In this essay, the writer reports us a serious problem of the coronary heart disease-CHD, there are two main factor to fall disease, the one is genetic code and the other is about your lifestyle, such as unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, most importantly, smoking. When your arteries or veins are completely obstructed by fatty deposits, you can experience angina, severe chest pains that can spread you upper body, in turn, some of your muscles might dead when they are not deprived of blood for a long time.
I'm a marathon runner in Taiwan. After work I like to do some exercises, especially in running. Honestly, the most difficult thing is to keep running in the morning, you should get up early and take a shower after running. But that's can strengthen your body, build up your muscles and be able to against to ill, most importantly, you will strong the function of your heart and keep away from heart disease.
Reference
What causes coronary heart disease?.(2013, April 19). BBC News science. Retrieved September 19, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/21686950
The first thing that came to my mind when I read Alston's post responding to a news article was again political. If cancer and heart disease are now major killers, causing society great expense in health care costs, lost productivity and tearing up families with sickness and early death, shouldn't governments be acting to ban the leading causes of these social problems?
ReplyDeleteI wonder what others thing.
Is the serious and increasing social and personal harm caused by heart disease, cancer, diabetes (see Wan's post "Easier life for diabetic"), obesity and so on, a good reason for governments to ban or at least strictly control the causes of these diseases?
Hmm, I just remembered that before I wrote the above comment, I'd had a snack of two very buttery croissants with my afternoon coffee. Yum.
DeleteBut should croissants be illegal because of the harms that such unhealthy foods cause to me and society if I get sick or die earlier because I love to eat them?
There is nothing wrong with those dessert, that's all depending on you. Don't forget do some exercises after eating high calories.
DeleteAlston,
DeleteDo you mean that those very fatty, sugary foods are not unhealthy? That sounds wrong to me. I'm sure that they are unhealthy.
I'm not about to give up my croissants or chocolate ice-cream, or rich fruit cake, but I'm pretty sure that they aren't very good for my health. They are, however, very delicious.
And now I'm going to have another coffee and croissant as I relax with an Agatha Christie film starring the wonderfully tubby gourmet Hercule Poirot. (It's response writing; I'm allowed to go off topic.)
I think that the dessert is unhealthy, but it can't be defined in "wrong".
DeleteThe second thing that caught my attention in Alston's post is the adjective sciential.
ReplyDeleteI have two questions for you to consider and reply to:
1. Is the adjective sciential in your dictionary?
2. If you answered "Yes" to question 1. above, should you switch to a new dictionary?
But other comments are welcome.
This is a fairly academic discussion, but as we've already seen, our purpose here is to carry on the sort of discussion that is common on university class blogs. It might be more relaxed, especially in the language, than formal academic writing, but it's also more academic that your typical conversation over lunch with relatives, and we do expect to address serious academic issues, such whether the Thai government should act to ban croissants and chocolate ice-cream.
I made a mistake with the word, I will revise it soon.
DeleteAlston,
DeletePlease do not revise that word.
My comment will sound silly if you do, and the useful discussion here won't make much sense.
I like the word, but I do agree it's a mistake.
But why is it a mistake?
I think this question is worth some discussion here.
The word sciential is in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which is for very good reasons the most famous dictionary in the world.
OK. Alston has now revised his first sentence by changing the adjective sciential to the adjective scientific. Both adjectives are listed in the OED, and perhaps other dictionaries.
DeleteBoth adjectives mean much the same. So why is scientific the better choice? Why is sciential a mistake?
Do you agree with me that you should be worried is sciential is listed in your dictionary? Why or why not?
I can't find the word "sciential" in OED or Oxford Advance Learner's Dictionary (maybe my mistake), so I think "scientific" is the best one
DeleteFour,
DeleteIt is not in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD), but it is in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (note that the OED is not free, but requires a subscription to log in and use).
Sciential was also there when I checked Dictionary.com a minute ago, which is an example of why I think Dictionary.com can be dangerous.
One of the things on the right-hand side of the blog, in the "Useful References" section, is Google Books Ngram Viewer, which is a cool tool for exploring the popularity of words.
DeleteWhen I ran it for the words sciential, scientific and science, the results were about what I expected. Have a look.
This Ngram, for a different set of science related words, was also interesting.
DeleteWhen I first read your response to that article I agree that people should try to prevent themselves from diseases by doing more exercises or eating healthy food. However, I think people can choose what they want to eat; even though some food is very oily or sweet, they can decide whether to take that risks or avoid them. Lastly, in Thailand, there are a lot of restaurants which serve healthy dishes and they are very delicious. I hope you can find that type of restaurant very soon.
