Alon Coret / Student Health Education Centre
During this past Reading Week, I participated in the Mac Serve Program, right here in Hamilton. The six days were densely packed with learning opportunities and exposure to some shocking realities.
Our group explored issues surrounding food (in)security and youth poverty, volunteering at places such as the Good Shepherd, Living Rock (youth center), community healthcare clinics, food drives and more.
One theme that seemed to thread throughout the week was the relationship between health and poverty, and how each affects the other. What I realized more than ever before was that poverty shapes our health in terms of our access to proper nutrition, sanitation and a safe place to live. At the same time, our health affects our financial situation; succumbing to disease and disability may prevent us from being able to work and integrate within society, and treatments can be costly.
A 2010 study known as the Code Red Series (Hamilton Spectator) shows the health-wealth connection better than any other. To determine the health status of different areas in the city, the average age of death was compared among Hamilton‘s neighborhoods. One West Mountain area had an average age at death of 86.3 years (2006-2008), while another near Wellington and Barton stood at 65.5 years. This staggering 21-year difference represents nearly a whole generation, and the main cause for the disparity is income. To put this in context, the West Mountain neighborhood’s life expectancy is five years higher than Canada’s national average. Meanwhile, the low-income North End neighborhood’s life expectancy is comparable to Nepal, Pakistan and Mongolia.
While visiting a community health center on Rebecca Street (Hamilton Urban Core), we learned about issues pertaining to medical services, specifically within the homeless and welfare-dependent demographic. It turns out, universal healthcare is not always so universal: most family physicians are paid on a fee-for-service basis, and often choose not to deal with more ‘problematic’ patients – the elderly, the homeless, the mentally ill or the severely handicapped. These groups mean more work for the physician, so it’s more efficient to take on young, healthy patients. Moreover, many Hamiltonians living in deep poverty do not have health cards. The majority of these are homeless individuals who could not replace a lost card, simply because they have no permanent address. To assist this demographic, the Hamilton Urban Core provides monthly health card replacement sessions (through the Ontario Health Ministry), and allows the homeless to use the center’s address as their own. Additionally, the staff working at the Urban Core are salaried, meaning they are paid the same amount irrespective of the number of patients they see. This is an important difference that separates them from other healthcare providers as there is no incentive to quickly ‘process’ as many patients as possible. Instead, the staff can tend to the complex problems of their target population. Common issues include mental illness, intellectual disability, physical handicaps, STIs, addictions or perhaps a combination of these.
Another key health-wealth connection was evident in the food banks we visited. Despite the immense quantities of food being donated, quality and variety appeared to be major issues: it’s always the same brands, the same foods and the obvious lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. Food banks house piles of Kraft Dinner and canned tuna, but these nonperishables do not meet our nutritional needs. It is not easy, of course, to supply fresh produce and dairy products given quick expiry and the need for refrigeration. Nevertheless, I could not stop thinking about the lack of quality food for populations in need. Even the hot meals served by food banks seem to play variations on a theme: pizza, pasta, tasteless salad, some meat and pastries (carbs, carbs, and a bit of protein). Clearly, living off the food bank diet is not good for long-term health.
Our minds, our bodies, and our social position are all intertwined; taking away from one can have serious ramifications on the others. The Romans were keenly aware of this connection – mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a healthy body). When thinking about poverty, it is important to keep in mind its consequences beyond material well-being.
By: Theresa Tingey
As busy students, stress is a huge part of daily life. Many of us turn to music as one of the easiest and best ways to relieve stress after a particularly difficult midterm or exam. Which types of music are especially effective for mediating stress and how exactly music interacts with the brain are active areas of research. Specifically, many scientists have tested the effects of various types of music on college-aged students, after inducing stress, by examining levels of blood hormones and self-perceived emotional scales. The results of these studies can inform students on how to best reduce anxiety through music listening.
One study performed by Smith and Joyce published in the Journal of Music Therapy in 2004 had 63 college students set aside 28 minutes each day for three days to listen to either Mozart, new age music or read a selection of popular magazines. The students then filled out questionnaires each day to measure their stress, worry and negative emotions. By the third day, the group assigned to listen to Mozart experienced the greatest relaxation and least stress, while the group listening to New Age music showed only a slight reduction in stress and the magazine readers had the least improvement in anxiety levels.
