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Hop on your favorite social media platform and youll find a seemingly endless stream of exercise and workout content from certified personal trainers, exercise enthusiasts, and everyday users pumped to share their personal hot takes.

While these communities can be great resources for surfacing exercise inspiration, motivation, and know-how, its important to know who youre turning to for what info.

Anyone can create a social media profile and start sharing information, says Frances Neric, national director of certification for the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in Indianapolis. But what theyre saying doesnt have to be scientifically sound.

Seeking advice from the wrong person can lead you to workouts that are poorly designed, ineffective, or potentially dangerous. So, how can you differentiate whos legitimate and whos not? Who should you be turning to for what type of advice?

Heres what you should know:

Unlike some professions (like medicine or dentistry), theres no one professional society or board that oversees fitness training. Multiple professional societies offer programs to train fitness professionals.

And those seeking training can choose from a fairly wide variety of certificates and credentials from several professional organizations. When vetting an expert youll turn to for advice about exercise and working out, Neric suggests checking which organization has certified the personal trainer.

You can check the U.S. Registry of Exercise Professionals (USREPS) to see if a personal trainer is certified by a National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA)accredited program, which shows that the fitness professionals certification has met standards set by the industry and comes from a proven safe and effective program, says Neric. (NCCA accredits a range of professions, including nurses and counselors.)

A common fitness certification is "certified personal trainer," or CPT. Reputable organizations that certify personal trainers include the American Council on Exercise (ACE), the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the National Council on Strength and Fitness (NCSF), and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), according to USREPS.

Other NCCA-accredited fitness certifications include:

While this registry is extensive and easily searchable (in that there are a number of member organizations that are represented here), its not comprehensive.

There are other NCCA-accredited organizations that certify personal trainers and group fitness instructors, such as the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and the National Federation of Professional Trainers (NFTP), that arent members of the USREPS.

To verify that an individual has been certified by an authoritative fitness training organization, check that the certifying body is NCCA-accredited, Neric says.

RELATED: Should You Get a Personal Trainer?

According to the NFPT, a certified personal trainer (or someone with any of the other advanced NCCA-accredited fitness credentials) will be able to:

While a certified personal trainer can talk about basic nutrition, they cannot give you specific nutrition information. If an exercise professional is giving direct advice about what and what not to eat, be on alert, says Neric. This person can share generic information, like what a calorie is, but they should not prescribe a specific diet or eating plan.

For information about what to eat and how to exercise, a registered dietitian-nutritionist (RDN) can offer diet advice and recommendations for eating and exercise, according to the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

RELATED: What to Eat Before and After You Work Out

If you want more specific nutrition advice to optimize training or athletic performance, you may want to look for someone with additional certification, ideally someone who is a board-certified specialist in sports dietetics (CSSD), a credential from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Some accredited exercise certification programs also offer additional specialty programs in nutrition. Individuals with these certifications have additional training in nutrition, but they do not necessarily have the same breadth of education as an RDN.

If youre looking for someone who can provide both tailored training and nutrition advice, Neric suggests finding someone who is both an RDN and a certified exercise professional. They are harder to find, but they are out there.

When it comes to specialized workouts, like Zumba, CrossFit, Pilates, and others, what makes someone an expert varies:

RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Yoga

If you have a chronic illness or disability, if youre pregnant, or you have other special health concerns, you may want to get exercise advice from someone with more expertise about your condition.

If you have a clinical condition, such as obesity, diabetes, or hypertension, its important that your trainer has advanced training beyond a certified personal trainer certification ideally as an exercise physiologist so he or she is able to tailor fitness recommendations for your condition, says Lee Stoner, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in exercise physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Dr. Stoner is a fellow of the ACSM and is the director of the Exercise is Medicine program at UNC.)

