Data Underload #18 – Sleep Schedule (Flowing Data) A picture worth a thousand words. Diagram of the hours of the day showing when we’re asleep and awake throughout the lifespan. Sleeping (or Not) by the Wrong Clock (The New York Times) When your sleep schedule is out of sync with the rest of the world,… Read more
Tag Archives: healthy lifestyles
Obesity: Moving beyond willpower vs. the food-industrial complex
Source: The Pilver Marc Ambinder has written a terrific article on obesity for The Atlantic. It’s comprehensive and insightful, both objective and personal. Ambinder himself suffered from obesity until a year ago, when he went from 235 to 150 pounds following bariatric surgery. The operation immediately improved his severe diabetes, and within months it relieved… Read more
The So-Called Obesity "Epidemic"
Source: Everything Changes I was planning to include a category called “The So-Called Obesity ‘Epidemic’” in the next Daily Dose, so I thought I should first explain what I mean by that. Back in June, there was an article in The Washington Post called “Judging Fat People.” Here are some excerpts: “Be honest: What’s your… Read more
Health insurance industry to consumers: You’re financially responsible for your behavior
Source: Courier Times Online Scott Harrington is a professor at Wharton and “adjunct scholar” at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Two weeks ago he wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that gave the standard Republican argument against a public option: It will inevitably lead to a single-payer system. “Private health plans have a strong… Read more
Is agriculture bad for your health?
Source: Dental Anthropology By studying the fossilized bones of long-dead humans, physical anthropologists can determine the course of our species’ evolution. But those fossils, which often include bones deformed by lesions and distinctly unhealthy teeth, also allow anthropologists to speculate on the health and the lifestyles of our distant ancestors. Individual anthropologists have long speculated… Read more
Sanjay Gupta a victim of obesity myths?
One group that opposes the nomination of Sanjay Gupta as the next surgeon general is the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), an organization that promotes the interests of the restaurant and food industries. Anyone who suggests eating less can expect criticism from an industry that wants us to eat more. Gupta took on the topic… Read more
Science, engineering, and the recession
It was the UK’s Bryan Appleyard who started me thinking about health and the recession. In an article on what to expect in 2009, he interviewed Chris Ruhm, who stands by his 1996 findings that recessions are good for your health. “People get physically healthier and mortality rates fall during bad economic times,” he tells… Read more
The economy, stress, and health
In October the American Psychological Association (APA) released its Annual Stress in America Survey. Compared to 2007, the 2008 survey found an increase in stress related to money, the economy, job stability, housing costs, and family health problems. Stress-related symptoms also increased: fatigue, feeling irritable or angry, lying awake at night, lack of motivation, feeling… Read more
Paging Dr. Frankenstein
Yes, there’s mercury in your salmon and melamine in little Jenny’s formula, but not enough to do any real damage. Read more
Melamine update
What happened in China, and what threatens a widening swath of the world’s food supply, is a human tragedy that can’t be understood simply in terms of science. Read more
The first clinical trial: Eat your vegetables
The first ‘clinical’ trial may have been 2600 years ago. According to the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar held Israelites in captivity in Babylon after the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC. The king selected an elite group of prisoners to serve him in the future. They were to receive the same “choice” food and… Read more
The last well person
“A well person is a patient who has not been completely worked up.” Read more
My personal odyssey through the health culture
I was a “victim of advice” in the seventies, but I should have known better. Read more