It is funny how the tables turn. Young children think that their parents know everything about everything. It comes as quite a shock when they realise their parent’s knowledge is limited. Then the teacher becomes the new expert, and they hang on every word.
But as they grow up into the teen years, they decide that even teachers are deficient, and of course parents know nothing.
But their ego persuades them that they themselves know more than all adults.
Many years ago, a neighbour of ours had a bumper sticker on her car: ‘Hire a teenager while they still know everything’. She had two teenagers in her house.
I’m not sure if the message was for the benefit of her teens, or for her own peers.
But the wonderful thing is that as the teens grow and mature, they begin to acknowledge increasingly that their parents are wise and experienced, and these senior opinions are worth considering.
I was so taken aback when my middle-aged daughter recently expressed her deep appreciation for the influence of our parental wisdom and experience to support her with her life challenges.
So too, medical experts in the past, despite the rapid progress in knowledge, often have deep insights that can instruct us.
One of these in South Africa was Dr Alex (ARP) Walker, a research giant – contributing almost 1000 articles, research papers, letters to the editor, and chapters in text-books – in his long and productive life.
Most of his career was with the National Health Laboratories Services, in the Nutritional Research Unit – up until the age of 93.
He was particularly interested in the changing social situation in South Africa, and the effect of different lifestyle behaviours on the patterns of disease.
He found that the traditional rural African diet, already back in 1947, was associated with a low incidence of atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, appendicitis, gallstones and certain cancers.
This diet was rich in complex carbohydrates, dietary fibre, and low in fat, animal protein and cholesterol.
As rural black workers moved into the cities and adopted the refined foods typical of westernisation, these rare conditions started to rise rapidly.
Perhaps that is a key to the rising patterns of non-communicable diseases so rife in the world today.
Dr Dave Glass
MBChB, FCOG(SA), DipIBLM
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