Exercising the mind and the body
I will be offline the rest of the summer… Will resume blogging in September.
Get outside and play before your town turns into Greenwich, where lawyers and angry neighbors are threatening to close a Wiffle ball field of dreams built by local kids. “Fun? Not in my backyard!” Ugh.
“All kids [and kids at heart] deserve a Huck Finn summer.”
Play, think…
J. R. Atwood
I just returned home after a week of high-altitude livin’ in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Two great runs bookended my trip: On day one of my vacation in Jackson, I went for a light and easy morning jog to stretch my legs. Twenty minutes into my jaunt through the neighboring community of Wilson (population: 1,300; elevation: 6,100 feet), I looked up at Teton Pass, the mountain road that climbs 2,200 vertical feet at grades of up to 10 percent and cuts through the rugged range that divides the Equality State from the Gem State, and was overwhelmed with a curiosity to run to the top. (In summers past I have busted my quads riding to the summit.) A breathtaking view of the valley floor from an elevation of 8,400 feet was my reward. Incredible.
This run was just a warm-up for when I would play King of the Mountain(s) at the end of my vacation. Starting from Teton Village (elevation: 6,300 feet) at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, I darted up a trail that wraps its way to the top of Apres Vous Mountain (8,500 feet), then crossed over and trekked up to the tippity snow-capped top of Rendezvous Mountain (10,500 feet), and then descended just a wee-bit to Gondola Summit (9,000 feet). This epic trail run sometimes seemed like a Sisyphian challenge (especially the trudge up the steep, slippery, and bowl-shaped Sublette chutte), but was ultimately — because of the difficulty of the trek, the views afforded from the mountain peaks, the wildlife that I found myself surrounded by, and the quiet solitude of such an adventure — the highlight of my trip.
Having just returned home, I want to share some noteworthy news items from the past week that I am just now having a chance to catch-up on:
** Philosophy Talk, one of my favorite local radio programs, gets some much deserved recognition, courtesy of the L.A. Times article, Yeah, these philosophy professors will give it some thought. “Thank you for thinking.”
** Gretchen Reynolds of the NYT highlights an important and oft overlooked concern about the health of endurance athletes: The sometimes obsessive weight iusses of male and female athletes:
In [a] study published earlier this year in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 223 Swedish Olympians (125 men and 98 women) were weighed, measured and asked about their eating habits. The thinner athletes, many of them from endurance sports, reported more episodes of wild weight swings and eating disorders than other athletes. Even more startling was that the eating and weight problems were most common among the thin male athletes. The women didn’t worry about their weight nearly as much. In fact, according to Dr. Hagmar Magnus, a physician at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and the study’s lead author, “the female Olympians ate a lot and planned meals well. The men didn’t.”
Magnus says the lessons of the study are broad. For one, “we’ve all been paying a great deal of attention to female athletes, trying to help them avoid eating disorders,” he says. “We need to start doing that for men.”
In addition, “the best female athletes in Sweden eat quite well, which suggests that good eating is a real competitive advantage,” Magnus says. “As a physician, I see many female athletes, not quite so elite, who have eating problems. That may be what has kept them from the top ranks. I’d love to get the message to them, you can eat your way to greatness.”
** Walking book clubs?! Exercise the mind and the body to maximize cognitive and bodily health, says Dr. Arthur Kramer, Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Biomedical Imaging Center at the University of Illinois, in this interview with Alvaro Fernandez of SharpBrains.
** And follow-this up with another fascinating AF/SharpBrains discussion about why and how smart people do really dumb things, like the Harvard students who paid $204 for a $20 bill. Wha?! Ori Brafman, co-author of Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, explains “the different hidden forces” and “psychological undercurrents” of our decision making processes here.
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
Me, eight-plus years ago and a month into my freshman year of college: “I’m majoring in philosophy.”
A college buddy of mine, majoring in business: “Uh, what can you do with a degree in philosophy?”
Me: “Well, anything, really. I read somewhere that John Elway and Jay Leno were philosophy majors.”
Buddy: “Yeah, but you stink at football and aren’t funny. [Long pause.] But hey, I bet you can fetch a premium in the marketplace because you have all these deep- and critical thinking abilities and skills.”
Me: “Yeah! Good point.”
Reality: “Uh, see the chart below of average starting salaries for college graduates, by major.”
Me: “D’oh!”
Source: The NYT’s Freakonomics blog.
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
So. Much. Good. Stuff.
*** “Can We Play?,” by Dr. David Elkind and published on the SharpBrains blog, is a summary of the “research [that] confirms the value of play.” It makes for an interesting, science-rooted companion to a book that deserves a deep and thorough re-read every year, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, by Thomist philosopher and Christian theologian Josef Pieper, who makes a compelling case that purposeless activity is the most purposeful activity that we can and should engage in!
