is fandom hazardous to your health?

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davemerrill
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by davemerrill »

While I was in Japan I got word that an AWA director had passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack, so our show is going to be a little bittersweet this year.

It is interesting - depressing, but interesting - to see old photos and videos of people who were actually pretty skinny when they were 19 and 20 who are now, 20 or 25 years later, overweight and beset with health problems that are exacerbated, if not caused by, their bad diet and lack of exercise.

A friend on my FB recently posted that he's 200+ pounds overweight and is finally (!!) going to start doing something about it. Another person I know in the Dallas area has had most of his teeth pulled (!!) and recently had to get a toe removed (!!!) because of complications from diabetes. These aren't health issues caused by car accidents or lightning strikes, these are problems that could have been easily avoided. A lot of times these problems are compounded by how difficult it is to get decent health care in the States - a lot of people simply never get regular physical exams, because of the cost. By the time they find out they have a problem, it might be too late.

When I was in my diabetes diet class (borderline, under control) most of the other people in the class wanted a simple checklist of "eat this, don't ever eat that, here's the list." What they don't want to hear is that they should ditch the junk food, eat regular decent meals and keep their portions reasonable. It's really simple, but people don't want to hear it, they want to know about the special miracle diet, they want to know how quickly Aspartame will kill you because they read about that somewhere on the internet, they would sooner take insulin shots every day while their feet are amputated rather than give up Twinkies or Tim Horton's. Or Krispy Kremes.
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by _D_ »

Re: expense to get tests done in the states.

This is what I don't understand about the hostility to "Obamacare" or why some of the politicos call the Canadian system "rampant communism"! For lower income people like myself, it's a godsend. I have a colonoscopy done every 3 years. I have full medical checkups once every 2 years. These kinds of procedures would cost me an arm and a leg in the U.S. But it's free up here. I even have a family doctor who is a good friend (though there is walk-in care available). Most people don't seem to have family doctors anymore. Sad that. I've seen some politicos in the states give out false info on the system up here saying things like surgery wait times are long. Yeah, well maybe for cosmetic or elective. Emergency? Nah! That has priority. It's not perfect but a far cry from what is going on elsewhere.
davemerrill
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by davemerrill »

The amount of misinformation and propaganda spread in the States about the Canadian healthcare system is amazing. There's a real axe to grind on the right side of the aisle in American politics, and if they feel like slandering Canada, nothing's going to stop them.

I've been on both sides of the border and I will take the Canadian system any day of the week, month, year, or century, hands down. There will always be problems with any healthcare system, but I have never seen people holding yard sales to pay for their cancer treatments, as I have in the States.
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greg
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by greg »

Well, aspartame is pretty bad for you, since it is a neurotoxin, as are pretty much all synthetic sweeteners. My mom (R.I.P.) would always complain about headaches. I kept telling her to stop her daily ritual of a Diet Pepsi, but she just wouldn't. When her doctor finally told her she had to do it, she complied, and suddenly the headaches went away. The stuff is fnasty (that's nasty with an F, btw). If I'm going to enjoy something, it had better taste good. The problem is that the old motto "everything in moderation" has gone out the door. You can't just buy a sixpack of cola or even a single can. No, you have to buy the whole darn box of 18 or whatever they sell them as. Plus it's not even real sugar; it's high fructose corn syrup, which your body can't break down, so it stores it as fat. Regardless of whether you settle on brain cancer or diabeetus, it used to be that you'd go to the pharmacy to get a soda at the soda fountain on a Friday night or whatever. Not having cans coming from a cardboard dispenser in your fridge.

My dad was on prediabetic medicine, but he's lost about 80 pounds or so and now only weighs about 195. I think a lot of the weight loss is due to the stress of Mom dying this year, but he has seemingly defeated diabetes, at least for the time being. All he has to do is keep the weight off.

I need to take this as a motivation to lose some weight myself, since Dad is nearly the same weight as myself. He's shorter than me, but still... I'm 5'11" or maybe just a bit under. I'm bouncing around 187 these days (I'm glad I took my American scale with me to Japan). A couple years ago, I was around 210 and felt like poo. I was down to nearly 180 just a few months ago, but since I moved to Fuji and started a great job, I guess I've just been enjoying life a bit too much lately. Once you've been away from the habit of regular exercise, it's hard to get back into the groove. I really need to do something. It's a shame it's so difficult to find any decent freeweights here.
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davemerrill
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by davemerrill »

I've actually gotten to the point where I prefer diet Coke to the regular stuff. There's been a lot of scare talk about aspartame, but unless you're a phenylketonuric there aren't any health issues with it that anybody's been able to find (and they spent 27 years looking). It's interesting how Diet Coke is almost nonexistent in Japan, and even Coke Zero is hard to find. I know they used to brand it as "Coke Light" but I didn't see that at all; I'd love to see that "in the field."

Being from Atlanta, I naturally get headaches from all Pepsi products.

I ditched sugar in everything years ago; I don't even put it in my coffee. When I have a regular Coke now, or, god help me, Southern style sweet tea, it's almost a shock.

