ADs trying to stay upright in a muddy park

[BogRollBOGOF]

Another thousand posts filled and we're ploughing on through another weekend of squelching through parks before we hit the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

The AD chat continues...

[quote DrDiva]@LivinLaVidaLoki yes, even Tim Spector is in in that one, and I usually rate him as a reasonably sensible voice.

for those struggling right now.[/quote]
I think Tim Spector has a careful line to tread. It's so easy for respected scientists to lose credibility if they start being accused of being an 'anti' whatever the most damaging phrase someone can come up with. He currently has a voice because he is so careful to stick with what the data is saying. The Zoe app has a big role to play next in recording outcomes of this vaccine and I feel the stakes are high in ensuring the credibility of this endeavour isn't jeapordised.
We've yet again falsely interrupted the spread and pushed it even further into flu season, so would expect more cases again, party of the second wave or even the trail end of the first.

@LivinLaVidaLoki

Saw this on Bojos Instagram this morning....hand sanitiser out for Santa? Errrrr

Someone sent me that! I think it was supposed to be all cute and adorable.

No way would I show something like that to my children. Handsanitiser for Father Christmas indeed.

“Lifestyle implies choice and to link this to covid is offensive. The things that have led people to die in great numbers—age, sex, ethnicity, poverty, diabetes, and obesity—are not choices. Very poor judgement.”

Who says Lifestyle implies choice - a 'suspect' statement is made and then used to justify criticism. Some aspects of lifestyle are choice based but many aren't and it can even be argued that 'choice' is predetermined rather than free.

A lot of choices are made for illogical reasons and against what the person would choose if they had free choice.

I choose to be fairly sedentary and choose too many high calorie foods. I would love to be more like my sister and choose a more active lifestyle and choose to eat healthy foods. The truth is that she could no more choose my lifestyle than I could hers. A combination of genes, personality and experience dictates our choices. We could follow it for a while if we had to or chose to but we would, sooner or later, revert to our natural pattern. Education and knowledge can and does affect our natural tendencies (My diet would be even worse and activity even lower if I didn't understand the benefits of healthy nutrition and exercise).

The most doctors can do is educate on the benefits of changing what we can - and this isn't helped by doctors training not covering this in much depth and being pushed to 'cure' using drugs.

The flip side of saying it is 'not a choice' is that people can feel it is outwith their control to do anything about it, which is a bit of a shame.

It's back to that issue of personal responsibility again isn't it.

Anyway not going to let the buggers get me down. Get to hear later what freedoms are being granted next week in terms of these new tiers. What joy.

We had an interesting sort of discussion last night about intervention, nonintervention and over intervention in medicine.

DH favours nonintervention as much as possible. I'm for the middle ground. Right now, I am wearing a brace to reduce the pain in my leg but I expect it to take time to heal. That's the sort of intervention I prefer.

But I think we're stuck in a trap of overintervention in that people think it's morally wrong not to do something and also we live in very impatient times. Everything must be fixed right now! And the fact that a body is pretty good at healing and recovering but it needs time to do so is totally unpalatable.

That is interesting. I saw a headline yesterday aimed at doctors asking 'are you practising more defensive medicine as a result of the pandemic' which made me think also.

Interestingly my great nan had very little to do with doctors, preferring to use natural remedies whenever possible. She was 5ft tall and probably the same round and lived to be 101, still as sharp as a tack until the day she died. My Nan is in her late 90s and has a similar view. DM however runs to the GP for every little twinge and practically rattles with all her meds. She actually looks and acts older than her age. Perhaps our bodies know best!

There is a link between short stature and longevity- IGF genes I think it is. Out of interest.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12586217/

@LivinLaVidaLoki your cousin’s mates sound as unhinged as she is. Well done for calling her out.

Obesity- when this is over the country needs to think long and hard about the factors behind obesity and work on root causes. (I’d start with banning slimming world) Doctors aren’t even supposed to say obese these days, it’s metabolic syndrome or bariatric syndrome. We all know being obese is bad, we all know exercise is good and helps maintain a healthy immune system into old age, so what are the factors that we need to work on to bring the two together? How do we get people to love themselves enough to make the changes needed and support them in making those changes?

For me, companionship and a lack of judgmentalism. I began running with my best friend and we were of similar ability and it was good to have someone to keep me going.
We set realistic targets and it was nice to have that time together. And then I took my love of audio books and started to run by myself as well as with my friend until I got these stupid shin splints. Now I have to wait for them to heal before I run again and I miss running a lot.

And plus I did it because I love my family and I thought I owed it to them. And it began to improve my mood too!

