I wrote the following for The News & Observer, where it appeared Monday, Aug. 19, 2013. It appears here with links. If you live in Charlotte and wonder where your town fared in the American Fitness Index ranking of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas, come back tomorrow for that report.
Category Archives: Health
90 Second Escape: Summer plods on
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video or slide show of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.
Today’s 90-Second Escape: Summer Plods On
In the beginning, we can’t wait for summer to begin. Come Memorial Day, the neighborhood pool opens, we start counting the days — not weeks or months — until our beach vacation, we abandon the kitchen for the backyard grill. And it’s easy to see why: summer is a sly seductress, immediately giving us the heat we crave while holding back on the humidity that makes us wilt.
The latest thinking on Alzheimer’s
I originally wrote the following for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer; it appeared in both papers March 6. It appears here with additional information and links.
If ever there were a disease begging for a cure, it would be Alzheimer’s.
Is your resolve fading?
I wrote the following for The News & Observer and Charlotte Observer. It ran in both papers on Feb. 12, 2013. It runs here, with links.
If you were one of the millions of Americans who vowed to live a healthier lifestyle in 2013, you may be edging toward the window of despair. But you probably already knew that.
Survey: Gals will crater first
As we near the traditional witching hour for New Years resolutions — the third week of the year, when our resolve traditionally begins to dissolve, here come fightin’ words in the form of a survey from “a pioneer in online personality tests.” OK, that description, of Queendom.com, may not inspire the confidence of a Gallup or 538 poll, but the findings are interesting nonetheless. To wit …
Of 230 men and women surveyed regarding their will to lose and get healthy, men gave themselves a score of 65 out of 100, women a 61. Of course, this sounds like a self assessment, in which case the result isn’t surprising.