I brought it up because the aspartame issue became the focal point of the discussion concerning my friend and his realization that he was 200 pounds overweight. That's fandom for you, they can take a fairly straightforward problem and derail it almost instantly. There's a perverse desire to one-up, to show off, to parade one's special knowledge, that makes dealing with fans a challenge. If you tell them to go through the left door they will want to know why they can't go through the right one. If you tell them the sky is blue, they'll deliver a lecture on atmospheric scattering or they'll say 'Actually in the evening it's orange'. In short, you can't tell them anything, and this includes health information.

Then they wind up like my pal Kevin; he was always overweight, and the last time I saw him he was on a sofa in the con suite of a Birmingham SF convention. He literally took up the entire sofa. Sitting upright caused him to wheeze. It was like something out of DUNE. But visit a doctor? Engage in a healthier lifestyle? No sir, he was right where he wanted to be, camped out in the con suite. That's where the free food is.

I had a similar experience with a staff operations room at an Anime North; it was basically a campground for staffers whose role on staff, as near as I could figure, was to sit in the room and order meals on the convention's dime. They couldn't watch equipment or find people or contact other staff directors, they didn't know how to get in touch with the main hotel or guest relations, but boy could they put away breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They were even stashing plates of bacon away "for later". And let me just say these were not skinny people.
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by Gunso »

I just spent a year in Korea, where if you order "diet coke" or "coke lite" at a restaurant you end up with a coke zero, plus it's at all the convenience stores, so it seems to have taken root there at least. I also see it at stores in my area of Japan, but maybe it's more popular in the Tohoku region.

I noticed last time I lived here, and now even, that it's easy to slip into a bad diet even eating well-balanced meals of japanese food. Where America goes crazy with sugar/high fructose corn syrup, Japan uses lot of soy sauce and/or salt in food, leading to way too much sodium in one's diet. High blood-pressure is a problem for many Japanese because of this. I had it for a while and had to basically just cook more for myself so that I know what's in it - it may sound like I was just eating nothing but junk, but I was single, so of course I ate out rather than keeping a fridge stocked with ingredients.
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greg
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by greg »

Gunso wrote:Where America goes crazy with sugar/high fructose corn syrup, Japan uses lot of soy sauce and/or salt in food, leading to way too much sodium in one's diet. High blood-pressure is a problem for many Japanese because of this.
Well, contrary to popular belief, sodium does not cause high blood pressure. However if you do have high blood pressure, you will want to reduce your intake since it exacurbates the problem. There's been quite a lot of groupthink that's guilty of demonizing table salt, just as with the misguided "fat is bad for you" and "cholesterol is bad for you" beliefs. The truth is that sodium is one of the primary electrolytes in your body, and you lose it when you sweat. A deficiency in sodium chloride and potassium chloride results in a myriad of problems, from dehydration to adrenal fatigue.

During the summer months, I don't refrain from salt. In the winter, however, I cut back, unless I am exercising rigorously. I really miss drinking Smartwater back in the States. It was no-nonsense electrolytes without all the crappy HFCS that is in Gatorade. Pocari Sweat and Aquarius here in Japan is nice, but they have some stuff they can do without, namely sugars and MSG. Korean Pocari Sweat doesn't seem to have MSG in it, though. MSG really ought to be banned globally, along with GMO fruits and vegetables.
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davemerrill
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by davemerrill »

I think once the price of corn starts going back up -and once the US normalizes relations with Cuba - we'll start seeing real sugar used in food production again. I know most soft drink bottlers will use whatever's cheaper at any particular time, and usually HFCS beats them all. Up here in Canuckistan you can walk down to Queens Quay and see a giant mountain of sugar at the Redpath warehouse, but corn isn't as cheap as it is in the States.

Part of the benefit of having regular checkups is that you can get a baseline of what your body's normal operating levels are like; what may be a high-sodium diet for person A is perfectly fine for person B, and vice versa. Unfortunately many people don't get any sort of preventative care. I know even when I had medical coverage through my employer back in the US, it was hard to say to myself, hey, you should get a physical every year. (of course nobody really thinks about that when they're in their 20s.) I didn't really get into the habit until I moved up here.

As far as musical acts go, one American band can thank Japan for giving them their leg up to stardom: Cheap Trick was going nowhere until tracks from their "Live At Budokan" LP got US radio airplay. And the rest is history!
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greg
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by greg »

I went to a naturopathic doctor back in the States for regular blood tests. Fortunately, my insurance covered blood tests 100%, and he was very thorough. Regular doctors only check for a few things that they feel is necessary, whereas a naturopath is holistic and looks at the big picture.

Medical care in the United Sttes is very reactive, not proactive. They won't cover you getting an MRI for preventative measure purposes, but they'll cover one after you have a stroke or something.
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greg
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Re: is fandom hazardous to your health?

Post by greg »

Definitely. Chinese medicine is very proactive. In fact, we had a baby as a direct result of my wife going to an acupuncture doctor.
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