I find it interesting that when any health challenge appears in someone's life, or in our own, the health-conscious, mindbodyspirit crowd has a tendency to immediately blame food. I’ve certainly been guilty of this myself.

Whether we encounter issues with our immune systems, chronic illness, joint paint, skin disease, depression, weight loss, or even cancer, the response is almost uniformly similar: Change your diet.

Go vegan and plant-based. This wouldn't have happened if you weren't eating junk food. Keto/paleo is life-changing. Processed oils, refined sugar, too many carbs, too much dairy,  nightshades, mycotoxins, non-organic produce, meat, unsprouted nuts and grains...the list is endless.

Looking at our diets makes sense. We've been struggling with a conventional medical system that has completely ignored lifestyle and dietary changes while over-medicating us for decades. The food industry has bombarded us with fast foods and artificial ingredients for just as long. Most of us know the FDA is rife with problems and not a reliable source of protection.

But as helpful as dietary changes can be, our collective tendency to look to our diets for the pinacle answer to any health concern is problematic.

Deep down we know this. We know that stress is a massive killer. We know our environment is full of poisons. We know our air quality can be harmful and that we're surrounded with toxins in everything from our mattresses to our office carpets and more. Those of us who haven't been brainwashed by amazingly effective marketing campaigns for five-gee know that it's yet another assault on our health. We know that past trauma can influence our present health and all sorts of preconditioning exists in our DNA. On some level, we even sense the karmic and spiritual components that might be at play with any illness.

Despite all of this, so many people still focus on diet to the exclusion of all other contributing factors to our health. Why?

It comes down to control.

We can control our diets much more easily than any of the other widespread assaults on our health we face. Because every other contributing factor to our chronic illnesses requires change on collective levels.

The collective stress we're under needs collective solutions—our individual lifestyle changes will only go so far. We can try to avoid buying products with known toxins and living too close to cell towers, but this is a drop in the bucket compared to what we're exposed to on large-scale levels.

So we retreat to the comfort of what we can change—our food, feeling superior to those who sadly poison themselves with poor diets.

One danger in this way of thinking is that it can lead us to miss catching serious illnesses sooner. I can't tell you how many people have kept endlessly changing their diets in hopes of easing stomach issues or joint pain, only to realize that they had cancer, parasites, a genetic condition, or something else that required far more intervention than a new diet.

Of course, it should be noted here that dietary changes are actually not easy. Not just because of our emotional attachments to food, but because healthy food is still inaccessible to huge portions of our population.

Thinking that we can stay healthy because we have healthy diets, and healthy lifestyles in general, is a symptom of our individualist, easy-fix American culture.

“We're in charge of our own health. When people suffer, it's their fault.”

This is a myth. Every bit of our health is tied to the health of the collective. We exist in an ecosystem, not a bubble.

So yes. Eat healthy (doing so can actually help the ecosystem, too). Take care of yourself and your loved ones. But also have compassion for others—and yourself—when you're faced with illness, whether a cold or cancer. Even those who "do everything right" are never guaranteed endless health.

And do not ignore our collective struggles. All of us need to keep the conversations around our environmental and shared challenges at the forefront of any discussions on individual health. When enough of us put our shared needs forward often enough, the consciousness of our collective changes. And then the policies and products in our life change. And then we can all enjoy thriving together just a little more. At least that’s the hope.