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Day 19<br />
Schedule a Physical<br />
Men are reluctant to pay a visit to the man in the white coat. Studies have<br />
shown that more than half of the men in the United States have not been<br />
to see a doctor in the past year. And 55% of men admit that they are reluctant<br />
to visit the doctor. When we do go, we usually wait until we’re missing<br />
an arm or have a javelin stuck through our head.<br />
There are a few reasons why men don’t visit the doctor on a regular<br />
basis. One reason that I hear quite frequently from my male friends is that<br />
going to the doctor is just too inconvenient. I understand this sentiment.<br />
You go for what should be a 30-minute check-up, only to wait in the lobby<br />
for an hour, and then you spend another 20 minutes sitting bare-bottomed<br />
on some butcher paper in the exam room.<br />
Another reason men avoid the doctor is that we’ve been socialized since<br />
childhood to believe that being a man means sucking it up when you have<br />
an illness or injury. Going to the doctor for some men means admitting<br />
that you’re weak and defected, and, thus, unmanly.<br />
I think one of the biggest reasons men don’t go to the doctor for regular<br />
check-ups is that we view the doctor as someone we only visit when something’s<br />
wrong with us. We don’t see going to the doctor as a way to prevent<br />
health problems before they start.<br />
Finally, some of us are nervous about going to the doctor because we’re<br />
afraid they’ll find something wrong with us. But of course, that reason<br />
doesn’t make an ounce of sense. Because while being diagnosed with something<br />
isn’t very fun, it’s a barrel of monkeys compared to dying.<br />
So today, we’re going to get over our reluctance to visit the man in the<br />
white coat and schedule a physical for ourselves.