Another study performed in 2001 by Knight and Rickard asked students to prepare for a stressful oral presentation while either listening to Pachelbel’s Canon in D major, or in silence. The heart rate, subjective anxiety, blood pressure and cortisol levels were measured for each participant before and after the presentations to gauge their stress responses. Students who listened to the classical music while preparing for their presentation showed a greater reduction in stress compared to the group who prepared in silence.
Calming music has also been shown to enhance immune responses and reduce pain perception. In 2003, Eri Hirokawa of the Tokai Women’s University observed that music identified as ‘highly uplifting’ by participants boosted the function of important immune cells, such as T cells and natural killer cells, when listened to for twenty minutes after a stressful cognitive test compared to those who sat in silence. In addition, in their study published in the Journal of Music Therapy in 2006, Mitchell and MacDonald saw that students were able to tolerate a painful stimulus of holding their hands in cold water for longer when listening to music selections that they had chosen, compared to white noise or music deemed ‘relaxing’ by the experimenters.
This last study brings to question whether or not the music we choose to listen to is better for relaxation than classical or new age music. According to a review published by Krout in a 2007 publication of The Arts and Psychotherapy, music selected as relaxing by researchers generally has a greater relaxing effect than the music preferred by the listener, possibly because the listener can become distracted and emotionally aroused by the music they’re used to. However, Krout also noted that the more a person is exposed to a certain type of music, the greater its stress-reducing effect. Further, he suggests that listening to music of a slow and stable tempo, low volume, and simple harmonic cord progressions, such as those often found in classical music, for 20 to 30 minutes at a time is most beneficial for inducing relaxation through activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Another tip Krout gives is to listen to music that comes with guided meditation or breathing methods, as a combination of music and whole-body relaxation techniques have been found most effective for reducing stress.
In any case, whether you want to come home to the soothing sounds of Mozart or dance away your stress to your favourite upbeat tunes, music can provide a fun and effective way to melt away the stress of the day.
By: Palika Kohli
I recently had the opportunity to speak to McMaster’s own Dr. Day about the relevance and problems associated with labelling and diagnosing people with mental disorders. Dr. Day teaches Abnormal Psychology (amongst other psychology courses), and discussed the effect labelling has on students in particular.
Dr. Day introduces his Abnormal Psychology course every year with a precursor on the concept of diagnosing symptoms vs. diagnosing using an umbrella label. He discusses the problems associated with comorbidity (being diagnosed with more than one mental disorder) and professional specialization. He points to the impact medical school training has had regarding this issue.
“There is a biomedical bias from the start, which means [professionals are] looking for underlying reasons for symptomology, which of course may not exist at all. And they’re wedded to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) more than they ought to be… It’s like you have something, it’s a thing, like a diseased liver or kidney - which it’s not. It’s a set of symptoms. And I think that the whole problem of comorbidity in particular is that you can’t categorize that symptom. It is a whole person. It’s a real issue with the way we currently conceptualize mental illness.”
But there are some people that really need to know what, if anything, is wrong with them.
“There is a – or can be a – positive side to labelling. I’ve known a number of people or students who were relieved to hear the label being placed on their symptoms. Because now it seems like ‘Now I know what the problem is,’ instead of just a vague ‘I have a whole bunch of symptoms.’ Of course, it’s a two-edged sword. It does have some drawbacks, both for the professional treatment of the illness and for the everyday interaction the individual has with others who might know about the diagnostic label. But the label also helps them to give a name to their faceless adversary.”
What about celebrities? We learn all the time about different celebrities who suffer from different mental illness. Does it make it more acceptable for ‘regular people’ to be diagnosed with a mental disorder? And on the flip side, many celebrities use their diagnosis to explain away inappropriate behaviours, which perpetuates this same stereotype and increases the stigma associated with labelling.
“Yes, on the one hand, when people you know and admire and can even identify with (entertainment figures and so on) reveal that they have issues with this, it can make someone who has the same problems feel less isolated: ‘I’m not the only one.’ In fact, some very successful people have had to deal with these issues and apparently have dealt with them with some success, at least. But again, when you label it, you buy into the stereotype, too. ‘This is what bipolar disorder is like. This is what depression is like.’ But I will say in general, because there is has been much more attention paid in the media to various disorders, I think there is a growing acceptance on the part of many people, of mental disorder as something less than all-encompassing. And there is a greater willingness to seek professional help for these things.”
