Tag: women

Europeans Continue Coming to Their Senses

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2008-04-19

8:24 am

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Health, Size Acceptance

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About mod­els and the effects of the media on body image in their pop­u­la­tions, at least. Fol­low­ing Spain’s move last year that banned ultra-thin mod­els from cat­walks, France is act­ing. The “French par­lia­men­t’s low­er house adopt­ed a ground­break­ing bill Tues­day that would make it ille­gal for any­one — includ­ing fash­ion mag­a­zines, adver­tis­ers and Web sites — to pub­licly incite extreme thinness.”

British researchers are also rec­om­mend­ing action. “With con­stant images of stick-thin, size-zero mod­els, tiny-waist­ed pop princess­es and actress­es is putting young girls’ health at risk and fuel­ing the rise in eat­ing dis­or­ders, accord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Janet Trea­sure of the Eat­ing Dis­or­ders Research Unit at Kings Col­lege London.”

It’s a relief to know that, some­where in the world, peo­ple are pay­ing atten­tion to this stuff. It’s tire­some to hear the con­stant folderol about the “obe­si­ty epi­dem­ic” here in the U.S., with almost no bal­anc­ing coverage.

Pain cures for women; Migraines from low-energy light bulbs

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2008-01-09

3:20 pm

2 Comments on Pain cures for women; Migraines from low-energy light bulbs

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, From the news, Pain

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I’ve had these two sto­ries book­marked to post here for a bit, so it seems past time for me to actu­al­ly do it.

The best new pain cures, with a focus on women

Many women have a tough time find­ing the right kind of relief for their pain –and for good rea­son: Until recent­ly, experts had­n’t actu­al­ly stud­ied wom­en’s pain specif­i­cal­ly, and most research was­n’t con­duct­ed with a wom­an’s hor­mones and physique in mind. All that’s chang­ing, though.

Docs now know that to ban­ish our aches, they must devel­op treat­ments for­mu­lat­ed for wom­en’s bod­ies. What’s more, researchers are also look­ing for — and find­ing — ways to head pain off at the pass, so those of us with chron­ic trou­bles such as migraine, fibromyal­gia, or back­ache don’t have to be hob­bled by pain on a dai­ly basis. Here, how the new research will help you live an (almost) pain-free life. Health.com: Smart ways to ban­ish pain

It’s def­i­nite­ly good news that they’re doing the research, at least! There’s good infor­ma­tion here on how estro­gen and oth­er hor­mones affect the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem. The arti­cle specif­i­cal­ly men­tions treat­ment for migraines and oth­er headaches, fibromyal­gia, and chron­ic fatigue syndrome.

There’s a def­i­nite anti-painkiller bias in the arti­cle, unfor­tu­nate­ly. The author does­n’t seem to grasp the fact that ibupro­fen isn’t enough “pre­ven­tive med­i­cine” for some of us, but if you can look past that it’s a decent article.

Low-ener­gy bulbs ’cause migraine’

I’ve had con­cerns about this issue myself. Flu­o­res­cent bulbs have always been a prob­lem for me, and the “low-ener­gy” bulbs that are so pop­u­lar now are flu­o­res­cent. The flick­er­ing of flu­o­res­cent bulbs can also trig­ger seizures in epilep­tics. While man­u­fac­tur­ers claim that the new bulbs don’t flick­er, they still cause prob­lems for some peo­ple. Eye strain from the low-inten­si­ty light is cit­ed, but some of us do per­ceive flickering. 

The U.K. plans to ban the sale of con­ven­tion­al (incan­des­cent) bulbs with­in the next four years. Patients’ asso­ci­a­tions are ask­ing that the old­er bulbs remain avail­able for those who have issues with the new­er ones.