*** What is the best way to boost cognitive functioning? By exercising the body or by exercising the mind? What about the use of nutrition supplements and the practice of meditation? Jeremy at PsyBlog explores these questions in, Brain Health: Physical or Mental Exercise?, also republished on the SharpBrains blog. (If you regularly peruse only one or two sites about the brain sciences, SharpBrains is the best.)
*** Light reading: Boris Johnson, the recently-elected Mayor of London, analogizes bike riding with and without a helmet to the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” sharp elbow game of politics in Get a bike helmet to get ahead - or maybe not, an opinion piece in Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
*** To listen to: NPR’s Talk of the Nation has an audio archive of today’s discussion with Alan Schwartz of the NYT about his front-page profile of Kendall Bailey, a “6-foot-6-inch 19 year-old” diagnosed with cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and autism, but who also happens to be one the fastest disabled swimmers in the world. Kendall is so fast that he is favored to win gold, if not set a world record in the breastroke, at this summer’s 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. That is, if he is allowed to compete. Officials of the event have been slow to confirm whether Kendall, because of his intellectual and mental handicaps, would be allowed to compete alongside physically disabled athletes. The politics of sport and the heart of a champion. Read Schwartz’s article here.
*** Another provocative read: This story about how the government of Japan is responding to its own national obesity epidemic (it seems everyone, everywhere — not just those of us in the U.S. — is getting fatter) by imposing limits to the size of its citizens’ bellies. (!) If you are a male, it is against the law for your waist to exceed 33.5 inches; for women, the government says your waist can be no bigger than 35.4 inches. If you eat too much and are too plump around the mid-section, you can be fined and forced to attend health education courses. Too much government intervention, or a necessary public policy?
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
“My Amygdala, My Self,” by Jeffrey Goldberg, is a fun and fascinating article in this summer’s Ideas Issue of The Atlantic:
Intrigued (and alarmed) by the new science of “neuromarketing,” our correspondent peers into his own brain via an MRI machine and learns what he really thinks about Jimmy Carter, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bruce Springsteen, and Eddie Falco.
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
Be sure to give yourself 20 minutes to read “No Finish Line” by Alexander Wolff, a Sports Illustrated profile of former marathon world-record holder Alberto Salazar. It’s a fascinating story about a great athlete who, after suffering a heart attack, is forced to come to grips with the fact that “life is the only long run that really matters.”
The opening paragraph paints a vivid picture about the The Agony of Victory:
Death is one of those things Alberto Salazar used to run into. He’d finish a race and all but perish, as likely from fire as from ice. In 1978, at the end of the 7.1-mile Falmouth (Mass.) Road Race, he was read the last rites after collapsing with a body temperature of 108°. After he won the 1982 Boston Marathon, paramedics had to give him six liters of saline solution in an IV drip when his temperature dropped to 88°.
When done reading the SI article, check out Malcolm Gladwell’s blog post about Kenyan runners. Gladwell, citing Salazar’s observations about and experiences with the sport of running, makes a case for “put[ting] the genetic argument about Kenyan running dominance to rest.”
The genetic versus cultural debate does not die, however, as evidence by the string of lively, heated, passionate responses in the comments section of Gladwell’s blog.
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
Worth a read: Our friends in the north, a thought-provoking article in the Economist that explores the policies and philosophies that make the education system in Finland “the best in the world.”
Finnish schools are compared to schools in Sweden and it’s interesting to read about the successes and struggles of a national voucher model, market-based school systems, personalized curricula, segregated versus mainstream special education policies, and differing beliefs about the purpose of a public education system.
But of most interest to me, and the reason Finnish schools are so good: Teacher recruitment and quality of instruction. As noted by a professor of pedagogy at Helsinki’s teacher-training facility, “The root of the Finnish education system’s success is its extraordinary ability to attract the very best young people into teaching: Only around 10% of applicants are accepted for teacher training.”
At the National Board of Education, I ask Irmeli Halinen what other countries should learn from Finland. The most important lesson, she says, is to develop excellent initial training for teachers. Second, start education late and gently—Finnish children are seven before they start formal school. And she offers a third lesson: “We don’t waste energy or money or time on inspections or national testing.”
The ministry of education is “obsessed” with maintaining and improving the status of educators as an elite and respected group in Finnish society. Says its minster, ”We will do anything possible to keep the profession attractive.”
I’d love to hear the same commitment from U.S. representatives, legislators, and policy makers. But even if we increased teacher recruitment and retention efforts, drawing teachers and administrators from a select pool of the smartest and highest-achieving college graduates, how much more would students learn? Teacher quality, while a necessary (and even if the most important) input for a public school, is just one piece of the dynamic and complicated education puzzle. Students and their families have to buy into and believe in the system… They have to believe that education will empower them to achieve their own best promises.
