Our healthcare system is under pressure, some say it is collapsing. Specialist appointments often don’t take place for weeks, emergency rooms are overcrowded, and doctors and nurses have been working at their limits for years. At the same time, more and more people are becoming chronically ill at an increasingly early age.

The consequences of chronic diseases of civilization such as diabetes, obesity or Cardiovascular diseases not only cost an alarming number of livesbut also an immense amount of money over the years. This is due, among other things, to Germany’s “all-inclusive mentality,” says sports scientist Ingo Froböse. In his new book “Germany is sick” (out tomorrow) he makes it clear: The responsibility to relieve the burden on our health system does not lie solely with politicians and health insurance companies. A lot of things start with ourselves.

“Germany is sick”

“We assume that fifty percent of people in Germany are currently chronically ill,” says Ingo Froböse in an interview with FOCUS online. Figures from the Robert Koch Institute confirm this. In 2023, around half of adults in Germany said they suffered from at least one chronic illness.

According to Froböse, so-called civilization-related diseases that are closely linked to lifestyle are particularly problematic – including

• Type 2 diabetes
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Chronic back pain
• Overweight and its consequences

What do these diseases have in common? “They cause a lot of individual suffering and high costs for the health system through medication, hospital treatment and lost work,” the book says. Many of these diseases could be prevented.

BER: exercise, nutrition, regeneration

Froböse sees each individual as responsible for this.

“We all have to do something ourselves. Because we can’t buy health, we have to do it.”

There are three key areas in which everyone makes decisions every day. She is rudely called “BER”:

1. bemovement
2. Enutrition
3. Regeneration

According to the book, anyone who “behaves cleverly” in these three areas and is “spared from medical blows” can “avoid doctors or pharmacists”. In just a few steps you can move away from a “pill instead of prevention” mentality.

1. Movement: “Sitting is the new smoking”

Germany is sitting – and paying a high price for it. “We currently have around 10.5 hours of sitting time on average among our population,” says Froböse. “We know: sitting is the second time you smoke.” This starts with school and daycare children, who don’t get enough exercise.

Recommended for adults is at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, supplemented by strength training on two days. This has a positive effect (in prevention and therapy) on very different areas of disease. A few examples

• Regular endurance training, for example, can do this Blood pressure comparable to taking medication.
• With exercise, blood sugar levels can be lowered immediately and the insulin sensitivity of the cells can be improved. This works Type 2 diabetes and obesity before.
• Regular endurance training has a positive effect Depression and anxiety disorders.
• Strength training stimulates bone formation, thus helping to maintain bone density and prevent bone loss osteoporosis at.

However, you don’t have to become a fitness freak to enjoy these benefits. If you don’t like or can’t exercise, you can do interval walks for 30 minutes about four times a week. Always alternate between three minutes of brisk walking and three minutes of easy walking.

Movement points can be easily collected in everyday life by using the stairs instead of the elevator and cycling to work for a change.

2. Nutrition: Back to “real” food

Froböse sees a similar imbalance in the second area, nutrition. As a society we consume

• too much Sugar
• too many sugary drinks
• too many industrially processed foods.

Froböse no longer describes the latter as food, but only as an “energy source”. For him it is clear: If you want to protect your health, you have to go back to it in the long term more natural, preferably unprocessed foods return. In the book, the authors recommend two diets:

• DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension): A scientifically based diet that is intended to counteract high blood pressure. It consists of foods low in cholesterol and fat and relies on lots of fruit and vegetables and little salt.
• Mediterranean diet: Based on the traditional eating habits of the Mediterranean region and contains little meat, but lots of vegetables and fruit, legumes, whole grain products, fish and cold-pressed olive oil as a source of fat.

3. Regeneration: After-work mistake

In Froböse’s opinion, the third area is particularly underestimated: regeneration.

For him, the increasing sleep problems are just a symptom of a deeper phenomenon. “We have a real regeneration problem,” he says in an interview.

If we sit in front of the screen all day during the day, the biggest mistake is to sit in front of the screen again in the evening to “relax”.

“It doesn’t help if I watch the 35th series in the evening in the hope that I’ll regenerate,” says Froböse. “It can’t work that way, that we recover, repair, restore.”

His message: We have to learn to consciously recharge our inner battery – with breaks, sleep and activities that have nothing to do with constant digital bombardment. In addition to the diet and exercise already described, the authors recommend:

• cultivating hobbies and social contacts to create mental distance from the workload.
• Targeted relaxation techniques such as mindfulness exercises, meditation or progressive muscle relaxation
• sufficient and high-quality sleep