Interesting article that coincides with the other one about men not having sex as much anymore.

There's something seriously wrong with us as a species that has really proliferated since the Industrial Age began, imo. We are so much LESS than we used to be.

Link here


By Tom Vanderbilt
February 9, 2017

When she was a practicing occupational therapist, Elizabeth Fain started noticing something odd in her clinic: Her patients were weak. More specifically, their grip strengths, recorded via a hand-held dynamometer, were “not anywhere close to the norms” that had been established back in the 1980s.

Fain knew that physical activity levels and hand-use patterns had changed a lot since then. Jobs had become increasingly automated, the professional and service sectors had grown, all sorts of measures of physical activity (like the likelihood that a child walks to school1) had declined, and the personal computer age had dawned. But to see the numbers decline so steeply and quickly was still a surprise, and not just to her.

Unlike most findings in the sleepy field of occupational therapy, her findings, which were published last year in the Journal of Hand Therapy, touched off a media firestorm, as the revelation seemed to encapsulate any number of smoldering fears in one handy conflagration: The loss of human potential in the face of automation, of our increasing time spent on smartphones and other devices, the erosion of our masculine norms,2 of the fragility and general shiftlessness of millennials. Even taking into account the cautionary statistical notes—that the sample sizes of the 1980s studies were not huge, that Fain’s study was mostly college students—the idea of a loss in human strength, expressed through a statistical measure hardly anyone had previously heard of, seemed to hint at some latter-day version of degeneration.

That message was reinforced by the sheer predictive power of grip strength. In a study published in 2015 in The Lancet, the health outcomes of nearly 140,000 people across 17 countries were tracked over four years, via a variety of measures—including grip strength.3 Grip strength was not only “inversely associated with all-cause mortality”—every 5 kilogram (kg) decrement in grip strength was associated with a 17 percent risk increase—but as the team, led by McMaster University professor of medicine Darryl Leong, noted: “Grip strength was a stronger predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality than systolic blood pressure.”

Gripping is part of a long story in which we have been getting weaker for millions of years.

“I’ve seen people refer to it as a ‘will-to-live’ meter,” says Richard Bohannon, a professor of health studies at North Carolina’s Campbell University. Grip strength, he suggests, is not necessarily an overall indicator of health, nor is it causative—if you start building your grip strength now it does not ensure you will live longer—“but it is related to important things.” What’s more, it’s non-invasive, and inexpensive to measure. Bohannon notes that in his home-care practice, a grip strength test is now de rigueur. “I use it in basically all of my patients,” he says. “It gives you an overall sense of their status, and high grip strength is better than low grip strength.”

The argument seemed to line up neatly. We are raising a generation of weaklings, more prone to everything from premature aging to mental disorders. Or is the opposite true? Is this just the latest step in the age-old weakening of our species as we emerged from the trees and built up civilization?

There is a first wave feminist Christine Sommers I think. She has done a lot work on this topic.

That's why soy boys would rather slap you than punch you. LOL

Healthy college students had better grips than people going to an occupational therapist. Sounds logical to me. What's the problem?

People are bigger now and probably stronger on average than people 150 years ago. Maybe not than 20 years ago.

(04-02-2019 07:48 PM)bullet Wrote:  Healthy college students had better grips than people going to an occupational therapist. Sounds logical to me. What's the problem?

People are bigger now and probably stronger on average than people 150 years ago. Maybe not than 20 years ago.

The study seems to contradict that, overall. Athletes are certainly now far bigger and stronger but apparently that doesn't extend to average people. And if people are bigger now it's an unhealthy bigger, I think it's called obesity.

The timing on king posting this is interesting. As I was walking out of my office yesterday I noticed a grip exerciser sitting on my filing cabinet that I haven't used in some time. I started using it yesterday again.

(04-02-2019 05:30 PM)king king Wrote:  Interesting article that coincides with the other one about men not having sex as much anymore.

There's something seriously wrong with us as a species that has really proliferated since the Industrial Age began, imo. We are so much LESS than we used to be.

Link here


By Tom Vanderbilt
February 9, 2017

When she was a practicing occupational therapist, Elizabeth Fain started noticing something odd in her clinic: Her patients were weak. More specifically, their grip strengths, recorded via a hand-held dynamometer, were “not anywhere close to the norms” that had been established back in the 1980s.

