Obesity excuses needs a paradigm shift.

Easington in Durham apparently is the best place to live in Britain if you would like to get nice and chubby and fat. This morning, in the news as they were covering a report on obesity trends, this place has its share of obese people and then some. The news report argues that it being a mining town and the mining industry moving away it gave rise to unemployment and boredom which was probably the cause of most people there sitting on their couch and stuffing the food in their mouths. I thought that could be a good plausible reason; until I heard this local complain on TV that they are fat because their town has no health shops or any such thing to help them keep healthy.
This is exactly the attitude according to me that gets people fat. What psychologists would probably call the external locus of control? How will the things that depend on your activity ever be sorted by addition of a few shops? Time and time again I have heard these excuses from many people when they ask me what a good way to lose weight is, and when I tell them “lifestyle choices” invariably they start complaining about the lack of facilities. If they have the facilities then their families are not helpful. If their families are supportive then the work pressure just kills them. If the workplace has conducive policies for health then an old injury nags… and I could go on and on and on.
I am the most controversial person in my office who thinks people on a general basis are obese today because they are lazy, bored and undisciplined. But that’s not what you ought to say. You ought to encourage people and tell them positive things, like make 10mins in your day for exercise, park your car 100 yards away, pick diet coke. Come on seriously does anyone really think that going from a BMI of 40 to 22 is a matter of drinking diet coke over regular coke?

Let’s do another survey nationwide and count the health shops in every town; I bet the ones that have the most branches of Holland and Barrett’s are still not the healthiest towns.

Forest fires.

The need for a sense of identity, belongingness, home, security are all valid; even basic to our existence and survival. But when God becomes a haggle and life a hustle, you wonder in moments of objectivity if religion, tradition, ethics, culture all amount to greater destruction rather than the forward direction every religion in its own right preaches. If our very own religion does not make us live better today, if our own history forces us to fight for and on the land of our ancestors then how is any of that serving its purpose of showing us the way? Which god wanted his men to fight on Jerusalem or Babel? What good is religion to us today when all it does is create power tangents that are only too steeped in political and economic interests?

I believe newspapers today have more space than thoughts. News rooms have more correspondents than news. Media is in many ways our modern day forest fires, which help burn valuable resources and plunge mankind into misery. Government censorships are as destructive as the over zealous media. The root of the flame still flickers in each individual and that’s what really needs arresting.

The Chinese government has always discouraged the belief in religion in their country. Today even though they have their own set of problems the one massive problem that the rest of the world has to deal with is absent there. They don’t have to deal with religious extremists hindering their progress. It is printing money around the same time Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran are busy haggling over their gods, lands, culture. Not having a God doesn’t make Chinese people any less ethical, traditional, cultured, peace loving, empathetic, or passionate than the rest of the hot blooded nations.

When someone has a rock strong belief in their god and is ready to defend that conviction till death…. It worries me far more than some one admitting being confused and open to see some of the appalling things that a belief in religion today can cause. These lost souls will at least stop a moment before they shove a knife into someone’s gut. Who among these men will go to heaven, who among them will burn in hell?

How big is your world?

The more informed we get about our surrounding, our planet, science, genes and laws of nature the more isolated we get with that information. In today’s age of super specialization we know nothing about the expertise of our neighbours. It takes up so much energy for us to just gather the vast amount of information required to understand our core problem that we have lost the luxury of indulging our minds in the pursuit of an alternative concept in any appreciable depth.

When I was a kid in school, general science was fascinating, engaging, enduring and totally consuming. I was not only interested in the planets in the solar system, but how the light bulb worked and what was cross pollination. I wanted to know it all; I had the little bits of information that occupied my small childish brains. As I grew up, the amount of information required to grasp a particular interest of mine, started taking longer than I thought. I had assumed that as you know more about things, you will know more about more of it faster. But I was completely wrong.

Today, my one Ph.D. topic is all consuming. I am paranoid about my level of knowledge; it keeps me reading deep into the night, just to be able to grasp a few sentences mentioned in a peripherally important paper. However, interestingly, these peripherally important papers links up so many different streams of knowledge together that it is as fascinating today as it was 20 years ago in my general science text.
I had been complaining about my lack of time and inclination to read other subjects for a while now, but slowly it has made me realise that trying to go deep; also makes you go wider. It’s just the perspective we take.

