Most impactful point of Women's Health

I think what most impacted me was the global issues that were brought to the forefront with this class.  So many countries, disparities, age groups, and diseases were shown to us.  At times their struggles seemed unconquerable.  But, then, there was also the message of hope and empathy and education that could overcome that struggle.  I was thinking today that if a whole class of health educators, including myself, would each pick either a country, or a disease, or a disparity, and we each started an organization to take care of that issue, that it would be a worthwhile endeavor.  So much still needs to be done, on top of all that is already being done!  Governments, agencies, NGO's are already doing lots of good for these issues.   There is still room for more.  I believe that our instructors are doing it just by getting us to read and view all these articles and videos.  I think it is near and dear to their hearts too.  This is what has impacted me this summer.     

Blog 10 ISandy Gooch -

     Sandy Gooch is the founder of Mrs. Gooch's Natural Food Markets.  She was a normal Californian who rather suddenly started to have seizures and disruptive health issues.  After doctors could not discover  the cause of her ailment, her scientific father discovered that the food she was eating was poisoning her.  She started eating natural foods and her body healed itself.  From that incident, she created supermarkets for natural food, something unheard of in the 1970's.   Many people attribute her as the founder of what we know today as natural food markets the world over.  Her standards in the newly created industry were high.  Her creativity sparked interest and kept the markets growing.  She had intense passion to help people be well.  She lectured about how to be well and also about her marketing skills.  She was a leader in the Quality Assurance Alliance and helped to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in 1994.  She wanted the average American to taste the goodness of healthy food.  She educated her public.  That was key for her.  She won many advertising awards.  She was generous to her loyal employees and helped numerous others.  She was operating in a man's world back then.  In 1993 she sold her company to Whole Foods Market.  Her seven stores were bringing in 90 million dollars a year.  After that sale, her goal was to save the world by transforming their body, mind, and spirit.  She led a meal program in a Los Angeles school, served on boards involved with nutrition and also on empowering women in other countries.  She consulted and still consults for free!  The fact that she did not retire and live the "good life" on her own island somewhere after she sold her company, but rather now volunteers and serves for the good of people, is why I think she is an inspirational woman. 

References

Rutberg, S. (2009). Sandy and the seven stores that changed an industry. Retrieved from
     http://newhope360.com/business-directory/sandy-and-seven-stores-changed-industry

Blog 9 Taser Guns to the Rescue! Reduce Assault Risk!

     I know there are several habits women can do to reduce the risk of assault.  I could talk about those but instead I want to go in a different direction based on a recent conversation with my new daughter-in-law.  My family and I were waiting on food to be served at a restaurant and the topic turned to a day in the park that my son and his new wife had had.  They came upon a couple who at the time were in a  discussion where the husband was trying to convince the wife to purchase a taser gun for protection against assaults.  She was not buying into it and was advocating pepper spray instead.  In a split second the husband had her in a headlock with a pretend taser gun applied to his arm and said that was how fast an assault could happen but also how fast she could put a taser gun on an assailant and render him/her defenseless.  My daughter-in-law was impressed and decided she wanted one.  She learned from this man that the guns are affordable.  She looked it up online and after much searching was able to locate one that would not break the bank, so to speak!  This is one great way a woman can reduce the risk of an assault. 

Blog 8 Send the addicts to treatment programs!

It is better to send drug addicts to mandatory drug treatment programs rather than sentencing them to jail or prison.  Many years ago I sat on a jury where the man on trial had bought an illegal drug within a block of an elementary school.  All the jurors were deliberating whether to send him to prison or to a drug treatment center.  It was a heated discussion time.  I was in favor of the treatment center as well as ten others.  The twelfth juror was the only holdout.  It took some convincing to show her that if even one portion of this mandate was violated, this man would immediately be sent to prison.  When she was absolutely assured of this point, she too, reluctantly, consented to send him to a treatment program. 

A treatment program...

...that is court order must be obeyed.  When I spoke with J. Hansen, a manager of a substance abuse facility, she said that people who come to the facilities because of court order are ready to obey all the rules because they know that if they do not, they will get sent to prison (J. Hansen, personal communication, July 8, 2011).
...is controlled.  Experts in the field are caring for the individual.

...is dry, as opposed to the circulation of illegal and legal drugs in prison (Alexander, LaRosa, Bader, Garfield, & Alexander, 2010, p. 365). 

...can provide counsel for the often accompanying mental issues. 

...has a goal for sobriety.

...is cheaper (Hanson, Venturelli, & Fleckenstein, 2009, p. 34).