This arti­cle did­n’t hap­pen to men­tion anoth­er prob­lem with the dis­pos­al of the bulbs: they con­tain mer­cury. You can’t just toss them in the trash, and if one breaks you have an envi­ron­men­tal haz­ard. That cost is sel­dom men­tioned when peo­ple talk about how much can be saved by switch­ing to those bulbs. When I looked for legal ways to dis­pose of the bulbs here in Atlanta1, all of the results involved pay­ing $1 or more per bulb. How many peo­ple are going to do that? Not many, which means that the bulbs will go into land­fills, releas­ing the mercury.

In look­ing for a cita­tion regard­ing the dis­pos­al prob­lems, I came across anoth­er arti­cle that states that the flu­o­res­cent bulbs also cause skin heal­ing prob­lems for those who are pho­to­sen­si­tive due to lupus, eczema, or oth­er conditions.

I think we’ll keep buy­ing the full-spec­trum incan­des­cent bulbs for now.

1 I used Earth911, an excel­lent site for any­one in the U.S.

Have you bought emergency contraception?

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2006-11-17

10:44 pm

1 Comment on Have you bought emergency contraception?

Civil Rights, Feminism, Health

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I just read about it at Sex in the Pub­lic Square. I haven’t thought about it before, but what she says makes sense. If you’re a sex­u­al­ly active adult who could tech­ni­cal­ly con­ceive, but you don’t want to have a child right now, it’s a good thing to keep on hand.

I’d be inter­est­ed in hear­ing about your expe­ri­ences in buy­ing it OTC, if you do so. It isn’t an issue for us, so we don’t have a rea­son to buy any.

Spain bans unhealthily thin models

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2006-09-14

4:29 am

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Feminism, News, Size Acceptance

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In a very unpop­u­lar move, Spain has banned appear­ances by fash­ion mod­els who’s body mass index is too low.

Italy is con­sid­er­ing fol­low­ing suit. The lan­guage in the leg­is­la­tion makes it clear that the pur­pose of the ban is to encour­age health­i­er media images, due to the grow­ing inci­dence of eat­ing dis­or­ders diag­nosed every year.

Frankly, I can’t begin to imag­ine the U.S. gov­ern­ment even con­sid­er­ing that kind of leg­is­la­tion. We do have a freer press here (on the sur­face, at least), but that does­n’t explain all the differences.

The ManDiet

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2006-06-28

3:01 pm

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Relationships

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I have referred to The Man Diet sev­er­al times as some­thing I have done and rec­om­mend. After explain­ing it sev­er­al times, I’ve decid­ed to write it up here and just refer peo­ple to the article. 

I call it the Man Diet, but that’s real­ly a mis­nomer. It should be an SO Diet or Rela­tion­ship Diet or some­thing like that. It just does­n’t roll off the tongue quite as well, so just take it as giv­en that I’m refer­ring to women, men or who­ev­er you would nor­mal­ly have romantic/sexual rela­tion­ships with. 

There was a time when I went from one rela­tion­ship to the next. If I did­n’t have one or more SOs, I felt incom­plete. I did­n’t have incred­i­bly healthy rela­tion­ships, but I was sel­dom alone! I derived much of my self-esteem from being in rela­tion­ships with others. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, that led to “set­tling” for peo­ple who did­n’t real­ly meet the stan­dards I thought I want­ed in sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers, and often to accept­ing treat­ment that ranged from unpleas­ant to down­right abusive. 

Right now, I do not tru­ly remem­ber what trig­gered the real­iza­tion that I’d nev­er have a tru­ly healthy rela­tion­ship if I felt that I absolute­ly had to have a rela­tion­ship with some­one oth­er than myself—that, in fact, cul­ti­vat­ing a healthy rela­tion­ship with myself, being com­plete in myself, was vital. 

I did­n’t think all that out so clear­ly at the begin­ning. I was just tired of the crap. I was tired of going from one rela­tion­ship to the next and hav­ing the same crap come up over and over again. I was tired of the mer­ry-go-round. I did­n’t hon­est­ly count on hav­ing any more sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers. I just decid­ed that I was done. I swore off men for a year. 