This cross disciplinary understanding along with super specialization is what the current need in our world is. The value of a specialised expert almost exponentially increases if he or she has an understanding of aspects that may influence his work, but lies beyond his core understanding. With the emergence of a complicated society, furthered by a fast moving global community, cross disciplinary knowledge will provide many solutions to such a dynamic world. Therein lies many unsolved puzzles, therein may lay their answers. But if two scientists in adjoining rooms never ever pick up each others publications they will not be able to come together and use their intricately constructed worlds as levers for each other and we may get stuck in a traffic jam until someone steps out and decides to unweave the mesh of knowledge.

Before the motorways gets jammed, maybe its time to stop competing so hard and to look around and see the possibilities. Corporates should bring together such amalgamations, universities should set up fluid departments and individuals should de-cocoon-ize themselves.

Retail therapy powered by math lessons.

Two thirds of our economy is powered by retail business!!!!
I have always wondered that we have all these hurried media messages around septemeber, about proper financial habits and teaching youngsters about how to plan for university life and the responsibility that goes with the independence of Higher Education life. why is there not a better more planned and organised way to make the young people who are very smart in their own rights, see these basic advantages of good finance habits early on.

Why did I have to learn my multiplication tables by rote or why was searching for that Mr. X such a chore? All my school teachers had to do was teach me financial planning, budgeting, market appreciation, spending habits, influences of such habits on the economy etc through application of those stupid math tables. I am sure I would have had a great time in school. I am saying that because I am a life sciences student for a reason. I don’t enjoy mathematics, at least not in its purest form. And that is not because I don’t enjoy puzzles and problems; but because of the impression of mathematics I have grown up with. However, I have realised I am good at budgeting, good with understanding basic economic concepts as they apply to my surroundings and influence my life in a very touchy feely manner. That’s what young kids want, something they see sense into.

If you taught a kid that increasing sales of Playstations improved Sony’s market value and that happens to be balanced out by the faulty dell batteries’ fiasco which is going to cost the company, I think in excess of $400 million. A kid of today’s generation would appreciate his/her math so much more. These are the same kids that will then grow up to be responsible about their money and we wont have to teach them student finances when they are on the brink of drinking themselves silly with all their student loans. You get away with two very important life lessons, by smart teaching applications. One, you teach them to take care of their finances from a very young and impressionable age and two, they will have a better regard and relationship with their multiplication tables, unlike me.

So think about going an extra step from just opening a savings account for your kid…. I mean that was fun, but I needed more help than that. Me and my siblings pooled in our savings to buy our first 14” black and white TV!!!!

Summer Holidays.

I bet you have been thinking I was away on a nice sunny beach for the past couple of weeks, soaking up the sun, sipping a cocktail. Ehmmmm..... actually I could not afford to take the entire jing bang on a break, so I decided to just send my mind this year. It was away on a relaxing, rejenuvating summer break in the Caribbean islands. Poor I was at work, trying hard to cope without my processor. Can’t say I achieved much, (yeah I know you noticed the silence on the blog page as well) but it was nice not having to be so tough on myself, no one around to tell me what I must be doing instead of lazing around on the couch. Oh Rehana, you haven’t written a blog in 2 days, that’s not very disciplined now, is it? Or Rehana, do you really think you should be wasting your time right now loitering about town, when you could go home and finish that paper you started reading?

This mind of mine is quite a tough task master; I find it difficult to chill when it is on full throttle all the time. I am sure this is how mothers of tiny 2 year old tots feel when the baby sitter arrives. It’s been a great 2 weeks, but now I would like my mind to come back home, my skull screeches and rattles; I think I have noticed a bit of rusting on the edges in the shower this morning. I guess you will hear from me regularly once again, as the Head Master is here now (pun??!!!)

But, I recommend this activity to all, especially skimped, overworked students.... if the whole of you can't go on a holiday, just send your mind away.... It's worth the money and the peace.