Those who bash women for 'delaying motherhood' are hypocrites, don't understand human reproduction

Having reached the advanced age of mid-thirties, my attention is called quite often to articles and opinion pieces in the news regarding us stubborn, career-driven harpies who refuse to reproduce until we are good and ready, only to find that after the witching year of 35, things aren't so easy. Your eggs are old, lady! Give up and get a cat. Serves you right, anyway. The Daily Fail is full of these types of pieces - 'personal interest' stories about some poor 40-year old woman who would give up all her success, designer shoes and non-essential organs if only she could go back and have a kid at 20. Or worse: a woman who did manage to have children after 35 or 40, but is now too old and decrepit to chase them up into trees or stay awake during Mommy and Me.

Now I can't be strictly sure that there are more such stories than before, (since when I was a wee sprinbok in my twenties concerned only with non-procreative sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, and that f**king career, I likely would not have noticed them anyway), but from all the apocalyptic yelling going on about it of late, it would certainly seem as if humanity is in decline: no one is having any babies, and the end is nigh, and it's all your infertile fault, thirty-something lady. Except, not so much. In the US, where much of the yelling is happening, infertility rates are on the decline, and not because more people are having fertility treatments; this latter statistic has remained flat since 2002. In the UK, adult infertility numbers are being linked more and more to male infertility, with "male factors now accounting for 30 percent of fertility problems - the same as female factors". Even in Europe, where falling fertility rates (ratio of live births in an area to the population of that area) since 2008 are being flagged as alarming, they are closely linked in the research to the economic recession. That is, countries like Spain and Greece which fared among the worst saw the sharpest decreases in fertility rates, while those with better performance recorded no change or even increases. In other words, it's less about women's 'selfish choices' (whatever those are) and more about real or perceived and/or future financial constraint. Even the Daily Fail is forced to admit the relationship between financial situation and reproductive decisions. A similar argument can be made in Latin America and the Caribbean, where fertility rates are in fact falling, though in general not yet having reached the below replacement levels of 'developed' countries. The region as a whole still reflects Bloom's 'demographic dividend' - with an economically active population that is greater than the dependent population - but this may not last much longer, particularly in the Eastern Caribbean. Still, high levels of migration in the working age population are more likely behind this than Caribbean women's refusal to have children.

And this new debate, if not presented as willful non-compliance in the business of populating the earth, is presented as emerging wisdom to fill some gap in knowledge: women have simply had the wrong information. Hey ladies, I know you thought you could wait forever and carry out your own, selfish lady-business before reproducing, but nuh uh, missy, NEW RESEARCH shows you're about to expire. As someone who has owned a uterus for over thirty years, let me say this: we know. I'm not saying that every woman everywhere is in possession of an identical body of knowledge. In fact, we know this not to be true, which is part of the reason sharing information on sexual and reproductive health and access remains important. But a high percentage of the target audience for this blame-a-thon - professional women with tertiary or advanced technical education - already. Know. They are all too aware of their declining fertility. This is one of those cases in which knowledge on its own cannot translate into action. In simpler terms: even armed with this information, what would you have them do? Certainly not run out and fall pregnant by some random, which itself attracts its own brand of she's-a-witch vilification, and is the basis of much urban legend. Everyone knows someone who knows someone whose dressmaker's neighbour's domino partner was tricked into fatherhood by some desperate thirty-something. Always something with these women - either they're 20 and poking holes in condoms to trap a cricketer (cause we all know how deep cricketers are rolling), or 30 and going off the pill so their boyfriend will marry them goddamit, or 40 and having one night stands with friends/strangers, then spiriting away their sperm. Tricky tricksters.

The thing is, every reproductive choice a woman makes at this age is criticized.
Happily child-free? You're selfish and just want to keep your flat belly and boozing ways.
Unhappily child-free? Your fault. You used to be selfish and just wanted to have your career, flat belly and boozing ways.
Child-free, single and trying to conceive? Hoor! Children are for couples. And what about your poor, fatherless child? Single mothers are everything that's wrong with the world. You're selfish and just want to have a child to love you.

Herein lies the hypocrisy. And even had they had this knowledge earlier, before it was Too Late, the same applies.

Me explico. Growing up in Barbados, getting pregnant was the worst thing you could do. Not just as a teenager, but anytime before you had secured your place as a DoctorLawyerBankmanager. I'm serious. The Worst Thing. Teenage or 'early' pregnancy was blamed for all the ills of society, directly or indirectly. Boys are under-performing in school? Teenage pregnancy (and girls' sexuality). Never mind that the boys' (teenage fathers') asses are sat in classrooms while the girls are the ones run out of school with pitchforks. The dubious problem of society losing its morals? The dubious explanation of teenage pregnancy. Drowning at Miami Beach? Teenage pregnancy. Winston Hall escaped from jail again? Teenage pregnancy. And so on. It doesn't matter what issue is at hand. Invariably, in any meeting anywhere on the island, someone is going to raise his hand confounded that we are four minutes into the session and no one has brought up the scourge of teenage pregnancy.

None of this was lost on the generation of women now in our mid-thirties. In the Caribbean, for children of the working class, education - and I'm not talking just high school I'm talking first or advanced degree - is the handful of magic beans. You had better get it and stick with it until you can prove to people that your family is officially out of the working class. So for women, pregnancy is to be avoided at all costs even into your twenties. Of course, people get pregnant in their early twenties and are not made to wear a scarlet A, but it is hoped in general that you get your papers before you get your pickney. And then there's the whole wedlock business. I noticed growing up that the least Christian of Caribbean people could utter the phrase 'out of wedlock' with the highest amount of reverence - for wedlock. The single mother business was nothing to be admired, so there's another delay. No babies yet. Get your papers, get your husband. And this is what I mean about how reproduction works. In general and for most of history, for a heterosexual woman, if you want a biological kid, you find a man. He has the rest of the genetic material required. One cannot just grow a baby by sheer force of will. So this emphasis on the selfishness and willfulness of women is just silly. Are we supposed to be selective in partner for all other purposes save for that of reproduction? It seems to me the place to be most selective.

At lunch with an older woman friend recently, I saw a man she knew say to her, in disgust: "Why don't you go and get your children? What else you waiting for?" She said, without hesitation, "I going when I leave here. Where they selling?" And that's really the point. Apart from the inappropriateness of commenting on a person's reproductive choices, have we forgotten the several variables involved? Some of which we have all actively enforced throughout that woman's life cycle and until this point? I can't help but consider that in small societies such as ours, we see women who have 'opted for' marriage and/or children by 35 as well-behaved, and we are pleased. Whether that has meant a great, old-fashioned love and family story (I know some) or settling for marriage to some less-than-adequate (in her estimation) dude so babymaking could ensue, or something else, we can more readily live with a woman who has accepted misery as a cost of motherhood, than with one who has, for whatever reason, not chosen motherhood at all.

