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coboardhead
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180
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 Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 11:07 am Post subject: |
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| Hmmmm...........the words "mountain" and "molehill" spring to mind. There are greater challenges facing our children than their own choice of a nerf gun rather than a Barbie Doll. |
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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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| After brushing coboardhead's thoughts aside as much to do about nothing, one wonders what those greater challenges are in mrgybe's mind. |
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coboardhead
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:33 am Post subject: |
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| SWC. I’m sure if Mrgybe had a substantive comment, he would share it. |
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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4161
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:24 am Post subject: |
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| coboardhead wrote: | Speaking of diversion Techno.
You pointed out a "nutty law" that California is proposing. A law, designed to address the issue with defining toy use by gender and the problems associated with it.
While I disagree with this sort of approach by California lawmakers, the larger concern is how we, as a society, address this issue. A issue that you, as a conservative, scoffed at.
So. 1. Do you not believe that gender defined toys create development problems with children? or 2. Are you OK with the toy industry defining what roles are acceptable for females and what roles are acceptable for males in our society? or or 3. Believe it's OK for males to remain dominant in our society and are fine with toys aiding in that? of 4. Don't believe toys have anything to do with it? |
Number 4, it's not the toys, it's the parents. How a truck or a doll are displayed in a store has ZERO to do with possible developmental disorders. |
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coboardhead
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:38 am Post subject: |
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| techno900 wrote: | | coboardhead wrote: | Speaking of diversion Techno.
You pointed out a "nutty law" that California is proposing. A law, designed to address the issue with defining toy use by gender and the problems associated with it.
While I disagree with this sort of approach by California lawmakers, the larger concern is how we, as a society, address this issue. A issue that you, as a conservative, scoffed at.
So. 1. Do you not believe that gender defined toys create development problems with children? or 2. Are you OK with the toy industry defining what roles are acceptable for females and what roles are acceptable for males in our society? or or 3. Believe it's OK for males to remain dominant in our society and are fine with toys aiding in that? of 4. Don't believe toys have anything to do with it? |
Number 4, it's not the toys, it's the parents. How a truck or a doll are displayed in a store has ZERO to do with possible developmental disorders. |
Well. I don’t think it is the responsibility of the store or the government either. But, gender neutral toys are a good idea and you ridiculed that.
BTW, you did answer “4”. So, I assume you don’t believe that gender specific toys affect the way children develop? |
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 11:06 am Post subject: |
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| coboardhead wrote: | | SWC. I’m sure if Mrgybe had a substantive comment, he would share it. |
OK.........I'll bite. Since neither you, nor Chandler have experience in this arena, let me share with you how it works in the real world of children and grandchildren. You take children of either sex to a store. If there is a toy section in that store, they will head straight for it. The toys are randomly displayed to catch their eye as they roam the aisles; they are not organized by "gender definition". The children choose what appeals to them and try to persuade parents that they must have them. Sensible parents respond sensibly.
Everything we experience shapes us to an extent, but to suggest that the toy industry is "defining what roles are acceptable for females and what roles are acceptable for males in our society" is utterly absurd. We are not helpless putty in the hands of sinister capitalists.
Obesity, depression, bullying, peer pressure, social media pressure, domestic abuse, on screen violence/ drug use/ sexuality, losing a year at school and on and on. These are real problems. We don't need to invent more. Navel gazing. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 11:53 am Post subject: |
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Never in doubt, occasionally correct. Time to troll the southerners who ignore the beam in their own eyes.
| Quote: | By Sarah Varney,
Kaiser Health News
In January, as Mississippi health officials planned for their incoming shipments of covid-19 vaccine, they assessed the state’s most vulnerable: health care workers, of course, and elderly people in nursing homes. But among those who needed urgent protection from the virus ripping across the Magnolia State were 1 million Mississippians with obesity.
Obesity and weight-related illnesses have been deadly liabilities in the covid era. A report released this month by the World Obesity Federation found that increased body weight is the second-greatest predictor of covid-related hospitalization and death across the globe, trailing only old age as a risk factor.