But there still is huge stigma associated with mental illness.
“There is great stigma associated with schizophrenia. People have a very dramatically distorted of what schizophrenia is and how it affects the individual. They think that’s a ‘real crazy’ person who is living in another world and doesn’t see people the way they are, and is dangerous… and nothing could be farther from the truth. But that’s the impression people have, because most people never come into contact with anyone (that they know of) that has more experience with schizophrenia.”
Why do you think stigma exists?
“I think the main reason is ignorance. People just don’t have enough contact or experience people who have these issues. We don’t really see them as people.”
By: Yashoda Valliere
“Try new things; expand your horizons!”
Sound familiar?
As university students, we are often bombarded with suggestions and opportunities to mould ourselves into new and improved versions of ourselves. This is especially true at the start of a new year, with waves of students determined to shake themselves out of their ruts and routines (or at least into better ones). In the midst of the frenzy, I was drawn to stop and ask the question: why do we feel such a strong urge to change in the first place? What do we truly gain from it – and is it always worth the accompanying risks of unfamiliar territory?
Funnily enough, I found my answer in coursework. Those of you who have taken Psychology 2B03 (Personality) are familiar with the humanistic theories of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. If you have never heard of either of these men, it’s likely that you’ve heard their terminology borrowed by pop culture – especially the phrase “self-actualization.”
Maslow proposed that all of our actions are based in two types of motives. “Deficiency motives” drive us to meet our basic needs, such as food, water, safety, and social belonging, to survive and feel whole. “Being motives,” on the other hand, are growth-oriented rather than deficiency-oriented. Maslow described the tendency toward self-actualization, a Being motive, as “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” Self-actualized individuals are not fearful or defensive and, as such, are able to view themselves and the world around them without denial and to comfortably accept the way they are. They are playful, creative, and continually appreciate small details in everyday life; they trust their own instincts; they do not view situations as black-and-white dichotomies and they are not social chameleons, conforming to cultural norms.
A similar description applies to Carl Rogers’ theory of the “fully-functioning person.” This goal was so important to Rogers that he scrapped the Deficiency motives altogether and proposed that every action, from birth to death, is subconsciously motivated only by the “actualizing tendency” to grow into our true selves. That is, to unlearn the false personalities conditioned into us by society.
So what does all of this have to do with new year’s resolutions? Perhaps one of Maslow’s most inspiring ideas is the concept of “growth choices” as a path to self-actualization. As he put it, “life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defence) and risk for the sake of progress and growth.” The exact same decision, when framed as a choice between growth and stagnation or as a choice between fear and comfort, can have a surprisingly different outcome. To complement his eight-fold path to self-actualization Maslow also listed several barriers, including lack or fear of self-knowledge and conformity to social and cultural norms. To turn your everyday choices into growth choices is to recognize the mental defences you have fearfully erected and to break them down.
This is why I challenge myself to make choices that are truly outside my comfort zone, and not just for the occasion of a new year, but to bring myself one step closer to what Maslow and Rogers would describe as realising my full potential. We can all try something that we are afraid to do, beyond the tired stereotypes of going to the gym (in January, at least) or improving our GPAs. You could sign up for a crash course in public speaking, or read a book on a political philosophy you disagree with or even just get that one item on the menu you’ve always avoided. I recently applied for a job I knew was probably beyond me; the interview process still expanded my knowledge of my own strengths and weaknesses and was a useful growth opportunity.
It’s important to remember that the value of growth choices is in the process, not the product. Maslow and Rogers described the path to self-actualization not as a simple “on/off” switch, but as a series of small successes in areas such as honesty, self-awareness, and trust in one’s own judgment, all of which are realistically accompanied by setbacks and sometimes no externally visible success (case in point: I didn’t get the job). Don’t beat yourself up if your leap of faith turns out to be a flop, because the most important outcome from a psychological point of view is the fact that you consciously chose to develop yourself and overcome your traditional patterns of thinking. With that in mind, you can congratulate yourself on getting one step closer to self-actualization.
By: Palika Kohli
I’m the kind of person who gives second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances to the people I care for. I firmly believe that if I know the reasoning behind someone’s mistake, then I can figure out a way to genuinely forgive them.
But sometimes there comes a point when you realize the mistakes a person makes aren’t actually mistakes at all. They’re purposeful decisions that reflect an integral part of their personalities.
But, being the all-forgiving soul you are, you ignore this fact and continue making excuses for their behaviour. You repress your response to their abrasive characteristics. You focus on the good memories you have of them and remind yourself that they haven’t always been this way. You hold on to an idea of the person, no matter who they are becoming or have already turned into.
You begin to believe that if you find it in yourself to forgive them, you are becoming a better, more mature person; that it will help you deal with ‘all kinds of characters’ in the future.
Then, suddenly, the invisible line that you have been pushing farther and farther out into unknown territories gets crossed. And that’s it.
Sometimes we need to do more than just clean out our closets to get a fresh perspective on ourselves. So here’s a list of indicators if a relationship in your life – romantic or otherwise – is unhealthy.
Verbally abusive: This doesn’t have to mean what you think it does – their snide remarks can be the basis for a realization that this person isn’t adding to your quality of life.
Uses gossip to get close to you: On this same line – if you realize that all you discuss with this person are other people, your relationship probably isn’t going anywhere.
Feeling a lack of privacy: They’re constantly in your room, reading your phone, or consistently referencing details of your social networking profiles.
Inconsiderate of your situation: They can make unreasonable demands, expecting things from you that maybe you can’t afford to give – be it time or money – and then they don’t appreciate what you do give, because it isn’t a tangible object.
Passive-aggressiveness: They won’t say anything aloud if it’s bothering them, but will show it in other ways – or will hold it against you in the future.
Gratefulness: You should never be feeling grateful that a person is suddenly making time for you, that they returned your call or that they showed up – this indicates imbalance.
Justification in assertion: You should never feel uncertain asserting your opinion or be scared of arguing when you don’t agree with them.
Finally, it can often be cathartic to actually tell a person why you don’t want them in your life. It means that you have to think carefully, and drain out your anger and bitterness before confronting them. You will have the opportunity to sit down and have a civil conversation over past issues, thoughts or feelings – maybe you will even prevent them from making the same mistakes in the future. But at the very least, it will be off your chest.
By: Yashoda Valliere
During the winter, we spend much more time in close contact with each other – crammed into HSR buses, cafés, or libraries – and to add to our woes, our immune systems are compromised by the stress of exams. As a result, a university at this time of the year can be a veritable breeding ground for the flu.
The flu shot is free in Ontario and is a vaccine for this year’s flu viruses. A vaccine contains inactive (“dead”) viruses, which are injected into your body so your immune system can learn to recognize their unique “ID tags” and form antibodies specifically targeted to them. Due to the high mutation rate of the flu virus, new strains emerge each year, and the flu shot changes accordingly.
Every February, the World Health Organization releases what they deem to be the three most common and dangerous strains for the year, and the new vaccines are made specifically for those three. Since there are only three strains of flu virus in your vaccine, it does not protect against every strain of the virus and there is still a chance that you could get the flu.
So why should you consider getting the flu shot? After all, you might be thinking, “I’ve never gotten it and yet I’ve rarely had the flu, so obviously the vaccine is unnecessary.” To understand how vaccination programs really work, you need to look at the bigger picture, beyond yourself. Vaccines protect a large population through a principle called “herd immunity.”
For example, imagine you have five people in a row, and none of them have immune protection against the flu. If one person gets the flu, like a row of dominoes, a “chain of infection” is born. However, if one of them has been vaccinated, the chain of infection is broken by that person.
Herd immunity operates on this principle at a larger scale. If enough people in the population are vaccinated, then the chains of infection are broken at a relatively early stage, preventing massive epidemics. If a high proportion of the population is vaccinated, then even those who are unvaccinated are indirectly protected – you can mentally picture them as being isolated in a “bubble” of vaccinated people around them. If you’ve never been vaccinated against the flu and yet you haven’t gotten sick, you were in one of these protected bubbles, thanks to the vaccinated community around you.
In order for this indirect protection to be conferred upon vulnerable members, a certain proportion of the population must be vaccinated – this is called the “herd immunity threshold.” If the proportion of vaccinated people falls below the threshold, the “bubbles” might come in contact with each other – an infectious person could meet a susceptible person, and thus a new chain of infection would form. The herd immunity threshold for influenza is estimated to be greater than 60 per cent. If we all continue thinking that we don’t need to get the shot, we won’t meet the threshold, and the vulnerable members of our community, such as infants and the elderly, will not be protected.