Most readers could guess my private and public position: child-free by choice? Ok. Child-free and trying at 39? Ok. Adopting? Surrogacy? Platonic co-parenting? Whatever. Not only are the success stats not as dire as the flailing people suggest, but there are several paths to happiness.

But what strikes me is that just as a generation of women hits 35-44 and are grappling with their reproductive choices, we are now, conveniently, getting over some of our puritanism just enough to discover that in fact, 'early' pregnancy is not the worst fate that could befall a woman and society. No pregnancy is. I tell you. If it isn't one thing - and by 'thing' I mean false set of values based on nothing but ascribed to all - it's another.

Newsclips and quotes [Still working on that unexplained stigma]

(Emphasis mine.)

Chairman of the AIDS Foundation, Colin Brewer, said while the foundation was making progress in the fight, there was still much to do.

[...]

He added that although the foundation provided assistance to those living alternative lifestyles, it did not condone the behaviour.

He also urged those present to "rededicate" themselves to the challenge of eradicating any stigma associated with HIV.

Well. Wonder where that stigma comes from.

Today, in made-up crimes...

I don't know what the hell wandering is, but apparently it's a crime mostly committed by girls, and can end in STDs and pregnancy. Consider yourselves warned.

The version of your body currently running is not bedroom compatible

My gym is running some kind of 6-week body makeover butt blast boot camp bangarang. That's not what it's really called but you get the idea. It's especially for women. It says so on the flier. Also on the flier, central to the message and in large red type, are words to the effect of:

GET A BEDROOM BODY!

Now, the gym runs these kinds of things all the time, in which they propose to bulk you up or whittle you down or generally bring you up to code in a specified time period. This is the first one I've seen geared specifically to women. And it's also the first one I've seen that seeks to gently encourage participation by reminding people women that they will have to get naked for someone's enjoyment, and for the sake of that other party, they'd better get their asses in gear. Or no man one will want to sleep with them. And then what would their lives become? Why else would you want to get in shape anyway, womanperson? For sport? For functional strength? For your own damn self? Stop speaking nonsenses!

Presumably, men don't need bedroom bodies*. Their fitness activities are in pursuit of more lofty ends. Hunting! Fighting! Watching cricket with their shirts off! And since women have to sleep with them anyway (everyone in this hetero-normative dreamscape is 'straight', ok? Just play along), there is no minimum aesthetic requirement involved for men.

Also what we've learnt so far is that a "bedroom body" is of a particular type produced in a gym or other exercise situation. Somebody should tell that to the bodies everywhere that are at this moment getting into some pretty enjoyable situations in their bedrooms, garages and crawlspaces right now, and have no intention of changing their bodies in order to continue doing so. If this describes you, you are hereby advised to cease and desist, until such time as we have certified that you possess the appropriate, bedroom-approved body.

It's true, I suppose, that "a bedroom body" could mean something more all-encompassing: it could simply mean a fit body of any size and shape that allows you to - as a friend of mine likes to put it - spin on your headtop during sex. But then, nobody's asking a man to spin on his headtop. I guess he and his non-bedroom body can just lay there.

And what annoys me most about this stupid poster - when I have to see it every single morning because it is affixed to the changing room door at my eye level - is that it does not reflect what I always thought were the philosophy and behaviours of the staff at this gym. They've always seemed very inclusive about women in sport, women gaining strength just because they feel like it. They've always seemed to have a pretty open "we can all do anything we want" mentality, inclusive of men, women, the elderly, people with disabilities, everyone. But now, because they are letting this stupid poster speak for them, I have to acknowledge that somewhere, someone in this establishment either does not get it, does not think, or does not care. And since I spend some time there, time that I otherwise enjoy, that's a bit of a downer. Still, always one who's eager (w00t!) to embrace the all too familiar "humourless" tag, here I go tomorrow morning. To ask what that mess there on the changing room door is all about.

*I asked if there was a similar poster on the inside of the men's changing room, and was told 'no' by a jolly fellow who is also a member, and who added, "darling, any man that got a body, it ready for the bedroom."

Haiti updates post

                                                

As a follow-up to this post, the International Committee of the Red Cross has compiled a list for people seeking news in Haiti. Go here to register a search for your loved ones if they are not already on the list.

This will be the final and official update post on new contact opportunities, relief efforts and any other news related to the disaster in Haiti. You can also use this post to leave comments along with your own news and resources. And keep checking our Twitter updates as well.

More news on Haiti:

"The Obama administration announced Friday that it would grant tens of thousands Haitian nationals Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, an immigration benefit sought for years by Haitian activists, immigrant advocates and South Florida lawmakers." This is a very significant move, considering that last February, the administration was set to deport 30 000 Haitians to their storm-ravaged country.

Not just Port-au-Prince: the southern port city of Jacmel is also in need of help.

Update Jan 18th:

Ciné Institute Director David Belle in #Haiti reports CNN et al stories of looting greatly exaggerated: http://tinyurl.com/yg3rmho

Update Jan 19th
Paddy Allen at The Guardian has put together this map of where aid has been deployed in Haiti.

Update Jan 20th
Another aftershock, the largest, measuring 6.1, was felt in Haiti this morning. The epicentre of this morning's quake was Petit Goave, about 26 miles north-west of Jacmel.

Update Jan 21st:
More friends and colleagues lost in Haiti

A story to share from Haiti

Some of us in the Caribbean region who have links to Haiti, a place we've worked, lived and visited, have made many friends there over the years. Among those friends are the amazing people at the St. Joseph's Home for Boys in Petionville. We heard yesterday that the Home was one of the collapsed buildings in the capital, and as we seek more information about the Home and many of our other loved ones, two friends and colleagues, Tonni and Cynthia, share this letter:

Dear Friends,

Many of you may remember in 2003 - 2004 Tonni [redacted] and I went down
to Port-au-Prince with only our cameras and dreams of making a
documentary on the reality of Haiti, one that focused on hope and not
misery. We were so very fortunate to have made incredible friends on
that journey, who not only sheltered us from harm but truly opened
their hearts, to share their stories and vision of hope for Haiti.