Fain knew that physical activity levels and hand-use patterns had changed a lot since then. Jobs had become increasingly automated, the professional and service sectors had grown, all sorts of measures of physical activity (like the likelihood that a child walks to school1) had declined, and the personal computer age had dawned. But to see the numbers decline so steeply and quickly was still a surprise, and not just to her.

Unlike most findings in the sleepy field of occupational therapy, her findings, which were published last year in the Journal of Hand Therapy, touched off a media firestorm, as the revelation seemed to encapsulate any number of smoldering fears in one handy conflagration: The loss of human potential in the face of automation, of our increasing time spent on smartphones and other devices, the erosion of our masculine norms,2 of the fragility and general shiftlessness of millennials. Even taking into account the cautionary statistical notes—that the sample sizes of the 1980s studies were not huge, that Fain’s study was mostly college students—the idea of a loss in human strength, expressed through a statistical measure hardly anyone had previously heard of, seemed to hint at some latter-day version of degeneration.

That message was reinforced by the sheer predictive power of grip strength. In a study published in 2015 in The Lancet, the health outcomes of nearly 140,000 people across 17 countries were tracked over four years, via a variety of measures—including grip strength.3 Grip strength was not only “inversely associated with all-cause mortality”—every 5 kilogram (kg) decrement in grip strength was associated with a 17 percent risk increase—but as the team, led by McMaster University professor of medicine Darryl Leong, noted: “Grip strength was a stronger predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality than systolic blood pressure.”

Gripping is part of a long story in which we have been getting weaker for millions of years.

“I’ve seen people refer to it as a ‘will-to-live’ meter,” says Richard Bohannon, a professor of health studies at North Carolina’s Campbell University. Grip strength, he suggests, is not necessarily an overall indicator of health, nor is it causative—if you start building your grip strength now it does not ensure you will live longer—“but it is related to important things.” What’s more, it’s non-invasive, and inexpensive to measure. Bohannon notes that in his home-care practice, a grip strength test is now de rigueur. “I use it in basically all of my patients,” he says. “It gives you an overall sense of their status, and high grip strength is better than low grip strength.”

The argument seemed to line up neatly. We are raising a generation of weaklings, more prone to everything from premature aging to mental disorders. Or is the opposite true? Is this just the latest step in the age-old weakening of our species as we emerged from the trees and built up civilization?

Aren't you glad now that I took those dolls away from you and signed you up for t-ball??

(04-02-2019 07:48 PM)bullet Wrote:  Healthy college students had better grips than people going to an occupational therapist. Sounds logical to me. What's the problem?

People are bigger now and probably stronger on average than people 150 years ago. Maybe not than 20 years ago.

Weaker grip, lower testosterone, lower sperm count, less sex, more virginity... at some point you have to admit we have a problem.

(04-03-2019 07:27 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(04-02-2019 07:48 PM)bullet Wrote:  Healthy college students had better grips than people going to an occupational therapist. Sounds logical to me. What's the problem?

People are bigger now and probably stronger on average than people 150 years ago. Maybe not than 20 years ago.

Weaker grip, lower testosterone, lower sperm count, less sex, more virginity... at some point you have to admit we have a problem.

We do, it's called over population. Looks like the species is self-correcting.

(04-03-2019 05:47 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(04-02-2019 05:30 PM)king king Wrote:  Interesting article that coincides with the other one about men not having sex as much anymore.

There's something seriously wrong with us as a species that has really proliferated since the Industrial Age began, imo. We are so much LESS than we used to be.

Link here


By Tom Vanderbilt
February 9, 2017

When she was a practicing occupational therapist, Elizabeth Fain started noticing something odd in her clinic: Her patients were weak. More specifically, their grip strengths, recorded via a hand-held dynamometer, were “not anywhere close to the norms” that had been established back in the 1980s.

Fain knew that physical activity levels and hand-use patterns had changed a lot since then. Jobs had become increasingly automated, the professional and service sectors had grown, all sorts of measures of physical activity (like the likelihood that a child walks to school1) had declined, and the personal computer age had dawned. But to see the numbers decline so steeply and quickly was still a surprise, and not just to her.

