Alas, all of our piggy, I mean, panda banks, are made in China now. Fill them with human capital.

Over the years, I’ve encountered seemingly countless perspectives on personal health. From fad dieting to fasting, running to yoga, and organic food to synthetic alternatives, people’s lifestyle choices fascinate me. From a strictly human observation standpoint, people’s thought processes on health are compelling. Those thought processes are impacted by personal experience, external social factors, unspeakably powerful cultural messages, religious influences, empathy, and a whole host of others. Allow me to present a new model for personal health, framed by economics. You’ve surely never thought about a balanced, healthy lifestyle quite like this. I call it The Human Capital (HC) Model for Personal Health.

While I don’t have a say in people’s health choices, I do have an interest. That is one symptom of socializing aspects of health care.

The HC Model for Personal Health takes the concept of “human capital”, and applies it to a system of debits and credits. The debits and credits are not applied to a financial account, but rather a theoretical health account. If human capital is the total summation of genetic gifts and shortcomings, as well as lifestyle, psychological, physical, and emotional decisions, your personal health depends on the net effect. Genetic gifts, or lack thereof, include one’s talent, intellect, and physical prowess or advantages. A person’s lifestyle and personal growth depend on their actions, education (formal, self-taught, and life experience), and dedication to honing skills. Your personal health account is essentially your wealth, in health terms. And as we all know, if you don’t have your health …

Everybody is born with a wide range of human capital. Some people are very dumb, others are geniuses. Some people have physical diseases, others have a full bill of health. Some people are in a family with positive influences and environment, others grow up in the equivalent of an insane asylum. Some people are very curious, others are self-absorbed and oblivious to the outside world. Some thrive in learning environments while others struggle with learning disorders. The amount of human capital you start with is very important, and it should effect your decision-making process throughout life i.e. if you’re running on empty, it’s probably not a good idea to empty your remaining funds.

Lance Armstrong has a freakishly high VO2 max (85 ml/kg/min), a great aid in winning 7 straight Tour de France’s. On the other hand, he also had testicular cancer. VO2 max is a substantial debit to Lance’s personal health account, while the genetic predisposition to testicular cancer, a substantial credit.

But you can acquire great human capital throughout your life as well, despite your starting point. If you simply tread water, as it were, you may pass a good chunk of society anyway.

When it comes to lifestyle choices, most choices are either a debit into the personal health account, or a credit out of the personal health account (some are arguably neutral in actual terms, but then there’s the issue of opportunity cost). If you go outside to smoke a cigarette, you’ve just swiped your bank card, crediting some human capital out of your account. If you go and exercise, you’ve just deposited human capital into your account.

While gossiping with your girlfriends about celebrity couples for an hour might be a utility-maximizing event, you’ve just swiped your card again.

Human capital is a testament that while we are all human, we are not all the same. We are not the same amount of “special” or “challenged”. We all deserve civility, kindness, and freedom, assuming we don’t stomp on other people’s rights, but there are winners and losers in the human race. If you die from a rare genetic condition at age 7, that is a losing proposition. If you have an IQ of 24, that, too, is a losing proposition, just not as severe. So, yes, there are ranges and magnitudes of winning and losing, and various perspectives on each. Most of us are not destined or entitled to either; we work our way toward one or the other, sometimes on a volatile roller coaster ride.

How about some more examples?

If you’re a girl and you decide to date a douchebag guy for 14 months, you’ve credited your account repeatedly. If you’re still a card-carrying, staunch supporter of either major political party, you are crediting your personal health account due to derangement. Certain choices hit diminishing marginal returns. Having one cup of coffee provides you with caffeine, which barring health issues, can be good for you in small doses. Java offers antioxidants and fights diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, colon cancer, and your risk of cavities. But if you have four cups of coffee each day, chances are you’re squandering net human capital; jittering I might add.

The HC Model allows one to look at their health from a complete perspective. We cannot compartmentalize the physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological aspects of life. They all interact with and affect one another. It also requires us to take an honest look at ourselves. What are our gifts, talents, strengths, and shortcomings? What is our starting point? A human capital-driven life is contagious. When you spend time around people that take care of themselves, push themselves, and promote positivity, you’re compelled to do the same. When you’re around those that swipe their card all day, you’ll probably have a swipe-off. The HC Model promotes sustainability.

If your fad diet calls for all meat and no carbs, you’re spending HC. If you go from never doing long distance running in your life to running twenty miles per week right out of the gate, you’re spending HC. Your body isn’t used to it, you will hurt yourself, and you will not sustain. If your answer to losing weight is not eating, resigning yourself to a life of diet soda and 99% fat free popcorn (while you sneak in a Skinny Cow here and there), all you’re losing is HC. We have something called a metabolism. When a person refuses to eat, their metabolism slows down. When the metabolism slows down, a person will gain weight more easily. If a person refuses not to eat long enough, they will permanently damage their metabolism. The longer one refuses to eat a healthy, balanced, and sustainable diet, the more they will damage their metabolism. Don’t damage your metabolism. It’s not good for your HC account.

What is so hard about eating a grilled chicken breast? Or some vegetable sausage? Or a turkey sandwich? How about some albacore tuna, or a plank of salmon? The veggies and hummus meal only takes you so far.

If you drink or do drugs, can you stick to one substance vice? Nothing better then meeting people who drink, smoke cigarettes, smoke pot, pop Vicodin or Percocet, and have “experimented” with hard core drugs. Let’s go ahead and minimize the vices in our life. These are often the same people who don’t exercise enough, don’t get enough nutrition, and are generally clueless in life due to their lack of self education, or otherwise. These are the folks who’s HC accounts have long been drained and are now running up debt to their elbows.

If you have an IQ of 180, smoking marijuana now and then isn’t a big deal (assuming of course you live in California and have obtained your medical marijuana card). If you have an IQ of 31, you really don’t have much brain power in the tank to surrender. Good decisions as it relates to human capital reserves are appreciated.

Why can’t we all get some exercise? Fit it into your week so your neighbor doesn’t have to pay for your triple bypass down the road. And instead of finding one thing, like the elliptical machine, and doing nothing but that one thing … can we get some variety and work some different muscle groups? Perhaps a little resistance training to go with your running, or yoga to go with your dancing, or core work to go with your golfing. Whatever you do, do more than one thing, and choose a lifestyle that you can sustain for more than a month. Before every decision, ask yourself “am I debiting or crediting my human capital account”

Note: I am aware this column got progressively more aggressive. But I strongly believe that if we implement the The Human Capital (HC) Model for Personal Health on a mass scale, this will be a much better country to live in. Happy saving.

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