The news of yesterday's earthquake has devastated us, especially in
learning the St. Joseph's Home for Boys, which we featured in the
film, was one of the many buildings that collapsed. While both our
instincts are to get on a plane to Hispanola with camera in tow, to
help, and to tell the true stories from Port au Prince, we recognized
that what we needed to do right now is to share the one we already
documented. We spent a couple of weeks at St. Joseph's Home for Boys
in Petionville, Haiti (on the hilly outskirts of the capital),
capturing on film the lives and talent of these young orphaned boys.
Our documentary, Seeking the Soul of Freedom, which was inspired by
the Bicentennial Independence Celebrations, is a collage of intimate
stories of reconnection and hope for Haiti, and her people.

To watch the film visit
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyMhv_noP4s
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ4EHy08LVM

Because it is 15 minutes we had to break it into parts

For more information on St. Joseph's Home for Boys visit:
www.heartswithhaiti.org
You may also want to check out HaitiXchange.com for additional
information on the earthquake and all things Haiti

With all our love and prayers for Haiti,
Cynthia and Tonni

Finding loved ones in Haiti

I wanted to give this item a separate post, rather than an update in the previous one. At www.koneksyon.com you can ask and/or give information about people you know in Haiti. To use the site:

Please do a search for each person missing. If nothing is found create a post with the name as subject, location and details in the message. If you have info on someone posted here please leave a reply.

UPDATE: Via reader Camel: The Red Cross needs Creole-speaking volunteers for a 24-hour bank. Call Mr. Wilfrid @ 305-776-6900 ASAP. To those looking for loved ones in Haiti, the phone company Haitel and Digicel have restored service, so you may try to contact those with Haitel and Digicel phones.

Digicel users can also Text HELP to 5151 in Barbados. With each text, you donate $1 towards the Haiti Relief effort. Digicel phones only.The Facebook page for this effort is here, and provides the numbers for Digicel users in other territories.

Earthquake in Haiti

With news of today's earthquake, our thoughts are with our Caribbean brothers and sisters in Haiti, and their loved ones worldwide who are trying to make contact. The region and international community stand poised for news of any help needed.

Weight-loss surgery for all!

Dr. Super is loving this.

Usually reserved for the most obese people, weight-loss surgery is unlikely to be a last-ditch option much longer. Technological advancements are turning it into a one-hour, incisionless procedure -- making it more attractive to moderately overweight adults [...]; overweight and obese teenagers; and normal-weight people with difficult-to-control diabetes. Several new procedures are already in human clinical trials.

I think we're all getting a little carried away and assuming that just because a procedure is easy to accomplish, its effects are also easy to live with after the fact. As many have discovered, and as this same article notes, even though the already low morbidity rates for this type of procedure continue to decline and operation recovery times become shorter, patients still have to contend with medium- to long-term problems, including "nutritional deficiencies, diarrhea, regurgitation and bowel obstructions."

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 19% of patients experience dumping syndrome, which is involuntary vomiting or defecation. Complication rates involving ulcers, wound problems, hemorrhage, deep-vein thrombosis, heart attacks and strokes range from 2.4% to 0.1%.

And where do we draw the line regarding preemptive surgery? One surgeon notes that "[p]eople 50 pounds overweight are the ones we should treat, before the problem gets worse," but isn't that number quite arbitrary? Unless we ascertain that at 50 lbs overweight (as opposed to 40 or 30), people start to see marked deteriorations in their overall health (in fact, we've been told that every 10 lbs packs its own share of doom), then the benchmark at which surgery becomes an option can arguably continue to shift downwards.

I suppose weight-loss surgery is now poised to enter the realm of cosmetic procedures, where if people opt to risk their lives and health in order to try and feel better about themselves, then they have that right. The rub lies in the fact that most elective cosmetic surgery is not covered by the majority of insurance plans or universal health care systems. And so it will be interesting to see - especially in the context of the raging US health care debate - how this particular argument evolves.

Remembering Dr. George Tiller

I was not going to write about the murder of late-term abortion provider George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas on Sunday. I thought I would leave it to those closer to the horror to come to terms with their own feelings about it, to write about them, to remember the man and his work, and - unfortunately but inevitably - to actually have to defend Dr. Tiller's memory and the value of his work against those who would argue that he reaped what he sowed. I thought I would silently commiserate with the women he helped and whose lives he saved, and with those he would have helped but who will now have no place to go; and wordlessly offer up my thoughts and love to his family and friends.

But I find it difficult to go on with my week here at the Chronicles and in general without making this written statement about Dr. Tiller. And it's because as people who work to secure reproductive rights and health for women in different parts of the world, this act of terrorism affects us all. The same language that has been used to intimidate women seeking abortions and to incite hatred against people like Dr. Tiller who provided them - words such as 'abortionist' (as if he practiced this gleefully as a hobby) and 'baby-killer' and far uglier ones - are also used where we work to obscure the truth, because hate thrives where the truth is hidden. And the truth is that in the US, third trimester abortions are less than 1% of all abortions and must be medically indicated. In parts of the global South, that percentage drops even lower, as the diagnosis and procedures that would allow for life-saving terminations are less accessible. I've embedded the linked video by RH Reality Check below.

So I stand today with everyone else acknowledging the brave work of Dr. Tiller and honouring his memory. And I think the message that needs to be sent unequivocally by government through its abortion legislation and through its prosecution of this kind of terrorism and the language and intimidation tactics that give rise to it, is that this is not a war that will be won with guns. Being shocked and outraged is fine, but that shock and outrage are nothing unless they lead us to swift action to protect the reproductive rights of women, and the lives of those who secure them.

You're fat because your chicken breast is bigger than your fist

If you watch The Biggest Loser, you know that it is essentially a weight loss competition where overweight people form teams to see who can lose the most weight collectively. Each week, whoever has lost the least as a percentage of her total body weight is eligible to be sent home. By the end, one person will have been declared the biggest loser, and will receive a $250 000 prize (in the UK it's £10 000. We can't catch a break) amid much fanfare and confetti. Sound potentially problematic? Well no kidding.

The contestants exercise for hours and hours every day on a restricted-calorie diet. So clearly the show is just about entertainment for its viewers, since this lifestyle is not practical for anyone outisde the show who's not a professional athlete, a member of the Armed Forces or from the planet Krypton. (They do have a Biggest Loser Club, though, which is essentially a less psychotic, online diet and exercise support plan geared toward weight loss, and based on the show.) I've watched a couple episodes of the US version, and even though I have several issues with almost everything about the show's premise and execution, I at least found the trainers/team leaders entertaining.