As a fixture of life in the American South — home to nine of the nation’s 12 heaviest states — obesity is playing a role not only in covid outcomes, but in the calculus of the vaccination rollout. Mississippi was one of the first states to add a body mass index of 30 or more (a rough gauge of obesity tied to height and weight) to the list of qualifying medical conditions for a shot. About 40% of the state’s adults meet that definition, according to federal health survey data, and combined with the risk group already eligible for vaccination — residents 65 and older — that means fully half of Mississippi’s adults are entitled to vie for a restricted allotment of shots.
At least 29 states have greenlighted obesity for inclusion in the first phases of the vaccine rollout, according to KFF — a vast widening of eligibility that has the potential to overwhelm government efforts and heighten competition for scarce doses.
“We have a lifesaving intervention, and we don’t have enough of it,” said Jen Kates, director of global health and HIV policy for KFF. “Hard choices are being made about who should go first, and there is no right answer.”
The sheer prevalence of obesity in the nation — 2 in 3 Americans exceed what is considered a healthy weight — was a public health concern well before the pandemic. But covid-19 dramatically fast-tracked the discussion from warnings about the long-term damage excess fat tissue can pose to heart, lung and metabolic functions to far more immediate threats.
In the United Kingdom, for example, overweight covid patients were 67% more likely to require intensive care, and obese patients three times likelier, according to the World Obesity Federation report. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released Monday found a similar trend among U.S. patients and noted that the risk of covid-related hospitalization, ventilation and death increased with patients’ obesity level.
The counties that hug the southern Mississippi River are home to some of the most concentrated pockets of extreme obesity in the United States. Coronavirus infections began surging in Southern states early last summer, and hospitalizations rose in step.
Deaths in rural stretches of Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas have been overshadowed by the sheer number of deaths in metropolitan areas like New York City, Los Angeles and Essex County, New Jersey. But as a share of the population, the coronavirus has been similarly unsparing in many Southern communities. In sparsely populated Claiborne County, Mississippi, on the floodplains of the Mississippi River, 30 residents — about 1 in 300 — had died as of early March. In East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, north of Baton Rouge, with 106 deaths, about 1 in 180 had died by then.
“It’s just math. If the population is more obese and obesity clearly contributes to worse outcomes, then neighborhoods, cities, states and countries that are more obese will have a greater toll from covid,” said Dr. James de Lemos, a professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas who led a study of hospitalized covid patients published in the medical journal Circulation.
And, because in the U.S. obesity rates tend to be relatively high among African Americans and Latinos who are poor, with diminished access to health care, “it’s a triple whammy,” de Lemos said. “All these things intersect.”
Poverty and limited access to medical care are common features in the South, where residents like Michelle Antonyshyn, a former registered nurse and mother of seven in Salem, Arkansas, say they are afraid of the virus. Antonyshyn, 49, has obesity and debilitating pain in her knees and back, though she does not have high blood pressure or diabetes, two underlying conditions that federal health officials have determined are added risk factors for severe cases of covid-19.
Still, she said, she “was very concerned just knowing that being obese puts you more at risk for bad outcomes such as being on a ventilator and death.” As a precaution, Antonyshyn said, she and her large brood locked down early and stopped attending church services in person, watching online instead.
“It’s not the same as having fellowship, but the risk for me was enough,” said Antonyshyn.
Governors throughout the South seem to recognize that weight can contribute to covid-19 complications and have pushed for vaccine eligibility rules that prioritize obesity. But on the ground, local health officials are girding for having to tell newly eligible people who qualify as obese that there aren’t enough shots to go around.
In Port Gibson, Mississippi, Dr. Mheja Williams, medical director of the Claiborne County Family Health Center, has been receiving barely enough doses to inoculate the health workers and oldest seniors in her county of 9,600. One week in early February, she received 100 doses.
