Men are notorious for delaying health checkups and presenting late to doctors when contracting illnesses. Many men put their health at risk by ignoring health check-ups. The reasons for not giving priority to health check-ups are many.

However, most of the reasons boil down to the need to maintain the image of masculinity. Traditionally, men are expected to be stoic, tough, able to withstand stress, able to take care of themselves and earn for the family. They are taught not to cry easily; minor cuts and scars are to be seen as badges of masculinity. Therefore, medical check-ups are certainly not on their agenda.

A check-up is traditionally viewed as something for kids and pregnant mothers. Hence, health check-ups are viewed by men as something feminine. Once a boy has grown up to become a teenager, clinic visits are important only when he is sick enough to call for help, and not even if there is only a minor ailment.

However, this trend is slowly changing after years of campaigns on the importance of health check-ups and healthy lifestyles by various authorities and non-governmental organisations. Now, more men are interested in going for health check-ups.

For example, men whose parents died of heart disease early in life have substantial risk of heart disease and therefore need earlier assessment of their cholesterol level; men who smoke and have diabetes may need cholesterol treatment at a lower threshold than men who don’t; men who have erectile dysfunction may have undiagnosed hypertension which needs intervention, and so on and so forth.

Hence, it is important for you to visit your doctor for a comprehensive health check-up and determine what tests are needed.

Screening tests are not diagnostic. This misunderstanding might be a little difficult to explain, but I’ll try. A screening test is performed to identify people who might have a particular disease. It merely identifies those who have high risk (or chances) of contracting a disease.

To be more specific, a good screening test should be able to differentiate whether we are at higher risk or lower risk of a disease from our own baseline risk. If our baseline risk of a disease is negligible, a screening test result would not be informative; and worse still, it may cause unnecessary anxiety.

Therefore, it is meaningless to have a screening test done before even knowing our own baseline risk.

Source: Recalcitrant men

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