Celebrity ubertrainers (or should that be ubercelebrity trainers? Whatever. They're uber) Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper each take a team through daily workouts and help drive their success. Jillian is your typical, tough taskmaster, who often appears bewildered and victimized when progress does not occur as expected; while Bob is a positive-thinking, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed sort who I'm almost positive is being dosed with happy pills without his knowledge. He seems to think that fat people are just broken thin people. And doggone it if he ain't gonna fix 'em. I'll admit: I've often caught myself liking Bob despite myself and all the things wrong with his apparent philosophy. He's just so earnest.

The UK version is decidedly worse. Because it features all the things wrong with the show - the unrealistic, stress-inducing workout regimen; the weight-loss as competition dynamic; the stripping down of contestants for weigh-ins as if they're livestock at market, and as if to remind us that they are in fact huge and have the rolls to prove it, in case we'd forgotten - but has none of the entertainment factor. Yes, I acknowledge the problem with this statement: why do I want to be entertained by the show if I concede that the entire thing is a mess? I don't. I've only watched it a handful of times in order to be able to make an informed judgement. But I notice that the UK version has not one redeeming factor: the trainers - whose personalities are meant to be at least interesting enough that their interaction with the contestants creates some intrigue - are dull as grass.

One also gets the impression that the UK producers were aiming to recreate a similar match-up to that of the US version: one of the trainers is a tough, non-bullshit-having woman, and the other is a focused (but milder-mannered?) man. Both try too hard. And the result is a big pile of snore.
But today, my second time watching the show, there were some fireworks, and by 'fireworks' I mean extra-loud yelling, dramatic camera shots and plenty food- and fat-shaming. Trainer Angie stops by the house for a surprise lunch inspection. Don't you hate when that happens? She walks in to find Jennifer, the mum in the mother-daughter team above (contestants are paired up in this series), eating chicken breast she had just prepared. Angie then begins to yell at Jennifer, in front of everyone including Jennifer's daughter Sadie, about the fact that there are no carbs or vegetables on the plate, and that she is eating more than a single portion of chicken. She also belittles her for having had steak the night before. While Angie stands there bellowing, pointing at the offending meal, flailing about and otherwise losing her sh*t over this unforgivable food transgression, Jennifer sits there looking morose, embarrassed, and most of all, hungry. Sadie, who is directly next to her, tries to pull it together for the both of them by agreeing to eat some spinach.

The segment is interspersed with video clips of the other contestants remarking that Jennifer knows she's eating too much, and that they've tried to speak to her about it. The implication is that the only thing that will get through to her is a good old verbal flogging delivered by Angie who, I'm sorry, seems to have no idea how to do the tough love thing, if it is even appropriate here.

I suppose none of this should be surprising, given the premise of the show: let's haul some fatties in here and beat them into shape. But I admit that I was alarmed by the abuse this woman was forced to suffer. First, as the slowest loser to date, apparently, Jennifer was trying to accelerate her weight loss by eating low-carb. Ill-advised though this may be, it does indicate a level of effort and an unwillingness to once again be in the spotlight as the weight-loss failure. Do they expect to throw these people into a competition under extreme physical and psychological conditions and have no bad/compulsive habits develop? I'd be more surprised if they didn't all end up with patterns of disordered eating.

Second, the woman is obviously hongray! During the entire dressing down, she sat there staring longingly at her delicious chicken breast that was going cold and was probably now covered in spittle and hate. And it isn't necessarily because she's greedy, as she was forced to mutter. It's because a body her size probably can't subsist on the fist-sized portion measure that Angie was waving in her face. That's not to say that it's impossible to stick to the diet and lose weight. Clearly it's not: almost everyone on the show loses. But they're not all the same person. Not everyone can change their bodies by sheer force of will. Hunger is not a figment of the imagination, and it won't be exorcised by another hour on the treadmill.

Sadie was worried that after the embarrassing talking-to, her mother would tell Angie where to shove her fist(-sized portion) and give up. And I would think that's a very real concern with anyone who's struggling to lose weight. This show already makes no secret of its extreme methods of trying to get all bodies to look and behave the same. Now they've added express public humiliation to the mix. I don't think the contestants are the only 'losers' here.

Child protection: you're doing it wrong

A very disturbing case of child trafficking has been in the news recently. It seems that since March 2006, 77 Chinese children have gone missing from a children's home in London, and only four have been found:

Organised criminal gangs have exploited a children's home beside Heathrow airport for the systematic trafficking of Chinese children to work in prostitution and the drugs trade across Britain, a secret immigration document reveals.

[...]

Only four have been found. Two girls returned after a year of exploitation in brothels in the Midlands. One was pregnant while the other had been surgically fitted with a contraceptive device in her arm. Others are coerced with physical threats to work as street-sellers of counterfeit goods. It is thought that many work in cannabis farms.

The document reveals that the children are "absconding" at the facilitation of organized crime groups, and when a spokesperson for the home was interviewed on the news recently, he was very quick to point out that the care facility cannot restrict the movements of children, implying that if they want to leave to get involved in prostitution and other nefarious activities, then no one can stop them.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. If, as the news report suggests, these children are taken into care after they have arrived at Heathrow airport having already been initiated into a trafficking ring, the fact is that at the moment the local authority places them with this children's home, it is responsible for their safety; unless the UK government has now turned to state-sanctioned pimping. If these were British children who had been taken from neglectful parents, and had then ended up in the hands of traffickers, all of the UK would be in an uproar. But somehow, we seem to have no problem acting as holdover facilities for Chinese children being sold into prostitution and child slavery. And after these children are taken to this home, how is it that they have the means to subsequently arrange with the traffickers to meet them at pre-designated locations? And why in great googly-moogly, after seeing a trend of flight from this particular institution next to Heathrow, do the authorities still take children fitting this particular profile to this same home, facilitating the traffickers' access? If they do intend to process them through the system and get to the bottom of their unescorted arrival to the UK, why not undertake reasonable measures to see that they are removed from immediate danger?

I'll tell you what it looks like. And you might gasp, choke and splutter at the implication but feel free because here it comes anyway: they can't be arsed. These are Chinese children who as far as they are concerned have already become involved in a system of trafficking, and if they disappear just as easily and as suddenly as they show up, well then so be it. They aren't British. Let someone else deal with them. The very idea that an official from or representing this home would get on the news and suggest that they don't lock the doors so the children can leave to be sold into prostitution if they want is the part that is gasp-worthy. There is no agency here. Would you jump through a window to run headlong into a life of unpaid or underpaid harrowing physical labour if you had the choice? If you didn't feel threatened or coerced or desperate? If you are going to take the step, as a government agency, to 'clean up' the sidewalks outside Heathrow by clearing these wandering children from it, then you are also responsible for taking every reasonable precaution to protect them from threats that you know exist.

