Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Promoting Health & Self-Care in Cohousing

[Bob Morrison (rhmorrison]

  On 6/30 Charles Maclean wrote: One of the strongest contributors to "optimal 
health" is social connectedness and support...  and that's what cohousing 
offers in so many ways. 
  This is an invitation to begin to noodle and dialogue on what we can do as 
individuals and as supportive cohousers to promote health with our neighbors. 
[end quote]
  I don't know why there haven't been any replies on this to the list. I agree 
that there will never be enough doctors/dollars/diagnostics/drugs to treat the 
chronic diseases triggered by our lifestyle and behavior choices. I also agree 
that cohousing is a good place to address these issues, even though we are less 
than 0.01% of the population. 
Some answers to the questions for my community (Mosaic Commons, Berlin, MA):
1. What is your coho community doing now that promotes health, prevention [of 
disease], and personal responsibility for health?  Some things: We have a 
fitness center. We do our own maintenance, which means lots of exercise in some 
seasons. And we try to serve healthful foods at common meals, of which we have 
about 3 a week.
2. What stretch ideas do you have for taking health to the next level in 
cohousing?  We don't have a lot. One of our concerns is if we pressure people 
too hard to be healthy, people who aren't healthy may take it as criticism. 

Bob Morrison