...educates people of the harm being done in their bodies.

...can have great success rates.  Phoenix House has a 70% success rate (J. Hansen, personal communication, July 8, 2011).  



Now obviously, if a crime was committed, the saying is true, "if you do a crime, you do the time."

References

Alexander, L. L., LaRosa, J. H., Bader, H., Garfield, S., & Alexander, W. J. (2010). New dimensions 
     in women's health. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers

Hanson, G. R., Venturelli, P. J., Fleckenstein, A. E. (2009). Drugs and society. Sudbury, 
     Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers

My best friend has fibromyalgia

I called up my best friend today to interview her for this blog, although I could have skipped it since it has been a conversation we have had many times for twenty some years now.  My friend has fibromyalgia.  It is a chronic illness that affects every day of her life.  She lives with chronic pain in her muscles.  She has to pace herself every day according to how she feels.  About seven days per month she is totally shut down and cannot do anything but lay on the couch.  But on the other 21 days she wakes up and slowly gets moving.  Weather sometimes messes with her.  Travel of any sort is difficult for her so she rarely gets to see her extended family.  Movement is also hard for her.  She is very sporadic with exercise because as soon as she starts walking or riding her bike, something in her body gets injured and she stops.  She has taken medicine for years and her newest drug seems to be helping her a lot.  She also has seen an alternative doctor and she is improving her diet.  She has great inner strength and her faith in God helps her through her days.  She is a great wife, mom, and friend.  I am proud of her because she is determined to not let this illness defeat her.  You can find more information on fibromyalgia in the website listed below in the references.

References

Pub Med Health. (2011). Fibromyalgia. Retrieved from
     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001463/

               

Two Big Doozies: Exercise and Diet (or Lack Thereof)

Exercise and diet.  There are two words that are very familiar with most women in the United States.  I am not an exception!  I have had challenges with both of these disciplines, as I will call them, down through the years.  Surprisingly, when I was raising my children, I was very faithful in going to the gym.  I did aerobic exercises and weight training three to five times a week.  I do not mean to blame school, BUT, I have struggled to exercise and my eating is not always as good around test time or finals now that I am back in school.

I believe that the biggest challenge to keeping to a regular exercise routine for me currently is the time factor.  But a close second is that I do not keep the information I know about exercise in the top five priorities in my life.  Does that make sense?  It is more than just knowing it, but actually doing it that counts.  Instead, it has a way of nabbing at the back of my feet.  There is always one more "something" to do and then it is too late and I am too tired to exercise.  My diet is pretty good but chocolate or fudge can bring me down!  And to be honest, soda pop, too, from time to time.  

Over the next five years, I will be through menopause and on my way to 60 years old.  Reading in our textbook about exercise, diet, and diseases has both scared me and encouraged me.  Fortunately, I have already started exercising again.  All last month I walked almost every day.  I even have been mindfully lifting grocery bags as though I were doing a set of 10 repetitions.  I have very little room to digress.  So, I have already talked to my husband about getting a new gym membership.  I need aerobic exercise, along with weight training, and a little yoga too.  I am excited to get back on the road to put myself in the best place possible to being a super fit 50-something!        

Blog 5. Aging Gracefully

 Changing societal images of older women can be accomplished in a few different ways.  One simple way is to stop portraying them as little, old, helpless, gray headed women sitting in a nursing home.  Menopausal women are in their 50's on average and they are not old and crippled.  Has anyone seen Marie Osmond lately?  She is 51 years old and looks super hot!  She, and others like her, could be the poster girls for aging women!  And many of them are not gray headed!  So replace the gray headed ladies in advertisements with 52 year old brunettes or 55 year old redheaded women!  Back in the 1950's, only seven percent of women colored their gray hairs.  Today, that has changed and 75% of all women now color their hair (TLC, 2011). 

Beyond physical looks, the ladies that are aging gracefully have new attitudes, fit lifestyles and healthy bodies.  Society does tend to view the negative aspects of aging (Kam, 2011).  For society to change their outdated view, the women themselves will need to lead by example of how to age gracefully.  They need to keep living to the full!  Society (people) will take notice.  Their views will change when they see the change.  They will be encouraged to know that there is more to life than just the people who are under 40! Besides, the 50's are the new 40's!