Obesity and extreme obesity are endemic in Claiborne County, and health officials say the “normalization” of obesity means people often don’t register their weight as a risk factor, whether for covid or other health issues. The risks are exacerbated by a general flouting of pandemic etiquette: Williams said that middle-aged and younger residents are not especially vigilant about physical distancing and that mask use is rare.
The rise of obesity in the U.S. is well documented over the past half-century, as the nation turned from a diet of fruits, vegetables and limited meats to one laden with ultra-processed foods and rich with salt, fat, sugar and flavorings, along with copious amounts of meat, fast food and soda. The U.S. has generally led the global obesity race, setting records as even toddlers and young children grew implausibly, dangerously overweight.
Well before covid, obesity was a leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. The National Institutes of Health declared it a disease in 1998, one that fosters heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and breast, colon and other cancers.
Researchers say it is no coincidence that nations like the U.S., the U.K. and Italy, with relatively high obesity rates, have proved particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus.
They believe the virus may exploit underlying metabolic and physiological impairments that often exist in concert with obesity. Extra fat can lead to a cascade of metabolic disruptions, chronic systemic inflammation and hormonal dysregulation that may thwart the body’s response to infection.
Other respiratory viruses, like influenza and SARS, which appeared in China in 2002, rely on cholesterol to spread enveloped RNA virus to neighboring cells, and researchers have proposed that a similar mechanism may play a role in the spread of the novel coronavirus.
There are also practical problems for coronavirus patients with obesity admitted to the hospital. They can be more difficult to intubate due to excess central weight pressing down on the diaphragm, making breathing with infected lungs even more difficult.
Physicians who specialize in treating patients with obesity say public health officials need to be more forthright and urgent in their messaging, telegraphing the risks of this covid era.
“It should be explicit and direct,” said Dr. Fatima Stanford, an obesity medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Harvard Medical School instructor.
Stanford denounces the fat-shaming and bullying that people with obesity often experience. But telling patients — and the public — that obesity increases the risk of hospitalization and death is crucial, she said.
“I don’t think it’s stigmatizing,” she said. “If you tell them in that way, it’s not to scare you, it’s just giving information. Sometimes people are just unaware.” |
Obesity rates, consistently higher in the land of sweet tea and pig shit lagoons, can be seen in this map:https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html
Add in smoking rates, 11.2% in California--less than half that of Kentucky and Arkansas, and it explains a lot. Death rates are higher in the South--231 for Mississippi, 211 for Louisiana, 210 for Alabama, 179 for Arkansas, 171 for South Carolina, 169 for Tennessee. California's rate is 140. I'll give props to North Carolina--maybe its the Democratic governor?
But the man who understands nothing about being in a classroom inches from a teacher for 6 hours a day, without proper ventilation, has spoken. |
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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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mrgybe,
While I can't say that I disagree with your latest comments, I don't think that you've given much thought to positive influences. I think we all understand that females in the world aren't always given the same opportunities as males. In my view, that needs to change into the future.
Needless to say, the societal framework and guiding lines for development starts very young in life. Reflecting back on my life and education, the expectations and restrictions were often very gender defined. Although things have been changing in some parts of the world, I still don't think that females are given the same chances or opportunities for optimizing education, knowledge and their personal development.
Speaking for myself, I hope that the future begins to balance the scales a bit between the sexes. To get an early start on that, I think that less emphasis needs to be focused on traditional gender roles and expectations and more on personal and intellectual potential. Given that toys are a very big influence on young children, it seems to me like more can be done in the toy industry to create and stimulate a more equitable outcome for boys and girls.
Just for the record, I want to be clear that I'm not lining up behind the proposed California law that techno900 has highlighted. I don't think that the government should be focused on rules and regulations of that nature. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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The south--where white grievance drives politics and 70% of the safe Republican districts are located.
| Quote: | Washington was once again named the best overall state in the country in this year’s edition of U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best States Rankings, released Tuesday.
Alabama, West Virginia, New Mexico, Mississippi and Louisiana were the five lowest-ranking states. |
All this and pig shit lagoons, and higher death rates from Covid and obesity related illnesses. But at least we can suppress the ability of black people to vote. |
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