As if there weren't enough evidence of buck-passing, Julian Worcester, the deputy director of Children's Services, had this to say:

"There is still a large proportion who go missing but the total numbers are going down," said Worcester. "As a result of coordinated action, Heathrow is now seen as a more difficult airport to traffic people through. We think some of the activity has been displaced to other airports, in particular Stansted in Essex and Manchester."

Ah well that's much better, then. Keep all that nasty trafficking business away from the tourist hubs.

The UK government is at the moment struggling with providing adequate protection for children who merit social care attention. Cases such as the one involving Baby P are strewn all over the news and rightly inspire public outrage that is very slow in dissipating. The lives of these 73 children who have disappeared from this home aren't worth any less than they would be if they had been born here. But it seems the authorities don't see it that way.

Dr. Super, the obesity slayer

The Hospital is a Channel 4 programme which questions whether the NHS is "being asked to pick up the pieces of an increasingly self-destructive society". The show interviews consultants, surgeons, nurses and midwives about the problems they face in treating illnesses and their symptoms that we have, they seem to suggest, brought on ourselves.

Last night's episode was a re-airing of the final in the series, and examined "the cost of Britain's increasingly obese teens."

At Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, younger and younger patients are being referred for help in tackling their weight and, increasingly, they are asking for a gastric band.

While doctors and dieticians see the £6,000 operation as a last resort, some patients seek them as an 'easy' solution to their weight problem. But NHS weight management clinics can only help those who help themselves, and health professionals are hampered by young patients who don't tell them the truth about what they are eating.

Now, while it might be useful and interesting to examine health care provision from the point of view of the providers and the challenges they face, I have trouble understanding how health professionals are the ones 'hampered' by unsuccessful treatment. Ultimately, it's the patients who have to suffer the effects of failed care, even if, as the show suggests, it's their own fault for lying. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of how problematic I found this show.

The programme was set up as a look at two different approaches to NHS-assisted weight loss. They interviewed professionals at the weight management clinic who are responsible for referring patients for the gastric band surgery, if they find it is indicated. If they do not so find - if they think the patient's lifestyle doesn't support it, or that he might see results from a less drastic method, they support the patient in a programme of weight loss through diet and exercise. The other angle was an interview with Dr. Paul Super, a surgeon who seems to have a bit of a reputation for churning out gastric band surgeries by the hundreds each year. His philosophy seems to be that obesity is expensive and ugly, and that all fat people should just have a gastric band operation so they could stop costing the NHS money and just stop being unhealthy and unattractive. This man was a real gem. I could barely take my eyes off him.

The staff at the Center, though earnest, weren't exactly writing any journals with their methods. They did explore the patients' psychological histories and relationships in order to create a more complete picture than "you're fat because you eat too much", but once they had gained that information, I'm not sure they quite knew what to do with it. In at least one case, where they discovered the woman had started binge eating after her family had been abandoned by their father, they kept checking on her progress with that relationship as well as with her diet and exercise; and the mere fact that they seemed to care and were willing to talk about it rather than simply scold her for overeating appeared at least in the short term to help motivate her in her efforts.

But in general, the system seemed to be that they would either (a) recommend the surgery and then send the patients home to lose some of the weight first, through diet and exercise; or (b) not recommend the surgery and send the patients home to lose weight through diet and exercise. And since most fat people have tried exactly that a gazillion times before, the only difference here is that now they get to show up at this clinic every few weeks to be 'assessed'. Still, if a patient doesn't dread these appointments, but instead finds the doctor understanding and the environment reasonably stress-free, then I suppose it's better than the alternative. And a couple of the doctors seemed to really want to be warm and understanding. So that was something.

Dr. Super, on the other hand, the belly-reducing surgeon extraordinaire, was - in short - a real a*shole, and really did no favours for the 'surgeons are jerks' stereotype. Below are some of the many awesome Dr. Super philosophies on fat people and their really fat fatness.

Back, beige food!
Between surgeries, the doctor stops for his regular lunch of a can of tuna - it's convenient, tastes great, and has no carbs. Carbs are evil, you see, and are just hiding in the shadows waiting to make you fat. But you can detect them and foil their plan. How? Easy. They're all beige!

Listen to this guy.

So no pasta, rice or potatoes. Because they're beige. But you don't get beige meat, so that's fine. Or beige fish, so we can eat...wait....um...

And notice how he shames his own colleagues about eating crisps, sneering at them and taking their food so he can prove what undisciplined slobs they are. "That's right...go on eating your crisps (you big fattie)!" How much fun must this man be to live with? Thankfully, his colleague seems not to give a crap about him and his colour-coded diet. But this is certainly not a healthy approach to food for a doctor who focuses on nutrition to have, outlawing an entire food group and advocating a can of tuna for lunch. Now there's no denying that some food is not generally healthy if we consume too much of it. I'm no fan of a steady diet of processed junk in crinkly bags. But there is nothing wrong with rice and potatoes, as long as you don't first deep-fry them and then coat them in equal layers of lard and white chocolate. And all food can be consumed as part of a healthful diet. It's the categorization of some foods as good and others as bad that leads some to diet-binge cycles. I dare say Dr. Super has issues with food.

They're fat AND they lie
Another part of the programme that struck me - in fact this caught my attention in the clip advertising the show - was the disgust with which Dr. Super condemned patients for lying about their diet. This is not a direct quote, but he sneers something to the effect of: "They'll try to convince me that they only have a salad for lunch. They lie! But the scales never lie." One of the patients at the weight management clinic acknowledged that when she first saw a doctor there, she did lie, because she was embarrassed about the volume and nature of the food she consumed. And this is to be expected. But eventually, she felt safe and encouraged enough by her doctor to be honest in her journals. The doctors there realize that even this is a process, and allow this trust to evolve naturally. Not Dr. Super. He just snickers and hauls the fattie onto the scale so he can yell "Salad my ass! Look! You weigh a tonne!"

"Look how it wiggles!"
Following Dr. Super into surgery, we watch as he jiggles the belly of an anaesthetized patient and jokes to his colleagues that he can feel the ribs. You see, it's funny, because he can't possibly feel ribs in such a big, disgusting mass of flesh. See? Lawl?

The glaring absence in this piece is the lack of focus of both Dr. Super and the producers on the possible risks of the surgery. The surgeon seems to believe that this method is your proverbial magic pill, and actually says that all fat, young people should have it. Apart from filming one of the subjects after she has been fitted with the band and has some initial discomfort, and then acknowledging that her weight loss occurs at the same rate as another woman who opted for diet and exercise alone, the procedure is not presented as the life-altering decision that it is.