 References

Kam, K. (2011).  The art of aging gracefully.  Retrieved from
     http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/features/the-art-of-aging-gracefully 

TLC. (2011). Hair coloring guide.  Retrieved from
     http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/style/hair-coloring.htm    

Blog 4. STD's, behavior and status

My thoughts with whether sexually transmitted diseases (STD's) can be equated with immorality, promiscuous behavior and low social status has to do with quantity issues than character issues.  Call me old-fashioned, if you like, but I believe in having a monogamous relationship, till death do you part.  That would be one mate for life.  Look at the definitions of these words.  Immorality means wickedness and evil (Dictionary.com, 2011).  This does not equal disease.  Promiscuous means having sexual encounters, numerous times on a casual basis.  Medically it refers to more than one partner (Dictionary.com, 2011).  Behavior means a way of acting (Dictionary.com, 2011).  Bingo!  If one engages numerous times, with various partners, the odds of getting an STD has risen dramatically.  It is all about the numbers.  Social status refers to classes of people and whether one is high, low, or middle has no bearing in this discussion. 

So what does one mate for life look like?  Well, in a perfect world, it means that one boy and one girl will wait until marriage to have intercourse.  They remain in that union and not stray outside of it until they grow old together and pass.  But the world is not perfect in most cases.  What if one of the spouses dies prematurely and re-marries?  What if initially one mate is a virgin and the other is not?  What if neither are virgins, but have committed from the wedding on to be monogamous with each other?  STD's are diseases spread through sexual relations.  The more sexual relationships one has with various people increases their chances of contracting a disease whether it is a cold, the flu, or a STD.

References

Dictionary.com. (2011). Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/    

 

Should Sex Education be in the Public Schools? If So, What Kind?

     Have you noticed that there is a lot of talk about "sex education" but very little about "health education," the class where sex education is taught?  I asked my educator friend from Dallas, TX when it was taught, and she said in the secondary classroom setting (C. Davis, personal communication, June 22, 2011).  To me, that is where the problem lies.  Sex education does need to be taught in the public school but before the children's hormones have taken off!  Plus, it may need a name change, something along the lines of "hormone education," "adult 101," or "personal responsibilities/consequences".  Sex may technically mean one's body makeup as a male or female (Alexander, LaRosa, Bader, Garfield, & Alexander, 2010, p. 68) but not in an adolescent's mind.  It means coitus to them in whatever form it involves.


     An abstinence-only program should be in the public school.  It should be taught at various times, to preadolescent (upper elementary school), as well as middle and high school children.  Hopefully, the school setting is reinforcing the message they get from parents, church and social organizations. Children definitely need to know the workings of their body parts.  But they also need to know the legal ramifications and possible consequences (pregnancy, molestation, and rape, to name a few) to their actions.  They need to know that legally, in the United States, this is an adult activity.  It is not for children.  There are responsibilities and consequences for not using abstinence when they are underage.  For example, in California, it is illegal for two minors to have coitus with each other.  It can result in juvenile or adult court (California Statutory Rape FAQ, 2009).  Even as children, respect for the laws of the land should be expected and taught.  If they choose to play by adult rules, non-abstinence, then they will quickly learn that they have to also live by adult rules.

                                                             References

Alexander, L. L., LaRosa, J. H., Bader, H., Garfield, S., & Alexander, W. J. (2010).  
     New dimensions in women's health. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers

California Statutory Rape FAQ. (2009). California Statutory Rape FAQ. Retrieved from
     http://www.sexlaws.org/california_statutory_rape#Q1

How can we encourage adolescents to follow healthy behaviors?

Encouraging adolescents to incorporate healthy behaviors can be somewhat tricky considering their fluctuating, independent, and sometimes rebellious attitudes.  Plus, their behaviors are highly driven by their peers (Hanson, Venturelli, & Fleckenstein, 2009).  Based on this, it seems like one idea would be to use slightly older, healthy peers to communicate to and influence the younger set of adolescents.  Health educators could plan health behavior programs for the school setting, music concerts, malls, and basically wherever youth hang out.  Plus, using current electronic devices, like the cell phone, to post messages and/or websites from various peer celebrities, who have a message of healthy behavior, could also work.  The key is to use slightly older adolescents who look like them, but their message is one of healthy behaviors. 

            Parents can work undercover and expose the child to various activities that involve people of all ages and health conditions.  This will open their eyes to more than just their peer set.  Also, I am not sure if the “yardstick” demonstration would work with adolescents, but I once was shown a yardstick and it represented a life of zero to eighty years.  I then was to estimate where I was on that stick in years.  It puts in perspective quickly how much life is left if I live to 80!  Let alone to have a healthy one!     

References

Hanson, G. R., Venturelli, P. J. , & Fleckenstein, A. E. (2009). Drugs and society. Sudbury,

            Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.