This being said, the flu shot isn’t perfect. It’s known to have side effects such as aches, fever, chills, cough and nausea. This happens because your immune system thinks that you have the flu, and it’s fighting against it. It’s understandable that you don’t really want to be dealing with all the side effects on top of November crunch season. Or, you could be preventing a more serious bout of the actual flu from hitting you later in the winter. The cost-benefit analysis is up to you.
Another reason you might not want to get vaccinated are the horror stories of severe reactions. If you have an egg allergy you should avoid the shot, as the vaccine viruses are grown in chicken eggs. Rare adverse reactions do exist, but it’s important to remember that the media, in pursuit of sensationalist headlines, tends to give these cases a disproportional amount of coverage. Research has shown that the risk-benefit ratio for the general population is overwhelmingly in favour of vaccination.
At the end of the day, vaccination and anything else that affects your body is 100 per cent your personal choice. No matter what you decide, it’s good to have the facts to make an informed decision.
One last note: After the vaccination, your immune system takes about two weeks to build up enough antibodies to be effective – so if you decide to go for it, the sooner the better!
By: Matthew Greenacre
So you finally went to the clinic after weeks of peeing what feels like boiling water, or maybe you are just seeing someone new and want to get yourself checked, or maybe it was just part of your yearly check-up. But regardless, as you leave the clinic with that piece of paper and your positive test results, you can at least console yourself with the knowledge that you were responsible or, alternately, found out before you passed the STI on to others, caused lasting damage such as infertility, or made your genitals look like a rare tropical fungus.
And now, depending on the STI you have contracted, the biggest worry that is running through your head is that you must notify your future, current and previous sexual partners. Since you only need to worry about taking a couple of antibiotic pills to clear bacterial STI’s, such as the very common and contagious Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, shame or the fear of losing your partner are likely bigger concerns than the actual disease - especially if the STI brings infidelity to light.
On the other hand, viral infections such as hepatitis, herpes, HPV (genital warts), or HIV/AIDS will either be destroyed by your immune system just like the ‘flu, or are permanent and can only be suppressed, but not cured. The knowledge that you must not only live with the disease itself, but that it can be a barrier to future developing relationships can be crushing.
Once you are tested either the Health Department will anonymously inform your previous partners for you, or your doctor may assist you in the process. Having a public health professional tell them is a valid option, since the health professionals can provide your ex with all the information he or she needs about the STI and how to get checked.
However, if you have a permanent viral infection such as HPV or herpes, it is your responsibility to tell your next partner before your relationship becomes physical. This daunting task can be made quite manageable if you keep the following in mind:
Finding out that you have contracted an STI is almost always traumatic and because it can be stigmatizing, many students do not know whom they can talk about it with. Simply discussing their infection can defuse your stress and help you think about how to move forward. SHEC’s peer counsellors would love to talk with you about your challenges, and can provide resources so you can make informed, healthy decisions.
By: Matthew Greenacre
Maybe you met that person in one of your classes, or at a house party, or you might even have met them at TwelvEighty. Regardless, now they are at the back of your mind jumping up and down as you try to read your French literature or solve Maxwell’s equations. But why? What happened in your brain that caused your usually fervent focus on your GPA, the OUA finals, or your band’s next gig, to be replaced with rosy coloured thoughts of someone who is still a relative stranger (albeit a ridiculously good looking one)?
When they first walked up to you and asked to buy you a drink, you said yes partially because a free drink is a free drink, but mostly because within about 200 milliseconds your brain decided that it liked what it saw, heard and/or smelt (though still controversial, research from Heinrich Heine University of Dusseldorf and Duquesne University has suggested that humans may use a cocktail of pheromones to communicate on a subconscious level). Norepinephrine, the trigger to the fight or flight response is released, and you feel your palms become sweaty, your heart begins to race, your pupils dilate. At the same time your reward system is activated, dopamine is released, and you begin to feel a rush of euphoria. Parts of the cerebral cortex that you use to be logical are deactivated. You are suddenly likely to do something very stupid…
Of course, we are more than our animal instincts, and it might have been the tone of their voice that you found sexy or the wit and charm of their conversation compelling. Regardless, your brain has begun to make a connection between this person and the reward system of the brain. Whenever you are intimate with someone, your brain is flooded with either oxytocin if you are female, or vasopressin if you are male. This hormone rewires your brain’s reward system so that, according to the research of Helen Fisher at Rutgers University, the ventral tegmental area of your brain now makes and releases dopamine whenever you are around your crush or merely even think about them. Now you are really up a creek because this is essentially the same flood of dopamine, producing the same type of feelings, as if you were taking cocaine. You’re hooked.