Later, fatties. I'm outie
At the end of the show, our lovable surgeon is leaning up against a wall in his hospital, and a large woman passes by escorted by two doctors. He has just been talking about when surgery doesn't work, and as she passes by, he snickers at the still fat woman and says, "That was one of mine. Life goes on," and lopes off into the sunset. And the sad lesson is, even our noble hero can't wrangle all the fatties. But he's going to keep on trying.

If it breaks your penis, it might not be a good idea

Explicit and potentially triggering content below.

I suppose I should be sorry that these fools are breaking their penises over this nonsense. But as I read the article, I think, if this sexual act is rough enough to fracture a man's penis against his female partner's pubic bone, it can't be any picnic for the woman. And even if no one is going to the hospital on a given occasion, how is it physically pleasurable for a woman to be violently and repeatedly 'stabbed' in this way? Well that's easy: it isn't.

"(So) during very rigorous intercourse, the penis slips out and in an attempt to ram it back in, the man hits the woman's pubic bone and pops the penis."

Ouch. There's rough sex, and then there's this.

For years, Caribbean music has reflected men's apparent belief that sexual prowess and - by their extension, masculinity - was defined by a violent approach to heterosexual sex. This has in some instances been encouraged by women DJs who competed with their male counterparts not on the basis of musical talent, of 'killing a sound' as the men have done, but by highlighting their own sexual freedom and bravado: their capacity to - in sexual and other implied terms - take whatever the men could dish out. So that while we've had songs like Cabin Stabbin from Super Cat et al, we've also had Stab Up Mi Meat from Lady Saw. Now arguably, the thrusting act that might be a part of sexual intercourse could be described as stabbing, if one were given to violent metaphors, which - given the prevalence of actual, criminal, sexual violence perpetrated both within and outside of relationships - I for one am not. But it seems like we're consumed with encouraging as much violence in sex as possible. 'Stabbing' has become too tame; now we have to call it 'daggering'.

And let's be honest: the whole stabbing/daggering sex simulation as a part of nightclub dancing* is nothing new. Caribbean dancing to calypso and reggae, while very creative, is very sexual in nature. Growing up, there was always the idiot in the club who - unsummoned - would decide to suddenly ram his pelvis against you, because somehow you blinked and this became acceptable behaviour in which two strangers might engage. It was odious, unacceptable, and what I would characterise as assault. At that time, though, and among my friends and most people present, he was shoved off, glared at by men and women alike, and in many cases removed by security. But there were too many times when in other instances, I witnessed other women being similarly treated, and their reaction was just to grimace and wait for it to be over, lest they be accused of being prudish or 'soft'. Now, though, it seems this kind of 'dancing' is being glorified more and more, causing officials in Jamaica enough concern to ban music in which it is featured.

Of course, two adults can decide jointly whether they want to engage in sexual behaviour that might break parts of their person. But I wonder how many women out there are grinning and bearing it just like those women in the clubs did those years ago, and still do.

*The videos below feature the music by RDX and Mr. Vegas that helped make this activity famous.
The final video features RDX live in concert, giving their own version of daggering. It is extremely explicit and this is a trigger warning.

Your Friday mongoose wrap-up includes butt-touching and exposed thigh

So I didn't get my $50, and I haven't even begun to unravel all the G20 coverage, although I've already decided to steer clear of the 'softer' Michelle O love-in pieces because 1) if I were given to usage of the word 'awesome', Michelle would certainly inspire it, but I was never that big on hero worship so let's keep the conversation grounded; and 2) invariably, some turn of phrase in an article will piss me off, since some people who want to appear in their writing as if they're all down with the Black First Lady try too hard and end up making grave errors.

But I did notice all the hullabaloo over her having touched the Queen, which, along with the Obamas' gifts to the Browns (again with the gifts?), imaginary people that no one can seem to identify have been decrying as not in keeping with protocol. In any event, it seems like the Queen was feeling the Michelle warmth, reciprocated, and is over the drama. I mean, she's touching Michelle's butt. If anyone was getting inappropriately intimate it was the Queen.
Further, given the historical importance and sensitivity of this moment - the Black, American first couple meeting a Queen whose ancestor, George III, was the last British ruler of the American colonies and ruled a society based on slavery and racial discrimination - the Queen might have a lot to answer for if she missed this opportunity to embrace the couple on level ground. Or worse, engaged in anything that might be perceived as a snub. So to sum up: the First Lady is quite a sight taller than the Queen so a waist-hug from the latter became a butt hug; Michelle is a warm, huggy person who can express her warmth and still remain respectful; and the Queen is already over it and possibly initiated the 'uncharacteristic touching' herself.

In other news, please for the love of Shirley Bassey keep your laptops off your laps (somebody needs to find a new name for these things), lest you develop erythema ab igne, as I apparently have on an area of my left thigh. The condition can range from mild hyperpigmentation which eventually goes away, to squamous cell carcinoma and severe, lasting hyperpigmentation. No word yet where mine falls, although the fact that I saw two doctors months ago who told me I was seeing things, including an old, white man who looked me in the eye and said "that's just how black skin looks", makes me somewhat anxious that the condition is advanced. (That doctor, by the way, should never see another patient again. And he for sure won't be seeing anyone I know. I told him so, and registered my disgust, but he was oblivious, as so many like him are.) If I don't give any further reports, feel safe in assuming that all turned out fine, at least for the time being, since skin cancer can result from the condition up to 30 years from the date of diagnosis. What to take away from this: laptops on the desk.

A right to sound, dignified health care

*Also posted today at BelowTheBelt.

I suspended my work as an economist to, among other things, become the Programme Director of an NGO that I helped found, called the Women's Health Advocacy Network (WHAN). I sometimes get the sense that some people (apart from my family and close friends who are my biggest fans and think me something of a superstar, as I do them) don't understand that: they don't understand creating something because you think it should exist, because it is necessary. The conversation often goes like this:

Person: So what are you doing now?
A_D: I'm a writer, and I work with an organisation called WHAN - Women's Health Advocacy Network.

(The writing part does not register at all. I might as well have said "Oh I'm an eater...and a part-time cougher." So they just gloss right over that part to the other thing that sounds more like a job, with acronyms and such.)

Person: Oh! And whose company is that?
A_D: Well it's not really a company. It's an NGO that looks at issues of women's health and sexual and reproductive rights in the Caribbean, and educates women on their patient rights...how to be agents in their own health care.
Person: Right. And who runs that?
A_D: Well I do. Along with some other very bright women. We started it.
Person: Yourself? But who pays you?