That's interesting about short stature and longevity, @Orangeblossom7777. Lots of short, very old people in my family. I'd always put it down to pretty clean living, but perhaps there's more to it than that.

@ISaySteadyOn I've been a runner for about 7 years and was a solo runner most of the time. But we've not long since moved somewhere new and the only person I know locally is a good friend who's also a runner. It's been so good to be able to meet up every now and again for a chatty run, as there is nowhere l can meet people at the moment. It's keeping me going!

I do think it's interesting that obesity isn't seen as a health condition by a lot of the general public (I think it probably is seen as such by medical professionals). I have seen a few articles of people "with no underlying health conditions" who have been seriously ill with Covid, but it's clear looking at them that they are quite overweight - which has always been suggested as an indicator that you may come off worse if infected!

It's difficult because there seems to be so much morality associated with obesity. You can't say that it's someone's "fault", because in what I presume is the vast majority of cases it isn't - it's disordered eating or another underlying condition rather than laziness or stupidity. But then because you don't want to come across as judgemental, you tend to shy away from saying a loved one ought to get help doing something about it. And journalists don't want to mention it when reporting because they think it might come across as fat shaming.

I am currently "fat" (working on it! Now merely overweight rather than obese...) and honestly I can't really say how I would react if someone actually brought it up...

Can I just also sigh in exasperation at the media reporting of "highest death figure since May" thats happening lately...
It seems to completely bypass the fact that in May the numbers were starting to even off and slowly decline. We seem to [touch wood] so far have escaped the 900+ a day we had in April.
But I suppose "death rate lower in second wave" won't generate as many clicks.

The media has a hell of a lot to answer for in this whole cluster fuck

I think it mainly is lifestyle choice and laziness, myself included, rather than underlying issues in most cases

Morning everyone.
What's the betting that some areas don't get their tiers announced today? Our county is doing much better but there's one area, far from everywhere else, that's high. I predict another week of local authorities begging with the govt & then all of us being bunged into tier 3 anyway.

I've read a number of posts on MN now, & in real life, where people say they would feel guilty or responsible if they passed on covid to another relative at Christmas. I think I'm a little bothered by this too. But I think it's very sad that there's this guilt. It's exceptionally weird & screwed up, I think, that we've been told that we all deserve a nice break over Christmas but we have subtly been guilted at the same time.

Also, it's all about keyworkers & school age kids passing the virus on to older relatives. If we see our parents, there's still a chance they could pass it on to us- not all of them live in solitary confinement. No one seems to think of this. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone if I get covid, but I've noticed this big thing of, "where did they catch it?" when people I know have got it.

Father Christmas will not be getting hand gel here. (Big DCs still leave out the beer & mince pie, to be ironic). We know for a fact that he is very much into soap & water because one year his sack split. He left a trail of sweeties from the chimney to the bedrooms, & into the bathroom, including the toilet & washbasin. Cue (then small) DCs telling everyone, "He used our toilet, & washed his hands!"

I do think it's interesting that obesity isn't seen as a health condition by a lot of the general public (I think it probably is seen as such by medical professionals). I have seen a few articles of people "with no underlying health conditions" who have been seriously ill with Covid, but it's clear looking at them that they are quite overweight - which has always been suggested as an indicator that you may come off worse if infected!

I did notice early on in the pandemic, when we were seeing photos and news reports of the busy covid wards in Northern Italy, that most of the beds seemed to be filled with rows of large men with big beer/pot bellies mostly.

I agree on the absence of obesity being flagged as an underlying condition in the media, at least. When it is clearly a factor which impacts on outcomes, it does seem odd not to mention it. It just stokes fear when "healthy" people are apparently dying.

Oh god I’m short

I don’t want a long life.

God knows what the Ds would make of that statement!

On the tiers, the BBC is saying only a handful of rural areas will be medium and most of us in the higher ones. London probably in 2.

What is the bloody point of having nationwide guidance for Christmas?! I've just read that the Scottish govt is advising that Christmas bubbles (anyone else really sick of that phrase?) should be no more than 8, & NS is saying that the default advice is that no households should mix at all (go ahead, Nicola, knock yourself out with your turkey dinner for 1).

So yeah, really working well together.

I was a bit when I heard yesterday that Mark Drakeford thinks there should be the same standard advice across the 4 nations. Lovely idea, but I'm suspicious of his motives. Shrink-wrapped aisles in Tesco for everyone, not just Welsh people!

It's a lovely day here & ideal for walking outside, but dear god, not another walk!

Plus Nicola is saying visitors should social distance even if they’re staying over 😂😂