Repetitive Stress Injuries : /

From my Healthy Living column in Moncton’s Times & Transcript.

Warning: do you spend hours staring at your computer screen and typing away on the web? Then you could be at risk…(drumroll, please) for repetitive stress injuries!

What are repetitive stress injuries? According to KidsHealth.org, repetitive stress injuries are defined as “injuries that happen when too much stress is placed on a part of the body, resulting in inflammation (pain and swelling), muscle strain, or tissue damage.” While repetitive stress injuries (also referred to as musculoskeletal injuries)

can be caused by playing a sport or a musical instrument, they can also be caused by doing something seemingly harmless – spending large amounts of time on the computer, whether it be chatting on Facebook or working on a school project.

Like many people, I use the computer often and spend large quantities of time typing. Technology is well integrated to my life; I use it to study, communicate (i.e. e-mailing and blogging), and write this column. Since I depend on technology so much, it was devastating when I recently had to cease typing for a few days after being diagnosed with a repetitive stress injury. Although my injury wasn’t serious, it made me question my working environment and inspired me to feature computer-related repetitive stress injuries and ergonomics (which is the science of keeping workplaces safe and running smoothly) in this week’s column.

Now, I realize that repetitive stress injuries may not, at least for some people, seem to be the most fascinating health problem that teens face. Nor are they the most prevalent. However, since repetitive stress injuries are relatively easy to prevent and since they can be quite painful and annoying (I speak from experience!), learning how to prevent them can be worthwhile. That’s why I turned to Nancy Black, president of the Atlantic Chapter of the Association of Canadian Ergonomists and associate professor at Universite de Moncton for advice. Since Dr. Black conducts studies on ergonomics, she was able to offer plenty of useful information.

So, how to know if your work environment is ergonomic? Dr. Black explains that equipment is considered ergonomic if it suits or is adjusted to suit the user, both physically and psychologically. Published studies have found that, contrary to previous beliefs that furniture should be as comfortable as possible to prevent injury, staying in an overly comfortable position for long periods of time could lead to less activity in the muscles and measurable compression. The best injury prevention technique is to change the general position of the body every twenty minutes. For example, you could spend twenty minutes sitting on a chair and then take a short break in a different position (e.g. standing up) before returning to your original position .

Dr. Black remarks that some equipment can actually be too comfortable. Ideally, a computer chair, for example, should keep you “on your toes”. Small tools (like a keyboard or mouse) though should be as comfortable or neutral as possible. That being said, you should still regularly change positions, no matter how small the working body part (Take a break from your continuous texting!).

Although we teenagers usually don’t have control of the environment outside our bedrooms, we should apply these tips when we can. Many believe that technology will become even more integrated into our workplaces as time goes on, meaning that we, the future generation, will have to learn how to function in a high-tech environment. Remember though that Dr. Black’s tips can also be applied to activities where computers aren’t involved, such as reading.

Ditch The Soft Drink Habit

From my Healthy Living column in Moncton’s Times & Transcript.

If you’ve been attentive in your reading of ”Whatever”, you might have noticed that, last week, Dr. Wallace’s column featured a teen seeking advice about his soft drink habit. The teen in question was drinking a whopping four to five soft drink servings (of unknown size) each day. Although I think most teenagers don’t drink quite this much pop, I know we’re known for overconsumption of sugary beverages.  And this is a problem.

Although New Brunswick is a bit over a thousand miles away from New York (according to Google Maps), you may have heard of the anti-soft drink campaign of New York’s Department of Health, popularized by a YouTube video depicting a man drinking a glass of fat. The glass of fat apparently represents the weight a person would gain if he regularly consumed soft drinks. According to Thomas Farley, NYC Health Commissioner,“Sugary drinks shouldn’t be a part of our everyday diet,” and “Drinking beverages loaded with sugars increases the risk of obesity and associated problems, particularly diabetes but also heart disease, stroke, arthritis and cancer.” The Department of Health also warns us that soda serving sizes are increasing: soda used to come in 6.5 oz bottles and now it comes in 20 oz bottles. Yikes.

Personally, I’ve never understood the soft drink problem, probably because my parents rarely bought pop. I think I was nearly eight when I first tasted pop. Naturally, since I wasn’t used to drinking carbonated beverages, I thought it was nasty. Its bubbles made my nose hurt (don’t laugh; in my defense, I’m not the only person to have noticed this) and despite the apparent 16 ½ teaspoons of sugar that a twenty ounces of pop contains, I didn’t find it all that sweet.

Some people have the opposite aversion: they dislike water. I recently watched an episode of the The Doctors, which featured water and the importance of drinking it in the appropriate amount. One of the guests was a twenty-six year old who drank only diet soda—no water. Her main reason for not drinking water was that she found it disgusting because of its taste (or lack thereof). Since she was drinking diet soda and not regular soda, she wasn’t at risk for weight gain because of her soda habit. However she was at risk for dehydration, according to the show’s hosts. They explained that if someone drinks under two glasses of water each day (which classifies him as chronically dehydrated), he doubles his risk of a heart attack. Double yikes.

I hope the above information will convince you to drink healthily and remember that it’s all relative—what is gross to me is tasty to another and vice verca– and that you can learn to love a food you were previously averse to. For more information on soft drinks and health, you can visit www.thedoctorstv.com and view the ”The #1 Secret to Living Longer and Looking Younger” (a.k.a. water) show in the archives or you can visit  the New York City Department of Health’s soft drink page at www.nyc.gov/health/obesity.