This is where people start to look skeptical and confused. They seem to be puzzled by the notion that I could have the audacity to be dissatisfied enough with the way things are being done to get up off my ass and do something about them myself. They apparently expect me to take a regular job like everyone else, and then spend all my time complaining that I had to wait two hours in the waiting room at the doctor's office, and then another hour waiting naked on his table, after which he spent 30 seconds looking at my vagina and zero seconds looking at my face. Or they expect that if I step out on my own, it should be because I've built an online business or invented some device that I can hawk on QVC, which - don't get me wrong - is never out of the question. Or they also expect that WHAN must be a little group of forlorn women who park our behinds in front of supermarkets clanging our tins for some pennies, rather than the board-run, non-profit corporation that it is.

Now there's nothing wrong with a 'regular' job. I had one, and many people I know have one. In fact, I have one now, it's just that I created it myself because it is necessary, rather than waiting for someone else, someone presumably with more power and influence, to create it and then deign to give me a job. I've decided to first earn - through work I've previously done - and then own, my power and influence. And to seek to grow it on my terms. And also to help other women own theirs. Because that attitude that leads people to believe that I don't have the right to get up and do for myself, as my mother would say, is the same one that has women believing that they don't have the right to demand to be listened to by doctors, and to be treated with dignity and respect. It's the attitude that says that as Caribbean people, as Black people, as women, as Black, Caribbean women, we should only be takers of what is given to us: takers of someone else's job that they've created and offered, takers of someone else's economic policies, takers of someone else's health care that they administer in the way they think we deserve.

I grew up in a time when our mothers were so pleased to be accessing free government health care, that they saw doctors and nurses as gods, and seemed afraid to question them, in part - and this is true of most societies - because they had knowledge our mothers did not have. But they were also afraid to challenge them lest they withhold their care, time and medicine, which many of them doled out as if we were begging, as if it was their own to control, and not the state's. As people have started to do better, and private, paid care has become the standard, that attitude has been slow to change on both ends. Many of us still believe that we're lucky to be sitting in that doctor's office, so we'd better shut up, nod, smile, and try not to cause any trouble. And many doctors still act as if they are gods come down from on high to save the stupid natives from themselves.

Well that attitude is not only annoying as all get out, but it at best potentially delays healing, and at worst, kills people. WHAN now focuses very heavily on HIV/AIDS and other STIs; sexual and reproductive decision-making including abortion; and violence against women. But we were thrust into existence on the basis of patient rights and education, because I, for one, was tired of the assumption on the part of doctors that I had nothing at all to contribute to my own health care, and tired of hearing all the stories from my friends. One of how a doctor failed to diagnose her breast cancer because he saw she was in her thirties and therefore dismissed the lump she had felt; another who eventually almost committed suicide because when she approached her doctor about post-partum depression he asked her why she couldn't just be happy, she had a baby now, and why couldn't she just get over it. And yet another who had to beg her doctor for a prescription to help relieve the symptoms of her genital herpes. Because he said it was no big deal, it's just a sore, and the medication is expensive.

I could go on and on and so much further on. And I know people will sing the old song about patients not being knowledgeable, so doctors assume a blank slate in approaching treatment. In my experience, some doctors don't assume a blank slate: they assume a stupid one. And there is always knowledge to be had from a patient if you use your limited time wisely to get it. In any event,WHAN seeks to work on both ends of the relationship, but primarily to bolster patients' awareness of their own knowledge gaps, to help fill those gaps, and to give patients the tools to make their doctors fill those gaps. You have to know what you don't know, and then you have to claim the right to find out. It is for all these reasons, and so many more, that WHAN exists, works, and grows every day.

Offset the effects of your strained marriage with power-walking and celery

As those of us working within feminist economics have been saying for some time now, the economic work of reproducing and sustaining the population from within the domestic economy is not an inelastic, constantly renewable input. That is to say, women, who are in general tasked more than men with unpaid care work* in the home, cannot, unsupported, continue performing this work indefinitely and not have it adversely affect their health and well-being. And such negative effects mean that women's unpaid work will not necessarily be there no matter what, as policymakers often take for granted.

Add to this a strained marital relationship, and the prognosis looks even worse. That is, at least, according to a study presented to the American Psychosomatic Society, which finds that

Women are more likely than men to suffer damage to their health from being in a strained marriage.

US psychologists found wives in tense marriages were prone to risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. In comparison, husbands seemed relatively immune from such problems.

The factors the study sought to assess were those related to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of related risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and other health issues.

But the researchers are of course not suggesting that those in poorly functioning marriages seek to lower these risk factors by working on their marriages or dumping their husbands. Because that would be absurd! Their suggested fix? It will look familiar: diet and exercise.

Professor Tim Smith, who co-led the research, said there was good evidence that a healthy diet and regular exercise could reduce a woman's risk of metabolic syndrome.

However, he said: "It's a little premature to say they would lower their risk of heart disease if they improved the tone and quality of their marriages - or dumped their husbands.

So, following their interpretation of the findings, if your bad marriage is killing you, trying to fix it or getting the hell out is not necessarily as indicated as say, going for a run and eating a salad. Treat the symptoms and not the cause, people. You heard it here first.

* "I'm not reading all that crap". Of course you're not. Just scroll down to the graphic on Page 6 and you'll notice the 'depletion of human capabilities' from the domestic economy, i.e. the household.

I’m in “Good” Company: Hitler, Mussolini and Pinochet

The mongoose has her first guest post. Last week, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho became famous in the news for the excommunication of the adults involved in providing an abortion to a nine-year-old child who had been raped by her stepfather. Today, Jodi, a writer from Jamaica and one of the directors of WHAN, shares her thoughts on the incident from a religious and philosophical perspective. Welcome, Jodi and take it away:
_______________________________________________________________

“Practical Wisdom is the combination of moral will and moral skill.” – Aristotle

Tonight I read that a nine year old girl had an abortion and as a result a Brazilian archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, Father Sobrinho, excommunicated her mother and the medical doctors who carried out the abortion. Apart from the fact that the girl is nine, the medical doctors decided to carry out the abortion because:

1. The child was going to die because she only weighs 80 pounds and can’t support two foetuses. The little girl was pregnant with twins. (Attention Father Sobrinho supporters: if the child was going to die, chances are the foetuses weren’t going to make it either.)
2. The child was raped by her step-father.
3. The child is nine years old.
4. Nine.
5. Years.
6. Old.

The fact that the child’s life was in danger is enough for a logical person to feel that the abortion was a sensible decision taken by the adults in her life in order to save her life. Without even knowing it, we automatically apply Aristotle’s definition of Practical Wisdom in order to come to these decisions. Moral skill allows us to know what is right and moral will allows us to do what is right, often in spite of what the rule book, society or our family says we should do. Rather than apply practical wisdom, however, the Catholic Church has chosen stupidity and hatred in the form of excommunication.