Do our schools help to lift-up the children of low-income families? It’s a complicated question that the concept of “inter-generational income elasticity” makes a bit more messy. This is “the technical term for the correlation between people’s income and that of their parents.”
In the United States, parental income is a major influence on earning. It is difficult for children to move among — especially up — economic classes. In Finland, inter-generational income elasticity is low, meaning, “Finns trust teachers and schools… and for a reason.” A strong education system makes economic ladder climbing easy. “What Finnish schools do is genuinely effective.”
How is this possible? High standards of success from all students:
“Between-student” variation in Finland is extremely low, meaning a narrow gap between the scores of the most able and least able groups. This trick is easy to pull off if standards are uniformly low, but Finland’s average is the world’s highest, meaning it does almost unbelievably well by its weakest students.
How are high standards achieved? Not by mandated national or state testing. But by getting the best and brightest people to work in education.
Finland’s secret is simple: its teachers are so highly regarded that the very best young people compete for this coveted job. The successful few study for at least five years and are actually taught how to teach (you would be surprised how rare this is on teacher-training courses). And then, once they start work, their students pay attention and work hard (when I asked Finns whether there were some families who despised education and resented schools, they seemed puzzled by the question).
I have seen what works. But I don’t know how my country—where anti-intellectualism is rife, and where, sadly, all too often those who can’t do, teach—could replicate it.
Hat tip to MH for the link.
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
I’m listening to NPR’s Talk of the Nation right now and find myself laughing — and cringing — as people call-in to share their gym pet-peeves and horror stories. The guest is Tina Peng, author of Newsweek’s “Gym Sins,” in which “fitness club memberships dish about their members’ most obnoxious habits.” Among my favorite gym sins:
I came across this graph of U.S. education expenditure, in 2001 constant dollars, on the website of futurist and “restless genius” Ray Kurzweil…
Click here to see more of Ray’s charts and to download the Excel spreadsheet detailing yearly U.S. expenditures on education from 1900 through 2002.
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
Opening in select cities this weekend and expanding to more cities throughout the month, Bigger, Stronger, Faster* looks to be a must-watch documentary that explores America’s (sometimes tragic) sporting ethos of winning… at all costs. The movie’s summary:
In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. We reward speed, size and above all else: winning - at sport, at business and at war. Metaphorically we are a nation on steroids. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs?
From the producers of Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 comes a new film that unflinchingly explores our win-at-all-cost culture through the lens of a personal journey. Blending comedy and pathos, BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER* is a collision of pop culture, animated sequences and first-person narrative, with a diverse cast including US Congressmen, professional athletes, medical experts and everyday gym rats.
At its heart, this is the story of director Christopher Bell and his two brothers, who grew up idolizing muscular giants like Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and who went on to become members of the steroid-subculture in an effort to realize their American dream. When you discover that your heroes have all broken the rules, do you follow the rules, or do you follow your heroes?
Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (BSF*) promises to elevate the level of discussion about steroids and has a 100% Fresh rating on rottentomatoes.com. Some select quotes from the critics:
“Easily one of the best documentaries of the year.”
“Bell’s film is not only captivating and entertaining, it takes an American subculture and turns our general understanding of it on its head.”
“…manages to be two films at once: One is an informative portrait of a power-hungry society; the other is an intensely gripping narrative of personal growth.”
“Bell’s debut feature addresses its subject with both humor and intelligence, approaching the issue of performance enhancement from every conceivable angle.” [Source.]
An excerpt from Stephen Holden’s review in the NYT:
How do you reconcile the imperative drilled into children by parents, teachers and the news media that winning is everything with the increasingly quaint moral injunctions to play fair, exercise good sportsmanship and do the right thing? If your childhood idols are preening supermen like Hulk Hogan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who preached clean living but revealed their own reliance on steroids, which path are you likely to follow?
The movie ponders the question of what constitutes cheating when you look objectively at the role of medicine in competitive sport. Is it cheating for a bicycle racer to pump more oxygen into his system by sleeping in a high-altitude chamber? Has Tiger Woods’s Lasik eye surgery given him an unfair competitive advantage? The lines between cheating and fair play, the movie suggests, are hazy to the point of being arbitrary. Pharmaceutical enhancement extends even to the sedate world of classical music, in which musicians susceptible to stage fright consume beta blockers to keep them calm.
American culture’s embrace of steroids, or at least benign neglect about responding to the proliferation of cheating and use of performance enhancing drugs in sport, is a curious phenomenon. It was not all that long ago when we looked to the doped-up Soviet athletes in the Olympics from the 1950s to early ’80s with indignation and smug pride. They were products of science, freaks, machines. Our athletes were natural. Real. Steroids were un-American, as Senator Joseph Biden is heard to say in BSF*.
Or, asks Stephen Holden, “are [steroids] as American as apple pie?” Is it cheating if everybody does it?
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
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