Originally published in the Times & Transcript on April 11th, 2010.

Let’s Reconsider How We Celebrate

From my Healthy Living column in Moncton’s Times & Transcript.

What celebration is complete without food? From birthday parties to sporting event celebrations, food is always present, usually in the form of either snack food, fast food or dessert. While most will agree that the occasional treat won’t do much harm over the long term, what happens when an ”occasional” treat becomes more ”regular”? What happens when a ”treat” is the caloric equivalent of an entire meal?

Yeah, I know. Questioning treats is like raining, no, pouring buckets of sleet over Moncton’s Christmas parade. Unfortunately, it’s become necessary.

My fifth grade teacher had to change her family’s eating habits after realizing that her family had treats too often. My teacher’s son was only in second grade at the time, but he ate (in addition to other junk food) fries at fast food restaurants on a weekly basis. Needless to say, my teacher’s son’s doctor told my teacher that the family was enjoying treats much too often and that her son shouldn’t be enjoying a treat more than once a month. I don’t know if my teacher was followed the doctor’s advice, but I do know that the quantity of ”treats” we consume continues to be large.

A family friend’s kids recently came back from a friend’s birthday party, held at a certain large grocery store in Moncton, with each his very own heavily frosted birthday cake about eight inches in diameter. I’m not sure what the store was trying to do by giving preschoolers an excessive amount of birthday cake, but I do know that, at least at this family’s household, the cakes ”disappeared” (i.e. Had to be thrown away) before the kids had finished them.

With my sixteenth birthday exactly a week away, the topic of treats is my concern du jour. Being the health conscious eater that I am, I’m always trying to cut down on my consumption of treats and trying to make them less nutritionally catastrophic. Ironically, I have found that the hardest part of eating healthier at a party is not the act of eating healthy foods (who can resist fresh strawberries?), but dealing with people who believe junk food is the highlight of a party. Have you noticed how treat-centered social events have become? Take away the bags of chips and there’s not much of a party left.

Maybe that’s the problem. Perhaps if we focused on actually celebrating rather than on eating and preparing unhealthy treats, our parties would be more fun and we would be healthier. If a celebration is truly celebratory in nature, spending time with others and savouring the moment should be the focus and food, even healthy food, should just be there to keep hunger at bay. Let’s reconsider how we celebrate.

A couple of nutritious but very simple snack food ideas for parties:

-Fruit and vegetable trays, artistically arranged

– Air-popped popcorn (try using herbs and spices to season the popcorn instead of butter seasoning)

-100% fruit juice with frozen fruit replacing ice cubes

-Frozen fruit ”smoothie” popsicles

Originally published in the Times & Transcript on April 17th, 2010.

Integrate Exercise For Best Results

From my Healthy Living column in Moncton’s Times & Transcript.

Personally, I’m a big fan of resolutions. I don’t just make them at the beginning of the year, but also on my birthday (today), at the beginning of summer, at the beginning of the school year, and each time I finish an activity for the year. My latest resolution, inspired by the return of warm weather, is exercise related.

Of all the healthy habits, I find exercise the most difficult to practice. I realize that some people find the exact opposite true; they exercise over the recommended amount without even thinking about it. Why the difference? I think it depends on the situation someone is in.

When my parents were young and they lived in the city, they spent hours exercising  because they didn’t have other options. My mom’s mother couldn’t drive a car when my mom was young and her father was gone at work all day. As a result, my mom had to walk or bike to school and back twice a day (since she came home for lunch at noon) and she had to walk or bike to anywhere else she wanted to go. Naturally, since there wasn’t much to be done indoors (No one had computers and ipods back then), she and her friends usually played some type of sport (swimming, tennis, skating, skiing, etc.) when they wanted to have fun.  My dad’s parents never drove him anywhere and he spent large amounts of time walking, running, and biking to and from all his activities. He also spent considerable amounts of time shoveling snow, completing various household chores, playing hockey, skating, and skiing.

As for me, I couldn’t exercise several hours a day even if I wanted to. I would have to walk much  too far and in not-so-safe conditions to get to and from my activities ( which tend to be unathletic in nature, e.g. Playing the clarinet) and I’d probably annoy my companions. My current exercise routine consists of walking with the family dog on a daily basis and the occasional workout, which I do for the sole purpose of doing more exercise. I realize that to some more athletic people the quantity of exercise I do probably seems meager. What can I say? My goals and aspirations don’t consist of athletic feats, although I realize that having good health (which, of course, requires exercise) is important if I want to have the energy and endurance to achieve those goals and aspirations. I’ve always been more ”bookish” than athletic and I’ve built my life around that. My lifestyle now requires that I create opportunities to exercise if I want to do more exercise, rather than allowing me to simply take on existing opportunities.

No, I’m not blaming reduced physical activity on lack of time or lack of knowledge, I’m just pointing out that the easiest way to fit exercise into someone’s life would be to transform his life so he was required to exercise regularly without having to prioritize it. This is why, in order to live up to my latest resolution, I will be looking for ways to make exercise a more integral part of my life.

Originally published in the Times & Transcript on April 24th, 2010.