Dad's Health: Woman's Push Needed

Fathers' Day celebrates the dads in our lives, but it also brings a reminder that they frequently neglect their own health.

The Early Show medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay co-authored a book on men's health, "From Boys to Men : A Woman's Guide to the Health of Husbands, Partners, Sons, Fathers, and Brothers."

She says men are often reluctant to keep tabs on their own health, but the women in their lives can help change that.

"I think it's a role that we play that we don't even realize or acknowledge many times that we're playing," she told Russ Mitchell Friday. "We've had the conversaions about sharing household chores 50-50. We've had the conversations about sharing child care 50-50. But this is one conversation that we've really not had, which is, who takes care of the health within the family and who worries about it? Who makes the doctors' appointments, who takes the kids to the pediatricians?

"Who is the source of health information within the family? And it's women. And the Surveys back that up. When they ask women where they get their health information, they say, the Internet, magazines, television. Men say, my wife."

Senay explains that the leading causes of death, heart disease, stroke and cancer, all affect men more than women, as do car accidents, suicide and alcoholism. Men die five to six years before women.

Part of the problem is that men visit doctors less frequently than women. Men are often resistant to getting the basic checkups that can head off many diseases before they develop.So it often falls to women as wives and mothers to drive men to see a doctor.

All men need to get routine physical exams, which vary, depending on their current health, risk factors for disease, and family history of disease.

Factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol and weight are important to check throughout life. Screening for conditions such as diabetes and certain cancers are important, too.

Denial is very common among men who have symptoms of illness, and that can be a deadly combination. For instance, a man with severe chest pain might who brushes it off and tells himself it's only indigestion risks death from a heart attack. Some men might even take themselves off medications without consulting their doctors if they decide they don't need them. Often, it's left to a wife or mother to see he's not feeling well and drag him to the doctor.

"Men have perfected the art of denial," Senay exclaims. "Really, they have. What you see so often is that men think they're invulnerable. They think that they're impervious to health problems.

"But what happens very often is, things pile up, and they sort of magnify over time. Then, a serious health problem will happen, usually in their 50s or 60s. Then they sort of wake up to health care. But in all those years when they're healthy, they really do have a sense that they're somehow not going to get into trouble."

Men need to become better at self-care, but women can start the conversation and help steer them toward health care. There are a few tips to help the process along smoothly: