Pills vs. Diet Americans are obsessed with weight loss and “healthy living.” Some people spend thousands of dollars on surgeries such as gastric-by-pass or liposuction to look and feel a certain way. Others talk to their doctor and are put on medications that will help them achieve their desired weight or to make them feel a certain way. Some people even resort to excessive exercise and food disorders. People don’t realize that the key to having energy, a controlled body weight, and a long healthy future is a healthy diet and regular daily activity, not medications. Surgeries, medications, excessive exercise and food disorders are not the answer, and in some cases they are actually making the problem worse. Doctors should advise patients with chronic health diseases to live healthy lifestyles. People are suffering from Type 2 Diabetes (DM2), heart diseases and other ailments because doctors are pushing pills instead of solving the problems and finding a cure. Over the years our understanding of chronic illnesses such as DM2 and heart disease have drastically changed. DM2 is, “a chronic disorder of glucose intolerance and impaired carbohydrate, protein, and lipid metabolism caused by a deficiency of insulin or resistance to the action of insulin. A deficiency of effective insulin results in hyperglycemia” (Silvestri 637). According to Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine, a patient with DM2 should have a daily intake of 40% to 60% of complex carbohydrates. A patient with DM2 should also have 12% to 20% of their dietary calories be protein. Along with carbohydrates and protein, a patient only eat 30% or less of total calories in fat. The fat percentage breaks down into 6% to 8% polyunsaturated fats, 10% or less saturated fats, and whatever percentage remains is monounsaturated fats. The daily dietary fat percentage should not exceed 40% (544). Diabetes mellitus should try and be controlled by diet and exercise before any prescriptions are mentioned, if a patient cannot control their diabetes then a doctor will have to resort to medications. Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine says that diseases that contribute to chronic heart disease are; high blood pressure (BP), diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol and lack of routine exercise, these can all be related to nutritional risk factors (846). Teaching a patient how to read food labels that can contain sodium and sodium chloride (NACL) or monosodium glutamate (MSG) are important tasks for reducing blood pressure. If a patient cannot control or regulate symptoms of chronic heart disease a doctor needs to educate the patient on side effects of medications that they would need to be on to say healthy. Educating patients on drug side effect it will help motivate them to comply with healthy lifestyle changes. Doctors turn to prescriptions rather than holistic medicine because that’s how they were taught. In medical school doctors are taught to find a problem and treat it. Most of the time they don’t need to know the root of the problem or why it is still accruing, all they were taught was to solve the puzzle in front of them. We live in a society where everyone wants and gets stuff fast. If someone has to have something, they get it right away. That’s how medicine works, if a patient wants a possible cure for their problem then they talk to the doctor and get a prescription for a medication, which name can’t pronounced, and take it hoping the treatment works fast. Medications lik