We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Bone weakness is mainly seen in post-menopausal women. It isasymptomatic until a bone breaks and you face a real problem. When men have it, it tends to be at least ten years later than women, on average.
You do not need to appear frail to have bone fragility, but osteopenia is one component of what we term "frailty" - vulnerability to things breaking. While being underweight is one risk factor, being heavy is not a protection. Vit D deficiency and inactivity are other factors, along with bad habits, unlucky genes, and a life style lacking in daily resistance exertion.
Hip fractures are one of the common presentations of previously-undiagnosed bone weakness. Contrary to common belief, people do not "fall and break their hip." It is usually the opposite: their femur just fractures from weakness, causing them to fall. People with bone weakness, though, are more prone to any bone fracture anytime they fall or have an accident.
Diagnosis is usually via a routine Bone Density Scan or after a fracture.
Prevention and Treatment: Besides getting some sunshine daily (not just on your face) and taking Vit D along with a good diet, the prevention and treatment for bone weakness is strength training. The medicines for osteoporosis are problematic and often ineffective. Cardio exercises - things like walking, running, swimming, etc. are not effective in building muscle or bone strength. (It is not unusual for runners to be weak-muscled - or for weight-lifters to be unable to run a mile. Balanced fitness means strength, a little cardio, and calisthenics for athleticism but only the strength component is relevant here). Some full-body calisthenics might be helpful (eg squats, farmer's walks, push-ups, step and press) but what really helps is moving heavy weights against gravity with all the muscles you can engage for a couple of hours each week.
That works because muscle stress and muscle growth put the good kind of stress on the bones to which they are attached. This naturally stimulates bone development. Bone-ligament-muscle is a functional unit. Weight training can not damage your bones. Quite the opposite.
For strength training for post-menopausal women, I recommend working towards multi-muscle-group exertions like barbell or goblet squats, bench press, deadlifts, assisted pull-ups, military press, leg press, etc with ever-increasing resistance. The uninitiated should not do these things without an experienced and savvy trainer with some nutritional sophistication. Being overweight is no obstacle to strength training, but a low BMI is a major obstacle to strength-building and requires remediation.
Bone weakness aside, any non-casual fitness program should include strength training, some cardio, and calisthenics. In addition, a nutritional plan that supports your conditioning goals.
Body type is relevant to health, exercise, and appearance. It's worth bearing in mind that few people are a pure type, and that, for example, endomorphs can be fat (often termed "skinny fat" - ie a belly on a slender frame) and ectomorphs are not necessarily fat.
The body types are genetic, products of inborn bone and muscle structure. In other words, the body frame.
In the crematorium, will you sizzle nicely or will your corpse burn down the funeral home?
We recently posted about abdominal muscles and abdominal wall fat, but fat of course is widely-distributed on the body. It's not all subcutaneous. Much of the excess fat you have is intramuscular and most of it is stored amongst your guts in the large packets of soft lard which produce the belly.
The human body is a sponge for carbs. It is designed to be a prepper for the next famine. If you have ever assisted with surgery on a heavy person, those giant yellow blobs of adipose clinging to the organs and intestines mean trouble. They ooze a slippery oil that make it difficult to hold onto a tool and get in the way of everything you try to do. Disgusting. Surgeons hate working on heavy people because of that. It pisses them off but they deal with it. Risky, though.
But, with the first incision when the yellow subcutaneous globules billow up and flow out onto your skin, they will say things about you that you would not like to hear. It's one reason they knock you out first. Handling all of that goo in my youth helped motivate me to stay fit in middle age.
Around 15% body fat is considered good, athletic fitness for men, and about up around 19-23% for women. Women naturally carry somewhat more fat in their hips, butts, and boobs. Less than 19% in women is for under-30 year-olds, body-builders, the naturally-skinny, and if it gets too low, those with eating problems. No need for expensive tests to assess yourself. Just compare your image below the fold, from here.
No teacher is qualified to go rummaging into kids' unconsciousnesses, nor is it necessary, nor is it desirable. As a tomboy kid, I think this would have messed up my head. This is a political agenda driven by either ignorant or, more likely, deliberately-disruptive people.
