Yes, ice cream can be part of a healthy life. Here's how.

"Emanuel has been working to improve Americans' health for decades. A bioethicist, health policy expert, oncologist, and chocolatier - yes, really - he helped to write the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and to create USDA's MyPlate, which replaced the Food Pyramid. He reproduced this fatalistic first rule in his book to remind readers that we're all fated to oblivion. So let's not single-mindedly strive to avoid death, but rather simply try our best to live life as well as we can."

"In Eat Your Ice Cream, Emanuel lays out six fundamental wellness behaviors that can be woven into one's life with relatively little effort: Avoid self-destructive risks, be social, stay mentally sharp, eat healthy, exercise regularly, and get rest. If you do those simple things, the research suggests, you have a good chance of living a long and healthy life. And together, they're more effective than any pricey supplement, restrictive diet, or glamorous wellness treatment."

Acceptance of mortality can free people from obsessively avoiding death and encourage focus on living well. Wellness should be a background, unconscious part of lifestyle rather than an all-consuming pursuit. Six fundamental behaviors—avoiding self-destructive risks, nurturing social connections, maintaining cognitive engagement, eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and getting adequate rest—can be integrated with relatively little effort. Research indicates that practicing these behaviors increases the likelihood of a long, healthy life and often outperforms supplements, restrictive diets, or glamorous wellness treatments. Social connection emerges as especially important, and occasional pleasures, like eating ice cream, are consistent with a balanced approach.

Read at Big Think