Excommunication in every practical sense of the word means nothing to a non-religious person such as myself. In the Roman Catholic Church, it is merely a formal announcement (not usually made public) that someone is no longer allowed to receive sacraments other than reconciliation. Reconciliation is the act of asking a priest for forgiveness and paying penance. Penance is usually the recital of a few well-rehearsed prayers such as the Hail Mary and the Our Father. If you’ve been really, really bad you can only be reconciled by the Pope himself. Otherwise, you can more than likely be reconciled by the local archbishop. Hallelujah!

Though excommunication may seem like a silly consequence to people like me, to someone who is religious and who relies on the Catholic Church as their community and a major source of support in times of difficulty, I can imagine that excommunication is a cause of great shame and may create a sense of hopelessness and confusion as well as loss of self esteem. For them, excommunication from the Church is the same as being sentenced to hell.

I know all of this because I am a Roman Catholic. I should say that though I am not a practicing Catholic, I have not yet been excommunicated. Apparently, I am in good company; other non-practicing, non-ex-communicated Roman Catholics were Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Augusto Pinochet who each managed to avoid being excommunicated from the Church while they were alive.

I can’t argue this from a biblical standpoint. I am not a Christian and I can’t even pretend to know the bible. In my own opinion, religion has been and continues to be a tool used by men for centuries to carry out atrocities upon groups of people they hate. Unfortunately, women have always fallen into that category. Some will argue that just as religion has been used to carry out atrocities, it has also been used to carry out good. Well, I am sorry, but I do not believe that the end justifies the means. I’m sure that Hitler, Mussolini and Pinochet did nice things for people they liked on the same day as they were ordering the murder and torture of others. I also believe that the people who do good in the name of religion would do good without the existence of religion. However, some people who carry out evil in the name of religion would think twice about doing so without the support of their religious leaders and followers.

This is not a rant against religion, and I apologise if it seems that way; it is a rant against this ugly act against this family and a plea for humanity to apply a little practical wisdom each day in spite of rules of law, religion or society.

Action on Haiti for International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day (IWD). It's not simply a day for us to look in the mirror and say "gee I'm great", although I highly recommend this as an activity; it was intended by Clara Zetkin, when she first launched it in 1911, as a day for women all over the world to simultaneously advocate their demands for equality. And this year, as in previous years, women and our allies are meeting in various fora to mark the day and to assess plans of action for redressing the issues that affect us. You can pay a visit to the IWD website for activities in your area.

On this day, as someone who has worked with women's issues in international organizations and with national governments, I'm considering to what extent international conventions on the rights of women - to which most countries are signatories - are in any measure effective, especially in countries where civil society is not able to monitor governments' adherence to these conventions.

I'm also off to sign Amnesty International's petition of protest at Haiti's high incidence of rape, often of young girls by armed gangs. The Guardian reports that "the government, which only made rape a crime in 2005, has taken little or no action to hunt down the offenders, among whom are said to be police officers."

So until 2005, in Haiti, which is just across the road from Barbados and the neighbour of the Dominican Republic where I lived for some time, it was perfectly legal to rape a woman. US aid to help stop the spread of HIV, which occurs largely through sexual violence, has been primarily directed to programmes that promote abstinence and faithfulness within marriage, rather than on protecting women from forced sex.

Come with me to sign the petition if you'd like, and do share what else you'll be doing or thinking on this International Women's Day.

We rule, you drool

I used to be a fitness instructor. I was doing a first degree, teaching Spanish and English at my old school and doing group exercise and personal training sessions here, there and yonder all at the same time. But I rarely felt overextended - in part because i loved it all, especially the group exercise. I had some clients who were trying to lose weight, some who were training for competitions, others who were trying to help control health conditions, and some who were just there for a laugh and a hobby. But i took it all very seriously, because these people considered me an authority. They would come to me with questions and, quite frankly, take my word as truth. I answered to the extent that my knowledge would allow, and always advised them to read further, if they were so inclined.

So these days, even though I no longer teach at gyms, I still get a little annoyed when I see what looks like misleading information being perpetuated by those who are supposed to know better. To be fair, the diet and fitness industry tends not to know whether it's on foot or horseback on any given day. That is to be expected when research is always being done not only by 'independent parties', but also by people who are trying to deduce findings that will suit their own ends. But there are some things we should all know by now if we aim to educate people in diet and exercise.

Recently, I noticed that a gym where I used to work out, which has always prioritized wellness and functional strength above just looking hot (which they focus on too, of course; they're a gym - not a commune) has a points system based on hours of exercise per month. They then post the points as part of a Top 10, indicating who's at the top, who's at the bottom, and clearly by elimination, who's just sitting on their asses not doing enough. I think this is a less than ideal approach for a number of reasons.

First let me say that I don't know whether you have to submit yourself to this 'competition'. I would imagine that you do, unless there are fitness police with whistles and clipboards tromping around logging everyone's minutes on the treadmill or counting beads of sweat as they fall off. I don't know the procedure for having your workout hours logged, but the fact that there is some agency involved, that you're not being judged against your will, makes it less bad, though not good.

And here's why: prizing time exercised above other aspects of fitness is sending the wrong message to the people who exercise there, some of whom I would think are just looking for a treadmill and a shower and not to be unwitting participants in a special gym edition of Survivor. It implies that there is some virtue in submitting to hours of exercise, when we all know that there is a certain number of minutes after which there are diminishing returns for both cardiovascular and strength training, assuming you're not training for a marathon or other endurance activity. Put simply, training long does not mean training effectively. In fact, it can often work against you. Again I have to make the disclaimer that I don't know whether this is a special club of athletes, which is in any case irrelevant if they're posting the results for all to see: the message that lots of exercise is always good is being transmitted to other gym members, and that message on its own can potentially lead to overtraining and compulsive patterns of exercise.

Apart from bad information, there's also the issue of plain bad feelings. Most people I know exercise to feel better, if not in the short term, at least in the medium term when they start to see results related to their goals. Who wants to see a list of all the people 'better' than you (at least according to some definition implicit in this Top 10 list) as the weight of your ass is dragging you back off the treadmill? Even among the most body-accepting, this is a bit much. And just unnecessary. And for those of us who haven't yet learnt to love said ass at any size, it's daunting, to say that least.

I know that this particular gym encourages competition. They have a great community spirit among very active members and participate in or organize various events. But we're not all universal soldiers, and we already carry our own inadequacies without needing to have them enabled by the people who should be helping us feel empowered.