Perhaps kids need safe spaces from psychological assaults by the education machine. This reminds me of the Death Education for kids that was a big deal ten years ago. The field trip highlight of that movement was to bring kids to mortuaries and see what was done to the corpses.
Is it cynical to wonder whether teaching arithmetic is just too difficult?
By New England puritanical standards it feels sinful or weak to be as attached to possessions as I am. So be it, because I never claimed to be sinless. I never claimed to be entirely free of superficiality either. Appearances have an effect on me and on everybody.
Artifacts from my life and from my family and my ancestors give me pleasure and comfort. Much of it probably has minimal monetary value (for example, you have to pay people to take away brown furniture today, even mahogany furniture, because nobody wants it) but it has meaning to me with memories attached.
I often mistype Marital as Martial. Freudian typos? It's an impossible job, but sometimes highly gratifying and always interesting. I enjoy doing it when I get a chance to. Generally speaking, as a therapist you fly by the seat of your pants but it's never dull. I have even done couples therapy with gay guys. Never a dull moment.
Where did that middle-class term "parenting" come from? And is gardening a useful metaphor for raising kids?
Our approach was to try to set good examples in every way we were able given our imperfections, to make parental praise rare and valuable and parental disapproval painful, to forbid TV with rare exceptions, to indulge their interests, to expose the kids to as many experiences and opportunities as we could and try to prevent them from being killed or maimed while allowing enough space for initiative, adventure, and failure. We had no better ideas than those.
As government and other medical bureaucracies impose themselves on medical practice, their temptations are to create "practice guidelines" for their practitioner subordinates.
I resist the underlying idea of one-size-fits-all, or even the idea of a tyranny of "best practices." Each patient is unique. Furthermore, most areas of medicine are in constant controversy and dispute, with new ideas always emerging. For one example, the nutritional bureaucracies are about 20 years behind the times.
I have seen plenty of people poorly-served because of fear of rules or of law suits.
"Try" is one of those tricky words, isn't it? "Just try harder." "Try to study harder and you'll get it." Or my favorite: "Try to relax." What do those sorts of things mean?
My most meaningful encounters with "try" are with physical exertion, mainly exercise. When you hit the wall with an exercise the overwhelming inclination is to stop. However, when somebody says "Give me two more" or "Drive it through" you engage your inner "try." Then mind, nerves, and muscle fully engage together to do something you can't do.
A "healthy diet" above and beyond the basics cannot be defined and never will be defined because adequate nourishment can be obtained in so many ways. Much of the science of nutrition is dubious and, anyway, nobody reading this website is in any danger of being malnourished. Overnourished, more likely. Americans probably pee out more vitamins and minerals in a week than malnourished African kids get in a year.
In other words, Americans are the last people in the world who ought to fetishize the idea of "healthy" food. That is probably why we are the only people who do.
The nutritional science which has the most value involves diseases of malnutrition, which are absent in the Western world. The knowledge that has general applicability concerns the roles of protein, carbs, and fats in the diet, perhaps the role of vitamins, and the new information about how people become fat.
Furthermore, some foods are disparaged as unhealthy for no reason. Consider steak and burgers, ice cream, and so forth. People say "Eat fruits, greens, and vegetables." Why? They are just sometimes-tasty fillers with minimal nutrients but which can be fun to eat if done right. Is orange juice "healthy"? Depends what you mean. It's flavored sugar water and some people prefer it to plain water. Is chocolate "bad for you"? Of course not. It is wonderful food.
People talk about what foods are "nutritious." In the Western world, that is an absurd notion. Lots of guys in the NBA were raised on Frosted Flakes, Doritos, hot dogs, Coke, MacDonalds, and school lunch slops. Highly nutritious. The only people who should eat brown rice and whole wheat bread are people who prefer the flavor. The only people who should pay any attention to nutrition are parents of growing kids, people who are overweight, and athletes and others with heavy physical work.
In the prosperous Western world, you are not what you eat - so people ought to eat what they like and what they can afford and ignore the health marketing hype and ignore the health superstitions. I can tell you why our family meals consist of what they do: Tradition, preferences, and nothing more.
