, bad habits are a major cause of many infectious and endemic diseases. Hepatitis A, hepatitis B and SARS are all related to people's sanitary habits. Chinese people should make more efforts to cultivate good habits, which serves as an important means to prevent diseases from spreading and infecting people.

In China, deficient exercises are a crucial factor which results in rising incidence of many chronic diseases. Enough exercises can prevent 90% of diabetes type II and coronary heart diseases, improve osteoporosis, increase human body's immunity and reduce incidence of some tumors.

A recent survey of Chinese people's nutrition and health status shows that incidence of chronic noninfectious diseases has risen rapidly and deficiency of nutriments like iron and vitamin A widely exists in China. Therefore, reasonable adjustments of dietary structure and intake are significant to Chinese people's health.

HIV carriers increased about 70,000 in 2005 in China, equivalent to about 190 every day. Everyone should absolutely reject unfavorable behaviors which are highly hazardous to one's life and health in order to control the prevalence and spread of AIDS.

People working in health authorities should play an active role in propelling Chinese people to participate in this "behaviorist revolution."
 
 (China News Service March 17, 2006)