ReplyDeleteWan,
DeleteDo you mean that unhealthy foods, such as very sugary foods, very fatty foods and very salty foods, should not be banned by law?
And is your reason that people can choose to eat them or not, even if they are unhealthy and therefore bad for people who eat them and for society?
This is what I think, but I want to be clear before I make the next point in my argument here.
Yes, I think people can eat unhealthy food if they want and they should have their rights to do so because it is their body. However, government should do campaigns or give them information about how to live a healthy life or what unhealthy food can do to their bodies.
DeleteSometimes the unhealthy food is delicious, that is the reason why I eat the "trash food".
DeleteI agree that we should do some exercises and I decided to go on a diet.
ReplyDeleteI think some exercises like swimming is okay na ka P' Bas lol. However, a diet is good start also. cheer you up ka.
DeleteWow! Good for you Austin. I think athletes always have a better health,and that's you. It's true that cancer can kill people more than CHD, yet CHD is faster killer. I experienced some CHD patients who are come with chest pain(or angina) if they get delay treatments they can die within just 30 minutes. You can be the model of other people who are busy and vow that they have no time to exercise(esp. me).
ReplyDeleteI'm glad we seem to agree that the fact that something is bad for society and individuals is not a good reason for governments to make it illegal. For example, unhealthy food that causes obesity and other economically and socially costly health problems should not be made a criminal offence to sell or consume by adults who decide to use such substances.
ReplyDeletePart two in this critical thinking exercise prompted by Alston's blog post is coming tomorrow. In the meantime, you still have a chance to disagree with the above premiss that I'm assuming we all agree with.
Part 2.
DeleteSo, should governments make illegal the sale and use of some drugs, such as heroin, alcohol, yaa baa, tobacco and marijuana?
If you think that some or all of these drugs should be banned, what is your reason? If you have already agreed that causing harm to the willing user or indirect costs to society, such as medical costs and lost productivity, is not a reason to ban things, you can't now use that reason here.
Austin, your post is very interesting and it should be shared or public to other website such as facebook, tweeter. In my opinion, they will eat natural food and work out everyday and I totally agree with this article.
ReplyDeleteAnother large coffee and two more buttery croissants finished.
ReplyDeleteNow, if I increased it to three croissants, and perhaps two coffees, that would give me more time to write comments. Hmmm ...
Alston,
ReplyDeleteThis is quite a great article that reminds me to take care of my health. I has ever been a healthy girl in my school years but the situation changed when I started doing jobs. Working as a salary man, I start to pay less attention of the food I ate. Fast and frozen foods becomes my favorite menus when I rush to finish my works on time. As a result, I got less useful nutrition while gaining more weight. Recently, one week after quitting my last job, I went to the Thai Red Cross Society to donate my blood. Fearfully, the Red Cross rejected my blood since it was not good enough for giving to other patients. The reasons are my blood have too less number of RBCs(Red Blood Cells) which is caused by the lack of proteins, the RBCs' sizes are too big which is caused by the lack of vitamin B12 that is found in meats, and the Hb (Hemoglobin) is too low which is caused by the lack of ferrous iron. The Red Cross's officer gave me three bags of medicines. The first bag contains Folic acid tablets that helps increase proteins that are needed for creating RBCs. The officer also suggested me to eat 2-3 eggs per day since proteins in eggs are easier to be absorbed than proteins in meats. The second bag contains mixed vitamin tablets which helps enrich vitamin B12 for me. The last bag contains ferrous sulfate tablets which helps rise Hb level of my blood.
Luckily, after a couple months that I took care of my health nicely, my blood was qualified by the Red Cross again.
From this real life lesson, I will not let this kind of situation to again since no matter how much money I have, I cannot use it to buy good health for sure.
Your response tell us much of effect of eating habit. I like and agree with your last sentence.
DeletePop,
Deletegood health is the most valuable treasures we have got since we were born. Don't deteriorate it by benighted actions since it is quite hard to recover yourself. Although I can solve the problems with my blood, I still cannot lose my excess weight. Shame on me !!!
I'm glad getting many responses from you. Only healthy and family are forever. I'm going to do some excises now.
ReplyDeleteAnd sadly, neither health nor family are normally forever, but technology is extending both. I wonder if one day health will be forever, with replacement bodies, or perhaps something more radical.
DeleteOn second thoughts, is it so sad that our lives are limited to a few years? I'm not saying I wouldn't say "Yes, please" to an extra century, but is immortality all it's cracked up to be?
I agree with Alston opinion. I think we can choose food that good for our health and don't take it too much. Moreover, many people in the modern society over eat food and dessert. Most of my friends like buffet and they eat as much as they can. This habit can cause obesity
ReplyDelete