Modern investigators find it hard to accept the fact that groups exhibiting superb physical development and perfect health ate liberally of the very dietary component that modern nutritionists have demonized: Saturated animal fat.
These are quite closely-related experiences, aren't they? I think in terms of lions.
Watching a lion chase a gazelle is exciting. Being chased by a lion is fear. Having a similar feeling with no lion is anxiety. Something like that. The point is that context matters quite a bit in how we label these things.
Another point is how the term "anxiety" is often applied to normal variations in people to medicalize something. Example: "I am afraid to meet and mingle with people" vs. "I have social anxiety." Same thing, sounds different.
This is all terribly oversimplified. And so is this cute presentation below, but it makes some good points.
In Western civilization, self-exposure is often a daunting process. I mean physical as well as psychological exposure. Self-exposure requires courage and trust, but fortunately it is rarely called-for.
In public, we cover ourselves up literally and metaphorically. We put our best foot forward, if sober. The only real exception is at the beach where everybody wears highly-exposing underwear and our flaws are out there for all the world to see.
My topic is shame, whether about our physical or our psychological beings. Most of the time, shame is not neurotic but a healthy human response to exposure of our flaws, imperfections, and general instinct for privacy. We all have all sorts of dirty laundry. We are all on some spectrum between shame-paralyzed and shameless. The extremes are problems.
What sorts of things are often on many peoples' shame/privacy lists?
Physical self must be exposed sometimes: physical exams, weight, strength, physique, dentist(!), beach, sexual encounters, excretory fuinctions
Psychological exposure: Our private thoughts, fears, fantasies, mental flaws and weaknesses. Sometimes we will cautiously expose these to close friends or to shrinks.
Other personal attributes: Money, personal habits and home, rotten behavior, political views, failures, public performances, job status, childrens' difficulties, etc.
Intimacy means showing aspects of our unadorned selves to somebody else. It is not something to be done lightly because our private selves are not necessarily appealing to others (note the expression "TMI").We know that better than anybody, hence shame.
Caveat: Sociopaths are quite good at faux intimacy for purposes of ingratiation and manipulation.
Unless you give yourself 4 or more hours in the gym daily like an anorectic, no. For practical purposes, it is of no use for that.
All exercise which fatigues and stresses the body is good for mental health, fitness, and vitality, and it probably slightly raises calorie-burning and is better than sitting, but exercise alone can never help you lose 10 lbs of belly lard. It's wishful thinking.
We and others have written about the topic of self-esteem and self-respect ad nauseum. There is healthy narcissism and unhealthy narcissism; there is healthy self-hatred and unhealthy self-hatred. Pride is a mortal sin, but pride in a difficult accomplishment seems like a good reward.
We generally consider self-respect as something which must earned against some inner or outer obstacles, struggles against fear, temptation, or external resistances and challenges. We generally think of self-esteem as similar to self-administered mother's love or God's love. That is, unearned and undeserved. A modest dose of that never hurts and few of us are thoroughly evil or worthless. A good dose of humility never hurts either. We all have plenty of reasons for self-contempt and self-disappointment, and those deserve our attention however unpleasant that may be. I do not trust people who are not open to doing that job on themselves.
Worrying about choosing a career is a First World Problem, isn't it? All that most people need and want is a job in which they can succeed and survive. Extra money is even better and many people prefer that even if the responsibility is onerous and stressful.
Another problem with the "career" idea is that it implies a lifelong occupation with some sort of upward trajectory. Today, however, many if not most people change jobs, or careers, during their lives. Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not.
Work that "does good for others"? All compensated work does good for others or it would have no monetary value, but the work which does the most "good for others" is work that creates jobs. It makes sense to claim that it is the entrepreneur and the inventor who do the most good for others and for society as a whole.
Want to do good for society and for others? First thing: be independent and self-sufficient. Second thing: support your family and raise them well, if you have one. Those are the most valuable things a person can ever do.