At the begin­ning of that peri­od, I felt anx­ious. I felt lone­ly. I felt more than a lit­tle des­per­ate, because hon­est­ly, I have nev­er been alone unless I chose to be that way. I’d spent my life using rela­tion­ships to avoid hav­ing to deal with my own issues in a deep way. If I had­n’t told sev­er­al friends what I was doing and asked them to help keep me hon­est, I don’t think I would have stuck with it. 

In the next few months, I seemed to meet poten­tial SOs every time I turned around. It was tru­ly rain­ing men! That was dif­fi­cult. It was real­ly tempt­ing to just make a lit­tle excep­tion, because hey, he was just so nice! Or so smart, or fun­ny, or what­ev­er. But there’s noth­ing like true friends to kick your butt when you need it. 

To be hon­est, I’ve nev­er had a prob­lem deal­ing with most prac­ti­cal things—balancing check­books, basic home repairs, even sim­ple auto main­te­nance. I did­n’t need a man to take care of any of that. No, I looked to SOs to keep me com­pa­ny, to keep me occu­pied, to suck up lots of ener­gy. I felt beau­ti­ful because they said I was, because they want­ed to be with me. 

So I found oth­er ways to use my time and my ener­gy. I went out with friends as friends. I devel­oped new friend­ships that were much bet­ter because I was­n’t putting any­thing into won­der­ing whether or not the rela­tion­ship would move into oth­er areas. If nobody else want­ed to go see a par­tic­u­lar music event, I went alone. 

I final­ly faced up to some of the issues I was avoid­ing when most of my ener­gy was going into inter­ac­tions with an SO—like why did I need a man around to feel worth­while? Why did I accept treat­ment that I would­n’t want any of my friends to accept—that I had, in fact, told oth­er peo­ple to walk away from? Why was­n’t I hold­ing out for the kind of per­son I want­ed? Hell, why had­n’t I sim­ply become the per­son I wanted? 

While I was real­ly count­ing the days at first, by the end of that year I did­n’t even real­ized it was done. I did­n’t think about it until a cou­ple of months lat­er when a friend men­tioned it. Hey, it was over! I real­ized that I did­n’t feel an urge to run out and start any­thing new. I was just fine with being me, with­out a man. 

I won’t pre­tend that I’m all past all of that stuff. It comes back at times, but not near­ly as strong­ly. It’s much eas­i­er to insist on the kind of treat­ment I deserve from an SO, because I don’t fear being alone. I can be alone, and be hap­py. Not a problem. 

I think spend­ing at least a year alone as a tru­ly inde­pen­dent adult is a good idea for absolute­ly any­one. If pos­si­ble, live alone. Be sole­ly respon­si­ble for your­self finan­cial­ly. Devel­op a healthy social life that has noth­ing to do with whether or not you have an SO. Do any­thing you’ve been putting off. Were you wait­ing to take a vaca­tion until you had some­one to go with? Go now. Go back to school. Change jobs. Vol­un­teer. Learn to dance. Just do it, and enjoy it. 

Dur­ing that year, prac­tice celiba­cy. That means not only do you not have SOs, but you don’t have “friends with ben­e­fits” or one-night stands. Just be with your­self. Hon­or your­self. Love your­self. Treat your­self as you would some­one you tru­ly treasure. 

Tell some­body what you’re doing. Tell peo­ple you can trust to help you con­tin­ue on to your goal. If some­one isn’t sup­port­ive, dis­tance your­self from that per­son. I don’t care if that per­son is an imme­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­ber. You need to main­tain bound­aries, and you don’t need any­one tear­ing you down. Seek out new friend­ships with peo­ple who are supportive. 

It may take some peo­ple longer than a year to get past the “ohmigod I’m gonna get old and be ALONE!” pan­ic. That’s fine. Take what­ev­er time you need. I promise that you will be health­i­er and hap­pi­er for it. The world, and all the men and women in it, will still be there when you’re ready.