What is the

Adventist Health Message? It is more than a set of scientifically

The “health message” when connected with
established health practices that prolong
scripture and the God of Scripture can
and preserve life.
restore the dead to life.
Fred Hardinge, DrPH, RD It is profoundly more important than its
If we confine any part of the health message
Associate Health Director component parts of balanced nutrition,
only to its scientifically validated facts, we
General Conference of SDA exercise or rest, etc.
have short-changed our audience of the
It can do far more than modern science has eternal health benefits that ONLY come from
discovered. Jesus.

1 2 3

Leading Causes of Death

Physical Activity U.S. 2004

Tobacco
“The human body may be compared to Poor diet & Physical Inactivity

nicely adjusted machinery, which needs Alcohol

care to keep it in running order. One part Infectious agents

should not be subjected to constant wear Toxic agents

and pressure, while another part is rusting Motor vehicle

from inaction. While the mind is taxed, the Firearms

muscles also should have their proportion “They should go out and exercise every Sexual behavior

of exercise.”.-- Signs of Times, 1886, No. 33. day...” 2T 931 Illicit drugs

0 125000 250000 375000 500000

JAMA 291(10) 1243

4 5 6
 Death Rates by Fitness Level Fitness & Fitness &
2135 Age-grouped Men
Hypertension Risk Type 2 Diabetes Risk
120
120
1.0 0.96 7.0
Low Fitness
Medium Fitness Low Fitness Low Fitness
6.00

96 High Fitness Medium Fitness 6.0 Medium Fitness

0.8

Diabetes incidence/1000 men

High Fitness High Fitness
Crude death rate/1000 PY

5.0
72
0.6
60.5 4.0
0.48

48
0.4 3.0
38.5 2.50
37

0.24
2.0
24 21 20 21
0.2 1.50
17

10
1.0
0 0.0 p  <0.01
60-69 70-79 80+ 0.0

Blair & Wei, Am J Health Promotion 2000, 15:1-8 Barlow,  CE  et  al.  Am  J  Epidemiology  2006;  163:  142-­‐150 Barlow,  CE  et  al.  Am  J  Epidemiology  2006;  163:  142-­‐150

7 8 9

What is the most frequent

reason given for not being
more physically active?

LACK of TIME

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Excess Disability & Healthy Behaviors and Healthy Behaviors & Cancer
Lifestyle Choices Cardiovascular Disease
6.0 4.0

Mortality, Cancer (RR)

n = 20,244; 11-yr study n = 20,244; 11 yr study Healthy  Behaviors  
Healthy  Behaviors  
0.8 • Nonsmoker  
72% 4.5 3.0

Mortality, CVD (RR)

• Nonsmoker  
• Physically  acIve  
0.6 • Physically  acIve   2.0
3.0
• Not  a  heavy    
• Not  a  heavy     drinker  
0.4 drinker  
24% 26% 1.5
1.0
• Ate  more  plant
0.2
• Ate  more  plant foods,  fruits  and    
foods,  fruits  and     vegetables
Low Fruits & Low Physical
Smoking vegetables
0.0

Vegetables Activity 0.0

4 3 2 1 0
0 4 3 2 1 0

Number of Good Health Behaviors Number of Good Health Behaviors

BMJ 2013;347:f4240, 2013 PLOS Medicine 2008; 5(1):39-47 PLOS Medicine 2008; 5(1):39-47

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Scientific Dietary Vegetarian Dietary Advantages Dietary Guidelines

Recommendations
✓Lower cholesterol and saturated fat intake Lower heart disease
✓Increase fiber in the diet Lower cancer rates
✓Increase use of complex carbohydrates Lower diabetes “Use plant foods as the foundation of your
✓Lower animal fat intake Less obesity meals. … Eating a variety of grains
✓Consume more phytochemicals in the diet Less hypertension (especially whole-grains), fruits and
✓Get more antioxidant nutrients Less dementia vegetables is the basis of healthy eating.”
Less osteoporosis
✓Eat adequate amounts of the essential fatty acids
Longer life expectancy!
✓Avoid too much protein

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SDA Church Position
“Those foods should be chosen that best “Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables
supply the elements needed for building up constitute the diet chosen for us by our
“The diet God ordained in the Garden of the body. In this choice, appetite is not a Creator. These foods, prepared in as
Eden--the vegetarian diet--is the ideal, but safe guide. Through wrong habits of eating, simple and natural a manner as possible,
sometimes we cannot have the ideal. In the appetite has become perverted. Often it are the most healthful and nourishing. They
those circumstances, in any given demands food that impairs health and impart a strength, a power of endurance,
situation or locale, those who wish to stay causes weakness instead of strength. We and a vigor of intellect that are not afforded
cannot safely be guided by the customs of by a more complex and stimulating diet”.
in optimum health will eat the best food
society.” MH 295 MH 296
that they can obtain.”
Seventh-day Adventists Believe...

19 20 21

Church Working Policy The “Geriatric Curve”

“We don't make the health reform an iron
bedstead, cutting people off or stretching
them out to fit it. One person cannot be a

Functional Capacity
standard for everybody else. What we
want is a little sprinkling of good common
sense. Don't be extremists. If you err, it High-Risk Lifestyle:

would be better to err on the side of the smoking, inactivity, obesity

people than on the side where you cannot

reach them.” 1SAT 12
SDA Working Policy, Health Ministries, p. 303
Birth
Age Death

NEJM 338:1035-1041, 1998

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“Squaring Off” Life “Squaring Off” Life Our Mission

Low-Risk Lifestyle:
If the Seventh-day Adventist health message is in any
Functional Capacity

Functional Capacity
Low-Risk Lifestyle
active, non-smoker,
degree separated from the gospel message it will lose
healthy weight its power and effectiveness.
High-Risk Lifestyle
If a person attends a health program in a Seventh-day
Adventist church, understands and applies the
principles, they will have gained a few years of life.
Impaired
If they did not learn that the power to change comes
Survival from Jesus, then the church has failed in its mission
to the community.
Birth
Age Death Birth
Age Death

NEJM 338:1035-1041, 1998

NEJM 338:1035-1041, 1998 NEJM 338:1035-1041, 1998

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Jesus is the Life Giver What is the Real Problem? The Real Answer is JESUS
Poor food choices?
Lack of exercise? Ephesians 2:4-7
Anxiety or depression? But God, who is rich in mercy, because of
This message is not to be separated from the gospel
Too much television?
His great love with which He loved us,
message.
even when we were DEAD in trespasses,
Today’s most skillful and perceptive scientist cannot Weak experience with God?
made us alive together with Christ (by
bring the dead to life. High fructose corn syrup? grace you have been saved), and raised us
Too much wheat? up together, and made us sit together in
GM foods? the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

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The Real Answer to Health Jesus is the Life Giver God Works Miracles Today!
Problems is Jesus

Only the Gospel actually brings the dead to

“To arouse those spiritually dead, to create
Jesus Christ is the center and core of the life and the health message expands the new tastes, new motives, requires as great
Gospel Gospel and brings life more abundantly. an outlay of power as to raise one from
physical death…our Deliverer is able to do
Jesus Christ should be the center and Jesus is the life giver and He is the health this; for He came to destroy the works of
core of all Health Evangelism giver. the enemy.” RH March 12, 1901

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