Unlike most findings in the sleepy field of occupational therapy, her findings, which were published last year in the Journal of Hand Therapy, touched off a media firestorm, as the revelation seemed to encapsulate any number of smoldering fears in one handy conflagration: The loss of human potential in the face of automation, of our increasing time spent on smartphones and other devices, the erosion of our masculine norms,2 of the fragility and general shiftlessness of millennials. Even taking into account the cautionary statistical notes—that the sample sizes of the 1980s studies were not huge, that Fain’s study was mostly college students—the idea of a loss in human strength, expressed through a statistical measure hardly anyone had previously heard of, seemed to hint at some latter-day version of degeneration.

That message was reinforced by the sheer predictive power of grip strength. In a study published in 2015 in The Lancet, the health outcomes of nearly 140,000 people across 17 countries were tracked over four years, via a variety of measures—including grip strength.3 Grip strength was not only “inversely associated with all-cause mortality”—every 5 kilogram (kg) decrement in grip strength was associated with a 17 percent risk increase—but as the team, led by McMaster University professor of medicine Darryl Leong, noted: “Grip strength was a stronger predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality than systolic blood pressure.”

Gripping is part of a long story in which we have been getting weaker for millions of years.

“I’ve seen people refer to it as a ‘will-to-live’ meter,” says Richard Bohannon, a professor of health studies at North Carolina’s Campbell University. Grip strength, he suggests, is not necessarily an overall indicator of health, nor is it causative—if you start building your grip strength now it does not ensure you will live longer—“but it is related to important things.” What’s more, it’s non-invasive, and inexpensive to measure. Bohannon notes that in his home-care practice, a grip strength test is now de rigueur. “I use it in basically all of my patients,” he says. “It gives you an overall sense of their status, and high grip strength is better than low grip strength.”

The argument seemed to line up neatly. We are raising a generation of weaklings, more prone to everything from premature aging to mental disorders. Or is the opposite true? Is this just the latest step in the age-old weakening of our species as we emerged from the trees and built up civilization?

Aren't you glad now that I took those dolls away from you and signed you up for t-ball??

They were GI Joe full size dolls. And I posed them bending naked Barbie over. Like a real man.

(04-03-2019 08:32 AM)king king Wrote:  

(04-03-2019 05:47 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(04-02-2019 05:30 PM)king king Wrote:  Interesting article that coincides with the other one about men not having sex as much anymore.

There's something seriously wrong with us as a species that has really proliferated since the Industrial Age began, imo. We are so much LESS than we used to be.

Link here


By Tom Vanderbilt
February 9, 2017

When she was a practicing occupational therapist, Elizabeth Fain started noticing something odd in her clinic: Her patients were weak. More specifically, their grip strengths, recorded via a hand-held dynamometer, were “not anywhere close to the norms” that had been established back in the 1980s.

Fain knew that physical activity levels and hand-use patterns had changed a lot since then. Jobs had become increasingly automated, the professional and service sectors had grown, all sorts of measures of physical activity (like the likelihood that a child walks to school1) had declined, and the personal computer age had dawned. But to see the numbers decline so steeply and quickly was still a surprise, and not just to her.

Unlike most findings in the sleepy field of occupational therapy, her findings, which were published last year in the Journal of Hand Therapy, touched off a media firestorm, as the revelation seemed to encapsulate any number of smoldering fears in one handy conflagration: The loss of human potential in the face of automation, of our increasing time spent on smartphones and other devices, the erosion of our masculine norms,2 of the fragility and general shiftlessness of millennials. Even taking into account the cautionary statistical notes—that the sample sizes of the 1980s studies were not huge, that Fain’s study was mostly college students—the idea of a loss in human strength, expressed through a statistical measure hardly anyone had previously heard of, seemed to hint at some latter-day version of degeneration.

That message was reinforced by the sheer predictive power of grip strength. In a study published in 2015 in The Lancet, the health outcomes of nearly 140,000 people across 17 countries were tracked over four years, via a variety of measures—including grip strength.3 Grip strength was not only “inversely associated with all-cause mortality”—every 5 kilogram (kg) decrement in grip strength was associated with a 17 percent risk increase—but as the team, led by McMaster University professor of medicine Darryl Leong, noted: “Grip strength was a stronger predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality than systolic blood pressure.”

Gripping is part of a long story in which we have been getting weaker for millions of years.

“I’ve seen people refer to it as a ‘will-to-live’ meter,” says Richard Bohannon, a professor of health studies at North Carolina’s Campbell University. Grip strength, he suggests, is not necessarily an overall indicator of health, nor is it causative—if you start building your grip strength now it does not ensure you will live longer—“but it is related to important things.” What’s more, it’s non-invasive, and inexpensive to measure. Bohannon notes that in his home-care practice, a grip strength test is now de rigueur. “I use it in basically all of my patients,” he says. “It gives you an overall sense of their status, and high grip strength is better than low grip strength.”

