By Scott Christian
Make friends, sleep, and eat ice cream. Maybe not quite the healthy living prescription that most are used to finding in the wellness influencer-sphere, what with its miracle creams, high-protein diets, and Navy SEAL-inspired workouts. But for Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an award winning oncologist and bioethicist, and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, it’s part of a six-rule philosophy that serves as ground zero for building a healthy life. Because, according to Dr. Emanuel, being healthy isn’t actually all that complicated. Not easy, sure. But not complicated.
Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life is the book Dr. Emanuel wrote as a counterstatement to the endless parade of wellness hype that has proliferated over the last couple of decades. Specifically, he wrote it to answer the question: “Why is there no wellness in modern medicine?” Speaking to a packed house in Owen’s Great Room, Dr. Emanuel kicked off the appearance by naming his #1 rule for a healthy life: Don’t be a schmuck. And schmuck things include climbing Mt. Everest (1 in 100 die doing it), or becoming the president of the United States (1 in 11 die in office).
From there, he quickly moved onto the rest of his “six-rule” take on health, which essentially boils down to data-backed yet common sense elements like sleeping well, staying socially engaged, avoiding processed food, and getting enough (although not too much) exercise. All of it was, of course, delivered with Dr. Emanuel’s trademark straight-shooting wit and humor. And for the gathered students, faculty, and staff, it was an entertaining afternoon that pulled back the curtain on not only the world of health and wellness, but why it’s a subject that so rarely makes an appearance in the prescriptions of the modern medical profession. Importantly, it was a relief to find out that, yes, it is in fact okay to eat ice cream.