What about the idea of a "calling" or a mission? Interesting idea but usually only applied to religious or medical paths and most people would like to be writers, artists, or musicians if they could. I have never heard anyone claim a calling to software sales, but far more people build interesting, fulfilling, and useful lives doing the latter than the former.
Many are called but few are chosen. Missions and passions make for good hobbies if they do not seem to work as income-producing jobs. Everybody needs cool hobbies and sports, and a stimulating social life, to round out a life so it's a good idea to make time for one's passionate pursuits too.
There are no cures for the most serious, chronic psychotic mental illnesses. Such patients can be helped in many ways but can never be normal, and many such patients, for a variety of reasons, do not cooperate with help that is offered.
Very few of these people are violent, and many of them just prefer to be left alone to live in their strange worlds.
How does one "help" such patients when they have no desire for help and treatment but are unable to live in the real world? Asylums existed for a reason.
It is a thoughtful essay, but I will object to the term "policy" because it implies government action in a situation in which nobody knows what is best to do. "Help" has to be individualized, not manualized.
The best-organized and rational program I have seen is the New Atkins.
If you want to look good, have maximum vigor, and save your joints, back, and heart, it's a good tough program which will shrink your belly, your stomach, and your appetite.
Once you reach your target, the plan focuses on maintenance. Not easy in a world of temptation.
They are physiologically correct in general, and especially in noting the trivial effect of exercise on fat loss. Exercise is for strength and vitality for white-collar and otherwise sedentary people, but not for fat loss. Lose fat, exercise better, get stronger, feel better, and fight aging.
Medically, each pound of spare adipose tissue over-stresses your heart, and your knees and hips. Not good. Also, strong and thin is good for sex.
If you just don't care, that's fine too. It's a free country. Very few have the self-discipline needed to do hard things persistently and obviously many people do not care very much about how they look or feel.
I have no problem with overweight people. I just assume that other things are more important to them than physical fitness, and they are right about that. It is not for everybody.
Overwhelming medical consensus is that Chronic Lyme Disease does not exist - unless Lyme goes untreated. It is easily treated, once diagnosed.
Nonetheless, many still cling to the idea of Chronic Lyme. Few physicians buy into this, but if they do, I will consider it quackery until I see convincing data.
As with the anti-Vac brigade, some people can not be persuaded by facts.
Let's assume that few people in the Western world are content to be "who they are naturally," ie without improving themselves by effort or training.
Thus many women wish to behave in a ladylike fashion, many men in a gentlemanly fashion. In the West, people have something we term an "ego ideal" to which they aspire. The ignorant wish to be more knowledgeable, the fearful wish to be more courageous, the cool-hearted wish to be warmer, the weak to be stronger, the unmannerly or boorish to be more civil or refined, the unpopular to be more engaging and interesting. Not all, but many.
Many people work on these aspirations through example or from books, etc. People do this because nobody's "natural self" is of much value or interest to others.
Ego ideals are, in part, culturally-defined. If a man's ego ideal is to be a tough wise guy with years of jail time, he studies that. If Bill Clinton's trailer park gals wish to learn charm and refinement, they read Emily Post or the modern equivalent.
Unless you are a genius, nobody cares much about your "authenticity." That is for your diary or your analyst but please spare the rest of us.
My point here is not really about becoming ladylike, however defined. It is that it takes practice, and some failure, to try to become who you want to be.
However, I think it is barking up the wrong tree to try to psychoanalyze this grievance-collection and grievance-manufacturing by the most privileged and indulged kids in the world. No reasonably balanced person reacts to such non-events. It is a fad, like hula-hoops. Faux outrage, microaggressions, and hate hoaxes are all the rage on campus this year. One might almost imagine that the ignorant kids have nothing to study. What it's really all about is cry-bullying, a manipulative power tactic which only works on spineless women and beta males.
Those are the same administrators who will buy their 3 year-olds Cocoa Puffs at the supermarket when they cry. Same stunt, same result. Too many spineless people out there who are afraid of saying "Shut up and grow up" the way normal people would do. Or, in the campus case, "Shut up and get back to your differential equations."
The best-organized and rational program I have seen is