Health proverbs
- 1Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto; and Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Canada
- 2Institutional Research and Planning, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
- 3Glebe Collegiate Institute, Ottawa, Canada
- 4Vincent Massey Public School, Ottawa, Canada
- Correspondence to: Dr B C K Choi Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto; and Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Canada; Bernard.Choiutoronto.ca
A proverb is a short popular saying that expresses effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought. It can help people remember important messages and therefore is an important tool for information dissemination.
Our ancestors have left us a great wealth of health proverbs, such as “Prevention is better than cure (1240)” (prevention), “Eat to live, not live to eat (1387)” (obesity), “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise (1496)” (sleep), “Better to wear out than to rust out (1557)” (physical activity), “Never let the sun go down on your anger (1642)” (stress), “A stitch in …
