I like research. I like health. I like science.

Welcome to my blog fusing timeworn health advice with current research findings. See what the ancient scientists and authors got right, what they got wrong, and enjoy the journey along the way.
 
I was prompted to start this blog for my class, Writing Across the Curriculum, about anything I wanted. First of all, Writing Across the Curriculum really means, or at least my interpretation of the title of this class, is to study the presentation and dissemination of information to the public sector through out various media. Wait, WHAT?! In plainer language, we study how information has been stored and archived in the past and focus on the fact that the Internet now is the most widely used and popular method of sharing information and what this means for society today.

In the spirit of the class, which I hope I aptly described in the previous paragraph, I picked a topic for his blog that shares what I think is the message behind all of this. Our first two readings for the class, The Garden of Forking Paths and The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges presented the two main facets of most of our class discussion thus far; the internet vs. libraries and books. The two readings didn’t actually show these two media in opposition, however each seemed to focus in its own quirky Borges kind of way on either the modern age search for information via the internet and the archaic and somewhat faded form of sifting through information via books and libraries. So how did I come to fuse these two into one (hopefully will be really really interesting, funny, and cool) blog?

Here is how it happened:

Part I.
I like research.
The Internet presents an unimaginable amount of sources, resources, articles, tid-bits, information, etc… to sift through, its like a library on steroids. There are book reviews, recipes, magazine articles, pictures, advertisements, videos, and podcasts galore! It is easy to get caught spending hours on a single search, clicking and clicking until you realize you are on a completely different topic, having started out searching for a baking substitute for butter and ending up reading articles about the history of Bastille Day. True story. I’m even a peer research adviser at my school library and LOVE when people come to me with topics that they need help researching and I get to have an excuse for looking up new things! The internet just has so. much. information.

Part II.
I like learning.
Where do people go to learn? The Library!! Libraries, however, are changing, but we all know that.  They are becoming less known as repositories of books and more as centers for learning and academic sharing. Hence the Occidental Library now going by the hip new title of the "Academic Commons". When I heard my school was revamping its library, er Academic Commons,  by labeling all of the old books in the library based on their checked-out status in the last 20 years, i.e. whether they have been checked out once, twice, or never, I decided to throw a cog in the wheel.  Well maybe I didn’t, but I did decided to take a look through all the old books that line the stacks like forgotten dusty soldiers ready for battle.  Cliché metaphor.  Sorry.

Part III.
I like old books.
I relish the smell of them, the crinkling of the pages, the humorous and outdated writing, the ancient bindings, you name it! When I see old books at a flea market or garage sale I want to buy them all.  I don’t care if they're about physics (those ones have pretty pictures) or a book of famous quotations (I actually bought that one once…) but regardless I immediately get the desire to buy the book. Maybe because it will make me look distinguished to have a lot of old books on my shelf.  Maybe because I actually want to try to be the most well-read woman of the century.  Probably not, but regardless, I like to walk around the stacks in the school library, and just read all the different titles and authors, and imagine how many millions of pages hold information that is just waiting to be read. Regardless, do I have time to read all of these old books?  HELL NO! So I usually prohibit the urge to spend the 25 cents buying the book from the flea market, or check out the book from the library so it doesn’t just sit on my shelf next to all the other books that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet.

I could have tried to make it a goal to actually just start reading all of these books, but I wont.  There are just too many! Anyway, to get back to the library thing…SO, when I heard they were going to have to get rid of all these books in my school library sometime in the near future, I decided to take a look.  But where to start?! There are so so so so many.

Part IV.
I like health.
I like science.
I like understanding the science behind being healthy. Most people like to be healthy.  Or like to pretend they do. Health books, health blogs, health websites, health magazines... health is a common phenomenon in our day and age. So many diet, health, self-help, mental health, and exercise resources exist! So many more are published, written, posted, produced everyday. And with the internet, anything can really be said about everything! But what did people have to say on this matter YEARS ago? Back before modern technology, and the deluge of sources, stories, information, and findings that we have now. Hmm. I wonder…

Part V.
I like research. (Wait, did I already mention that…?)
So I put my research skills to use and did a search for books under “health” and/or “science” published before 1940 and was guided to the section with all the old health books way deep down on the ground floor buried away in the stacks. And there were a lot.  A lot a lot a lot. To ‘limit’ myself, I only checked out 16. No joke.

I immediately chuckled at some of the titles.  “The Health of Youth” published in 1928, “Hygiene for Freshmen” a particularly interesting collection of chapters meant to be a sort of textbook to help college freshmen stay healthy (which I don’t think is so irrelevant now with our diets of pizza, sugar cereal, beer, and uh, more beer…) published in 1934. The “Health and Growth Series” a collection of SIX books to make children understand and like health, published in 1935. They offer numerous topics to research, laugh at, read, consider, and compare, ranging from “Poisoning” to “Foolish Divorce: The Route to Unhappiness” a table of “100 calorie portions,” inspirational quotes, and even pictures of “a typical athlete, which is actually just a photograph of a sculptor of an ancient naked dude.

LIGHTBULB! I’m going to write a health blog.

But if I want to write a health blog, why don’t I just look on the internet? Or all around me at the healthy and equally unhealthy people in the world? I guess this is more of a historical look at health; looking at the old books will help me see what has been interesting humans in the realm of health for ages (well the last 90 or so years) while also helping me narrow down the numerous potential topics to what is mentioned in my sprightly collection. I want to fuse two of the most prevalent forms of media, the internet and books, together to get an interesting perspective on health.  This way, I also get to employ my expert research skills in comparing and assessing the information I find in these old books compared to what information is out there now. I aim to guide you (all of my .3 readers, not including my professor and the kids in my class who have to (sorry) read my blog) in this process, hopefully enjoying my witty attempts to make light of verbiage in the books, appreciating the naivety of our ancestors and what they used to believe, comparing their information to what is out there now, explaining what the present-day science says on the same topics, seeing what these authors got right, what they got wrong, and understanding how we can all learn from this to become healthier, smarter, and well-rounded individuals.

P.S. You are most obviously going to get my own opinions on the various health topics mentioned in this blog.

Disclaimer: I am not trying to make fun of the authors of these books. I respect that in an age before the Internet and all the modern scientific techniques and technologies, these people had the intellectual insight and desire to do a service for the public and provide books that could help people stay healthy and learn more about health. It is these authors who have paved the way for science research and the dissemination of health information that we are overloaded with in the media today and I salute them.