But being in love is great. Hand-in-hand you can happily skip through fields of posies in giddy dopamine soaked bliss because the hormone cortisol that makes you stressed is lowered and suppressed by oxytocin/vasopressin so even the thought of that midterm the next day barely bothers you at all. You can stub your toe and barely feel a thing because reward centres being in overdrive affects the parts of the brain that control pain. At the same time the amount of a neurotransmitter called serotonin drops. Low serotonin is common in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and this is why you can’t stop thinking about him or her. Your brain chemistry has primed you to obsess over things in general, and you get instant rewards for thinking about your special someone.
Just like your relationship, your brain chemistry can have different outcomes. If not enough oxytocin/vasopressin is released, your partner will not be wired to your reward system, being with him or her will release less and less dopamine and the passion you once felt will fizzle out. If enough oxytocin/vasopressin was released in your brain then I sincerely hope enough was released in his or hers.
Heart-break is the very real perception of pain that a person gets once they are cut off from their loved one. Stress inducing hormones called cortisol releasing factors (CRF’s) build up in the brain during the relationship. Once the break-up happens and oxytocin/vasopressin is no longer being released, CRF is free to produce a wave of cortisol. You become hugely stressed. High levels of cortisol are linked to depression. Your obsession does disappear, but amplifies as you try and figure out how to win your beloved back. The high cortisol and low serotonin levels give you insomnia, leaving you to lie awake, churning over your loss. You are suffering from withdrawal, trying to figure out how you can get your fix again.
With time your brain chemistry will return to its normal levels, and sooner or later he or she will just be somebody you used to know. But in the mean time we know that it is a hell of a lot of cortisol to cope with and SHEC would love to help you out if you want to drop by.
By: Alisha Sunderji
With the dark days of winter fast approaching and tan lines fading like those summer memories, tanning beds are a tempting option for maintaining that healthy glow. Equating tanned skin to good health however, is a myth. A tan is your body’s response to an injury, as skin cells respond to damage from ultraviolet (UV) rays by producing more pigment. Using a tanning bed or sun lamp isn’t much better, as some beds can expose you to upwards of 5 times more radiation than conventional seaside tanning. The World Health Organization has classified tanning beds in its highest cancer-risk category, placing it in the same league as tobacco and asbestos. Most people are well aware of the relationship between exposure to UV radiation and skin cancer. Yet, we still flock to the beach in the summer, or worse, our local tanning salon, in pursuit of golden-brown hues.
A recent study published in the journal Addiction Biology cited that people who frequently use tanning beds experience changes in brain activity during their tanning sessions that mimic the patterns of drug addicts. Researchers found that several parts of the brain that play a role in addiction were activated when people were exposed to UV rays. Just as the brain associates a reward in response to the consumption of drugs, and high sugared food, UV light triggers a similar positive response. The term “tanorexia,” used to describe excessive tanning, has been coined by popular media, (playing off anorexia nervosa, an obsessive desire to be thin). A study in 2005 by the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that a large proportion of sunbathers met the psychiatric definition of a substance abuse disorder, based on their answers to a variation of a test often used to help diagnose alcohol addiction.
As with alcohol, not everyone who is exposed becomes hooked on getting that “tanner’s high.” But there certainly are abusers, notably among adolescents and young adults, with one in five university students identified as being “tanorexic.” The appeals of tanning lie beyond the aesthetic, from providing relaxation to being a form of socialization.
The added benefits of tanning pale in comparison to its negative consequences, namely the fact that people under the age of thirty who use tanning machines increase their risk of skin cancer by 75 per cent. There are different definitions of what constitutes too much tanning, but the underlying message is clear: even brief exposure to UV radiation can cause mutations in the DNA of skin cells. Accumulate enough mutations and skin cancer can result.