The argument seemed to line up neatly. We are raising a generation of weaklings, more prone to everything from premature aging to mental disorders. Or is the opposite true? Is this just the latest step in the age-old weakening of our species as we emerged from the trees and built up civilization?

Aren't you glad now that I took those dolls away from you and signed you up for t-ball??

They were GI Joe full size dolls. And I posed them bending naked Barbie over. Like a real man.

(04-05-2019 05:38 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

Is that David St. on the bottom left? Is that you Davey?

(04-05-2019 05:38 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

You did those things?

(04-06-2019 11:10 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(04-06-2019 09:15 AM)king king Wrote:  You did those things?

Hmm, yeah, I kind of did. In fact I distinctly remember signing you up for SYS football and I was certainly an integral part of you getting your black belt. If I didn't make you in the literal sense I certainly enabled it and provided you the opportunity.

What are you now, Obama? "You didn't make that". Well, yeah, I did.

I expressed a desire to play football. If you signed me up without that, then you'd have a point. That's not how it went down.

You and Mom decided to put me into Taekwondo as I was putting my hands on folks and was angry. Mostly because of a situation you caused.

You enabled me to go earn a black belt through my own hard work and effort.

(04-06-2019 01:32 PM)q5sys Wrote:  

w/o money entered in the equation, I see zero value to this experiment.....

since mice can't earn and spend, I simply don't get the point....

(04-06-2019 07:25 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(04-06-2019 01:32 PM)q5sys Wrote:  

w/o money entered in the equation, I see zero value to this experiment.....

since mice can't earn and spend, I simply don't get the point....

It's an experiment that basically looks at how animals will behave when they have no struggles or challenges in life. When everything is taken care of and they don't have to strive for anything... they become socially insular and cease being able to function in society.

ie... they become so weak that they can't even put out the effort to life.

Now consider todays college students that have never faced any hardship in their lives because their parents removed EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE thing from their path in life. They have been so sheltered and protected from anything that might hurt (physically and emotionally), that they get to college and are completely unable to deal with real life. They have zero cognitive ability to deal with someone that does not agree with them. They are unable to function in the real world, so they retreat into safe spaces. They are unable to stand up and take on the simple hardship of someone disagreeing with them.

(04-06-2019 11:22 PM)q5sys Wrote:  

(04-06-2019 07:25 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(04-06-2019 01:32 PM)q5sys Wrote:  

w/o money entered in the equation, I see zero value to this experiment.....

since mice can't earn and spend, I simply don't get the point....

It's an experiment that basically looks at how animals will behave when they have no struggles or challenges in life. When everything is taken care of and they don't have to strive for anything... they become socially insular and cease being able to function in society.

ie... they become so weak that they can't even put out the effort to life.

Now consider todays college students that have never faced any hardship in their lives because their parents removed EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE thing from their path in life. They have been so sheltered and protected from anything that might hurt (physically and emotionally), that they get to college and are completely unable to deal with real life. They have zero cognitive ability to deal with someone that does not agree with them. They are unable to function in the real world, so they retreat into safe spaces. They are unable to stand up and take on the simple hardship of someone disagreeing with them.

I don't need mice to explain the obvious....

(04-06-2019 11:22 PM)q5sys Wrote:  

(04-06-2019 07:25 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(04-06-2019 01:32 PM)q5sys Wrote:  

w/o money entered in the equation, I see zero value to this experiment.....

since mice can't earn and spend, I simply don't get the point....

It's an experiment that basically looks at how animals will behave when they have no struggles or challenges in life. When everything is taken care of and they don't have to strive for anything... they become socially insular and cease being able to function in society.

ie... they become so weak that they can't even put out the effort to life.

Now consider todays college students that have never faced any hardship in their lives because their parents removed EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE thing from their path in life. They have been so sheltered and protected from anything that might hurt (physically and emotionally), that they get to college and are completely unable to deal with real life. They have zero cognitive ability to deal with someone that does not agree with them. They are unable to function in the real world, so they retreat into safe spaces. They are unable to stand up and take on the simple hardship of someone disagreeing with them.

The same premise of the Wall E movie.