Halloween isn’t the only time monsters jump out of closets. Various health bogeymen jump out of the newspaper pages every day! Threats are raised but seldom discounted if new information emerges. Or fear is free form, vaguely touching everything we eat, or every breath and pill we take.
Some examples:
- A 28-year-old says a third of the people in the U.S. have AIDS; he is married and faithful, but afraid of catching it. The real number is about 1.5 million.
- Another 20-something stopped eating chicken because of blood sugar leads to fewer complications.'”
Jellinger doesn’t say, “Do you want to live to see your grandchildren?” He says, “I am sure you want to enjoy your children growing up.”
For a younger person, he adds, he tells a “positive” tale of the great tools of control we have today, which was not always the case. “I talk about their fertility and pregnancy and how we have come so far. I tell them their life span will be very little reduced by having this disease, if they handle it.”
Educating is better than striking fear, he says.
“I believe,” Jellinger says, “in being positive, but positive with fact behind it.”
“We all believe and hope,” Gruman adds, “that there are things we can do to protect ourselves and our family. The way to control fear is with good information. Otherwise, fear takes over.”