Health Failure
On and off for two weeks I've been contemplating the problem of creating a more universal metric for physical health. The idea is that the most popular measurements cleary are lacking: weight, BMI, body fat percentage. I'm looking for something that's easy to measure, enabling normal people to track their health. I have decided an efficacious unit does not exists given current technology/cost constraints. The basic failure is a result of what Einstein called the most powerful force in the universe, kind of; he said it was compound interest. It's the fact that the definition of healty varies too greatly within any large population to combine variables. Essentially, you lose all statisical integrity (because the percentages of variance compound).
Interesting tidbit I came across in my reasearch:
Siberian huskies on the iditarod have VO2 maxes as high as 240
So, music has been rocking my world lately. It always is, but lately more than normal. Listen to some of your favorite songs tonight, and/or listen to some of the songs that have been rocking me lately:
Paris Combo - Attraction
5th Element Soundtrack - Diva Dance - First part is from "Lucia di Lammermoor" by Donizetti... the second part is not.
Muse - Knights of Cydonia - music video - muse playing
Alan Silvestri - Journey to Transylvania (sorry about the video, it was the least cheesy of the videos that popped up) From the Van Helsing soundtrack (haven't seen it), also Silverstri wrote the Back to Future themes, that you probably remember, or would recongize if you heard them.
Paul Potts -Nessum Dorma - Time to Say goodbye - Also, Sarah Brightman, and Bocelli's versions are great, The links are for break.com, a site known for pain and toilet humor, he's good enough at opera to break that boundary... pretty impressive says I.
Blind Melon - No Rain you know this song.
I'm hanging a bit today... but I assume political rants will resume shortly. Ron Paul and Biden have made some amazing leaps in my opinion. Gulliani has fallen quite a bit.
Interesting tidbit I came across in my reasearch:
Siberian huskies on the iditarod have VO2 maxes as high as 240
So, music has been rocking my world lately. It always is, but lately more than normal. Listen to some of your favorite songs tonight, and/or listen to some of the songs that have been rocking me lately:
Paris Combo - Attraction
5th Element Soundtrack - Diva Dance - First part is from "Lucia di Lammermoor" by Donizetti... the second part is not.
Muse - Knights of Cydonia - music video - muse playing
Alan Silvestri - Journey to Transylvania (sorry about the video, it was the least cheesy of the videos that popped up) From the Van Helsing soundtrack (haven't seen it), also Silverstri wrote the Back to Future themes, that you probably remember, or would recongize if you heard them.
Paul Potts -Nessum Dorma - Time to Say goodbye - Also, Sarah Brightman, and Bocelli's versions are great, The links are for break.com, a site known for pain and toilet humor, he's good enough at opera to break that boundary... pretty impressive says I.
Blind Melon - No Rain you know this song.
I'm hanging a bit today... but I assume political rants will resume shortly. Ron Paul and Biden have made some amazing leaps in my opinion. Gulliani has fallen quite a bit.
posted by Brady Beckham at 11:20 PM
2 Comments:
Likely an obvious choice for the average person tracking health may look something like the heart rate monitor. It's easy to use and simplifies confounding variance between individuals. I don't know about a universal metric considering how mental and emotional health also play into the status of the physical. I also see an easy pitfall is for people to switch from caring too little about their health (ie obesity) to too much (ie anorexia)with the use of some device or measurement. Any way of tracking health should be structured after natural bodily processes b/c I feel that the body is still the best guide...eat a balanced diet and stop when full, exercise and slow before heat exhaustion etc. One thing I fully intend to test is training myself to respond to something like a heart rate monitor when training so that essentially the monitor becomes unnecessary. I wonder if it is possible to become so sensitive that I will know when I have reached 80% of capacity w/out the numbers? If this is possible, a similar system should be set up for those trying to reclaim their health. First they will need the numbers to develop discipline and a new lifestyle. Soon a habit is built they can leave the numbers and listen to Diva Dance instead.
it is possible, if you care about it. you'll only need a HRM for a couple of weeks before you start knowing your HR before you read it.
also anorexia is not truly caring too much about health... it's caring too much about our their idea of what healthy is, which is flawed. A universal health metric would tell anorexics they were unhealthy. I don't think our current knowledge would allow mental or emotional factors to play into this measurement, simply gauge physical health; if you are not healthy it wouldn't point at a cause or remedy necessarily, simply point out that there is a problem that needs to be solved.
I agree, listening to your body is the best metric, even more so if you're already healthy.
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