Tanning in pursuit of vitamin D is often cited in defense of tanning beds. For the majority of the population, incidental exposure to the sun combined with normal dietary intake of vitamin D, provides adequate vitamin D intake for a healthy body throughout the year. During the winter, many head to tanning salons as a solution for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a.k.a. winter depression. “People often think of sunbathing as the antidepressant essence of light exposure. Wrong! Light therapy acts through the eyes, and requires visible light, not UV,” writes Michael Terman, PhD., Director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University in New York.
In the immortal words of Katy Perry, “California gurls, We’re unforgettable, Daisy Dukes, Bikinis on top, Sun-kissed skin, So hot we’ll melt your popsicle,” - the concept of linking tanning to beauty and health might be around for a while. There are some alternatives to roasting on the beach like a beef patty, such as using bronzer or tanning cream. For the endorphin release, exercise can be a healthy and effective coping mechanism. These simplistic suggestions aren’t in any way attempting to dismiss the seriousness of tanorexia. Over-using tanning, as a form of self-medication or otherwise, demands professional help. For the less serious cases, if the statistics aren’t enough to scare you out of the bed, taking active measures in the tanning salon, from wearing protective eyewear to waiting at least 48 hours between sessions to allow time for cell reparation, can make the process a little safer. The pursuit of beauty has often been convoluted, but the stakes have never been higher, so perhaps a change in the status quo is only a matter of time.
By: Alon Coret
Drunk. Tipsy. Inebriated. Intoxicated. Hammered. Trashed. Sloshed. S***-faced. Slizzered. F***** up. Our extensive vocabulary says it all: alcohol consumption is very common in our society, especially on university campuses. For many first-year students, getting drunk has almost become a rite of passage. Alcohol is a substance that allows people to relax, feel less inhibited and be livelier, making it an integral part of any social occasion. Problems arise when alcohol consumption becomes excessive, leading to higher risk of negative physical and/or sexual behaviors, violence, vomiting, and in extreme cases even death.
It is easy to establish a dichotomy when it comes to drinking patterns by labeling people either as ‘alcoholics’ and ‘non-alcoholics.’ This oversimplification is not only wrong, but also gives many regular (and sometimes heavy) drinkers the chance to avoid the classification of alcoholism. Instead, we should be thinking of alcohol consumption as a continuum, ranging from normal, socially acceptable, and healthy drinking to detrimental, long-term drinking. The McMaster Student Wellness Center (SWC) outlines four main ‘types’ of drinkers that we should be aware of:
While most university students fall into the first two categories, gradually developing a more serious dependence on alcohol is not as big of a jump as one might think.
The SWC also identified possible risk factors for becoming an alcoholic. These include: beginning to drink early (before age 16), drinking more than one to two drinks per day, being under a lot of stress, having an underlying psychiatric condition or being a smoker. One or more of these risk factors likely applies to many university students.
It’s not just long-term or dependent drinkers that experience negative effects on their health. Episodic, or binge drinking, can have serious health ramifications as well. A study conducted at the Complutense University of Madrid showed that binge drinking causes general brain deterioration similar to that caused by old age, such as dementia. Binge drinking has also been shown to damage the hippocampus region of the brain, affecting cognitive performance and long-term memory. Binge drinking is defined as five drinks or more in one sitting for men, and three or more drinks for women – this is not an uncommon amount to drink at a party.
While the responsibility of living a healthy and safe lifestyle lies in great part with the individual, their environment also plays a crucial role. On the McMaster campus, there are two venues serving alcohol to students – TwelvEighty and the Phoenix (you could also try the Faculty Club, but that’s a different story). There are numerous alcohol-infused parties and events taking place every year on school grounds, not to mention the countless off-campus alternatives. There is nothing illegal about having these options for students of drinking age, and there is nothing wrong with having a great time. It’s just important to recognize the environmental pressure on students - from venues as well as peers - that may encourage drinking.
The bottom line: most of us are aware that alcohol negatively impacts our health, but we should realize that it can do so even at quantities which we consider normal, or quantities that would ‘only make a lightweight drunk.’ The line separating healthy, typical drinking and alcoholism is often a fine one. Lastly, nobody should feel pressured to drink when coming to university. While it might seem as though everyone enjoys Thursday night clubbing, many surveys show that the majority of students do not see alcohol as being important at a party.
If you want to drink, that’s cool – just be smart about it.
