When Fitness Went Global
Today on Dad Strength
Prostate cancer warning
Yes and…
Book review: When Fitness Went Global
A book, a quote, and a dad joke
Prostate cancer warning
There’s been a surge in late prostate cancer diagnosis – i.e. Stage 4 – compared to a decade ago. That’s because a U.S. task force recommended against using the prostate-specific antigen test back in 2012 and Canada followed suit two years later. The problem, they said, was with false positives.
The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test catches more cases early. However (per The Globe and Mail), “But the test also has risks: It can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment of slow-growing prostate tumours that might never have caused harm had they remained undiscovered.”
Between 2010 and 2021, the rate of Stage 4 prostate cancer rose by about 50% in Canadian men aged 50 to 74. It’s possible that better detection methods are simply catching more Stage 4 cancer. However… even if it’s an out-of-pocket cost, you may want to specifically request the PSA at your next checkup.
Be aware of the potential for false positives – and that a positive PSA test doesn’t mean the grim reaper is knocking. But it’s better to freak out needlessly and soon than freak out for good reason andwhen it’s far too late.
Yes and…
Sometimes, my son will share an idea – something he’s heard or maybe come up with – and I will have to actively fight to keep my inner “protector” voice from jumping into explain the flaws or mistakes involved. The emotional impulse is understandable: to try to shield my kid from making mistakes. However, it’s also completely detached from the reality of learning, autonomy, and generally just trusting the process. So, he’ll say something like, “Who do you think invented ice?” And I will ask the best questions I can think of and try to look curious and thoughtful. Meanwhile, this is happening inside my brain:
Without question, there are times where we’ll have to come in with more critical minds and challenge our kids’ ideas. The challenge is just not to rush there. One habit I’ve been experimenting with is borrowed from the improv formula of yes and…
Here, when my kid has an idea – “let’s raise electric eels in the bath” or “can we tie a rope to my bike so you can drag me with the car?” – the aspiration is to imagine all the amazing potential there… To be enthusiastic and go really big with the idea. It’s a layer of processing that puts criticism aside and let’s us exercise our possibility muscles – something that adults frequently suck at. It’s fun and supportive. It also makes room for things to get so exaggerated (ad absurdum) that the limitations become obvious to your kid.
If a solid thought process is still not entirely clear, once the imaginative work done, you can go into a more critical analysis without feeling like you’re raining on anyone’s parade. It feels more fun, more collaborative, and like the first stage of a multi-step process for critical thinking. We’ll get there; we just don’t need to get there quite so fast.
What I’m reading
Book review: When Fitness Went Global: The Rise of Physical Culture in the Nineteenth Century by Conor Heffernan
There is nothing new under the sun. That’s why it’s helpful to have a clear understanding of physical culture history – especially the pieces (and there are many) that continue to influence us – hundreds or thousands of years later. One of the limitations of this kind of historical work, however, is that this it tends to by hyper-focused on specific regions and time periods. But physical culture doesn’t live in a vacuum. So understanding how different ideas began to cross-pollinate is not only important in understanding those ideas but in how influence flows. Especially now, when influence is flowing all over the damn place.
The nineteenth century was a particularly important period for the expansion and development of ideas. Notably, Indian club swinging, yoga, and judo. Here, author Conor Heffernan cites the “pizza effect,” where an idea may leave its country of origin, get changed to fit the preferences of another culture, and then come back – only to change things in its country of origin. Here, what feels authentic may be more important than stricter ideas of provenance.
I’ve slogged my way through plenty of impenetrable writing and this isn’t that. Heffernan is Chair of the British Society of Sports History but that’s the stodgiest thing about him. He writes with humour and a conversational tone that only reveals itself as research through its thoroughness and exhaustive footnotes. As a matter of fact, I’d like to suggest that all academic writing should be done exclusively by the Irish. On that note, this book is for a particular kind of nerd but if you are that kind of nerd, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
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A quote
“I [prefer] a short life with width to a narrow one with length.”
— Avicenna
A dad joke
Scientists recently tried to cross-breed a crab with a cheetah.
It was a cool idea but the experiment quickly went sideways.
Take care of yourself, man!