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Born to Rest

harvardmagazine.com

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101–110 of 156 posts

Re: Born to Rest

#101

Post by sliverstorm »

jacalata wrote: post #19
Jtsummers wrote: post #12

I'm a fan of bringing back physical education. It seems that more of my younger colleagues (~23-30 y.o.) are trying to be physically active/fit. But exercise is a habit. If you don't build it up when you're young, it can be hard to develop it later. And then there's the physical challenges of returning to a physically active life after years or decades of inactivity. Certain injuries are more likely (like back, knee,…

Bringing it back? Is it no longer offered?

At least at my high school, it wasn't taken very seriously and the quality of the class was low. There wasn't any education (how to properly XYZ, how to train, how to eat for training) and the activity wasn't very valuable either.

Re: Born to Rest

#102

Post by sliverstorm »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #98

Can we just turn off those "lazy/slacking" mechanisms on genome/cell level? A pill will be nice. Make your organism always maintain optimal muscles and circulation system while burning a lot of calories? Seems like a win/win to me. Some people are strong and healthy without excersice, I think we are all entitled to same package? I had PE in University (and before that school), hated it and now I'm turned off from any…

Could be upsides to that, but cranking up the global food requirements (remember, a muscular body requires a lot more energy to maintain) would be a negative.

Also, what's optimal? Your body adapts to what you are doing, something we take for granted today. E.g. If you like bicycling, a permanent linebacker build may be undesirable.

It would probably be more ideal to set some kind of fitness "floor", rather than remove the mechanism completely.

Re: Born to Rest

#103

Post by guard-of-terra »

Jtsummers wrote: post #42
CalRobert wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that gym class was hell on Earth for some of us fat people and we greatly looked forward to the liberation of college, I think the idea of mandatory PE is horrible. PE is usually taught in a manner that's great if you're already fit, and atrocious if you're fat. It's hard on the joints and exemplifies how much weaker/slower/less valuable to society you are compared to the fit kids. I know this because I W…

High school and middle school PE were fucking miserable for me. I wasn't fat, but I was slow and in a group with very fit (naturally or by practice) guys. I was also uncoordinated as I had a massive growth spurt and, being extremely near sighted, wasn't active in any typical sport so my coordination lagged behind for years. College PE is different. It's not (usually) a general class. You typically pick which one you…

Where I studied, there were indeed groups of choices, but they had to take you for some reason (either be fast to apply or have good fit already). Most people were raked into general class, where it was as bad as in school, under the fear of dropping you out, since it was a required course.

Seriously makes me want to bulldoze the stadium (bonus points for frags) and set a few extra dorms on top.

Re: Born to Rest

#104

Post by guard-of-terra »

sliverstorm wrote: post #102
guard-of-terra wrote: post #98

Can we just turn off those "lazy/slacking" mechanisms on genome/cell level? A pill will be nice. Make your organism always maintain optimal muscles and circulation system while burning a lot of calories? Seems like a win/win to me. Some people are strong and healthy without excersice, I think we are all entitled to same package? I had PE in University (and before that school), hated it and now I'm turned off from any…

Could be upsides to that, but cranking up the global food requirements (remember, a muscular body requires a lot more energy to maintain) would be a negative. Also, what's optimal? Your body adapts to what you are doing, something we take for granted today. E.g. If you like bicycling, a permanent linebacker build may be undesirable. It would probably be more ideal to set some kind of fitness "floor", rather than remo…

Most people already eat much more than they need, might as well make use of those calories.

Of course there should be a "floor", we don't want to grow into blobs of slithering muscles and veins, just well-built.

Re: Born to Rest

#105

Post by thirstytho »

cloverich wrote: post #74
thirstytho wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should the meal plan serve alcohol, too, to avoid reacting to 'fears that they're "making a mistake"'?

That's a bit of a straw man. You can choose alcohol or no alcohol. But you don't choose mac n cheese or not -- you choose mac n cheese or some other food.

You can choose alcohol or some other beverage.

Re: Born to Rest

#106

Post by kiba »

Floegipoky wrote: post #90
Fifer82 wrote: post #67

Let me die in peace. For some reason, it is always assumed that everyone wants to live as long as possible. If you don't have a cola each day, you can dribble into a towel for another 3 years when you are older.... No thanks, Ill take the coke. put it on the reapers tab.

It's so strange to me how people in this country seem to share a common expectation that an adult should be a productive member of society, but have no expectations about being a healthy member of society. The amount of taxpayer money spent on providing treatment for type II diabetes alone is staggering, and even the amount that isn't paid by the government is paid by insurance, so still amortized across the populati…

The cost is so high precisely because our healthcare toolkit is so poor.

If we could restore our systems to full functionality, our healthcare cost will drop like a rock.

Though we will be faced with new questions. If everyone are fully healthy, then our mortality rate will also drop like a rock, destroying social security as it currently exists.

Re: Born to Rest

#107

Post by revelation »

That debate is already extremely toxic due to the diet craze nutjobs, it really doesn't need any of the unscientific hunter-gatherer lore that extrapolate bits of data to romantic premedieval fantasy novels.

Re: Born to Rest

#108

Post by Deregibus »

helloworld wrote: post #61

Harvard "needs to reopen a discussion about…a physical-education requirement." It's been said that "love is a better master than duty," and requiring college students to take a physical education course sounds like a duty. If you want people to exercise without coercion for the rest of their lives, I think you have to tap into intrinsic motivation, i.e., the unique things that get you excited. Depending on your perso…

The coercion is to ensure that everyone at least tries something. I would bet that there is a significant percentage of people that would go in being unhappy about having to meet the requirement and come out being really happy that they did it. A well designed program will present a wide enough range of options that most people will find something of interest. And if it doesn't, then I'd say stopping as soon as the course is over is still better than not starting in the first place.

Re: Born to Rest

#109

Post by semi-extrinsic »

Jtsummers wrote: post #56
komali2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 miles a day? Surely you aren't serious? Someone check my math but at a 7 minute mile, that's a 2 hour run every day, plus warmup, stretch, change, cleanup time. That feels absurd for anybody with a job, family, etc. Maybe every other day would make more sense.

A couple specific individuals I've known. Both ran 15-20 miles a day. They'd just go for runs most evenings or mornings and run and run. At least every weekday for one, the other I know ran daily. One was a Catholic seminarian (ran in the mornings, no family, obviously). The other was a middle-aged, family man, working as an engineer. He'd run most of his life. Both were African, one Nigerian (the seminarian), I don'…

> He'd run most of his life. Both were African, one Nigerian (the seminarian), I don't recall where the other was from.

Now you're making sense. For someone who's not been doing serious long distance running since childhood, 20 miles in a week is quite good. From what I've read in running magazines, and personal experience, doing much more than 30-40 miles a week is not good for your body (esp. knees). 100+ miles per week is crazy.

Re: Born to Rest

#110

Post by CalRobert »

komali2 wrote: post #45
CalRobert wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that gym class was hell on Earth for some of us fat people and we greatly looked forward to the liberation of college, I think the idea of mandatory PE is horrible. PE is usually taught in a manner that's great if you're already fit, and atrocious if you're fat. It's hard on the joints and exemplifies how much weaker/slower/less valuable to society you are compared to the fit kids. I know this because I W…

Well, this feels obvious, but let's say the required PE classes have skilled professors that can adjust a PE program to your fitness level? Would your opinion change then?

No. It should not be mandatory. It would make sense for some fields (kinesiology perhaps) but on the whole it's ridiculous to force it on students.
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