Respect For Health

Let us examine in this post what the Church teaches about health. Your blogger spends a significant amount of money on medicine each year, so a little investigation was made.

2288 Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.

This includes taking my medicine regularly! Why reasonable care?

2289 If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it does not make it an absolute value. It rejects a neo-pagan notion that tends to promote the cult of the body, to sacrifice everything for its sake, to idolize physical perfection and success at sports.

Hence, Taking care of your health does not mean you get obsessed with it.

2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco or medicine.

Yes, don't eat too much, don't drink till you get drunk, don't drink too much cough mixture, don't take too much of my medicine till I get overdose (it's possible).

However, I'm puzzled that tobacco is lumped with food, medicine and alcohol . I'll put it this way - when I eat my favourite food, I don't put myself at risk of being addicted to it.

Let's see the next paragraph.

2291 The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offence.

There are no therapeutic grounds for nicotine, contained in all forms of tobacco, except to help people quit smoking.

UPDATES:

On 2291. "except on strictly therapeutic grounds". Its quite interesting to know that morphine (from opium) has therapeutic grounds as a painkiller.

Alcohol is removed from comment to 2290. A flip though the Merck Manual of Medicine shows alcohol as part of Drug Use and Abuse. Good reminder here for me.

Pipe smoking is seen to be harmful too.