As an example, the ACSM offers itscertified clinical exercise physiologist program (ACSM-EP), which requires advanced education and hands-on training. Individuals pursuing this certification must have a masters degree in clinical exercise physiology and complete 600 hours of hands-on training, or have a bachelors degree in exercise science and complete 1,200 hours of hands-on training.

For this requirement, hands-on training can include developing exercise programs, using electrocardiography (a test that measure the hearts electrical activity), or working with people who have heart, lung, or neuromuscular disease.

Acccording to Stoner, people with this certification need to have a lot of education. You need to know the pathways of physiology of these various conditions, how to interpret an electrocardiogram, and how to communicate with the clients physician, he says.

If you are on a medication, like insulin to treat diabetes or a beta-blocker for high blood pressure, an exercise physiologist will understand what effect those have on exercise so they can train you in a safe way, Stoner says.

RELATED: Why Being Fit Helps You Manage Chronic Diseases

If you are looking for information about working out while pregnant, ideally look for a CPT who has taken continuing education courses in prenatal and postnatal fitness, from ACE or another accredited fitness organization. (Some prenatal fitness programs do not require experience to be certified, so make sure the person youre taking instruction from has their CPT.)

If youre looking for advice about senior fitness, look for a CPT who is also trained in senior fitness. One example is the NASM Senior Fitness Specialization, which is a continuing education program.

If you are injured, your exercise program should be modified. Ideally, this would be done through input from a physical or occupational therapists, notes ACSM.

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What Makes Someone an Expert in Fitness and Exercise? - Everyday Health

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DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My father has had COPD for years, but he was hospitalized for worsening symptoms related to his condition. His health care provider advised that he should begin a pulmonary rehabilitation program. He is hesitant and unsure of what to expect. What are the benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation in people with COPD? Do you recommend it for people with other lung conditions?

ANSWER: Pulmonary rehabilitation is a medically supervised program that includes structured exercise training, health education, behavior modification, nutritional counseling and the learning of breathing techniques for people who have certain chronic respiratory diseases or lung problems due to other conditions. Pulmonary rehabilitation seeks to improve the physical and psychological condition of people with chronic respiratory disease, and educate these people on how to establish and maintain behaviors that will benefit their health for years to come.

Pulmonary rehabilitation is beneficial for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. It has been shown to reduce symptoms of breathlessness, improve physical function and enhance overall quality of life. Research has shown that people who start pulmonary rehabilitation within three months of hospitalization for COPD-related issues are at significantly lower risk of death after one year, compared to those who start pulmonary rehabilitation later or those who do not take part in pulmonary rehabilitation. More evidence is emerging that pulmonary rehabilitation improves symptoms, exercise capacity and quality of life in people with conditions such as interstitial lung disease, asthma, pulmonary hypertension and cystic fibrosis, as well as in people before and after surgery for lung cancer, lung volume reduction or a lung transplant.

Care related to pulmonary rehabilitation is provided by a team of health care professionals from a range of specialty areas and backgrounds, including pulmonologists, respiratory therapists and exercise physiologists. The pulmonary rehabilitation team also may include experts from nursing, physical medicine and rehabilitation, nutrition, psychology and psychiatry, and sleep medicine, depending on a person's needs.

Typically, pulmonary rehabilitation is provided in an outpatient clinic or in a hospital rehabilitation center, and it normally involves one to three supervised sessions per week for six to 10 weeks.

Before starting pulmonary rehabilitation with patients, the health care team will:

Measure exercise capacity and lung function.

Review medical history and current treatments.

Ask about current levels of physical activity, mental health and diet.

Establish specific goals to be achieved in each person undergoing the program.

Using this information, a specialized care plan is designed to best suit the needs of every person.

Although pulmonary rehabilitation is traditionally performed in a clinic or hospital setting under direct medical supervision, increasing evidence suggests that home-based pulmonary rehabilitation, particularly home-based exercise training, is safe and possibly just as effective. Such home-based rehabilitation may be more convenient for participants. In addition, home-based rehabilitation may be a good alternative for people who are unable to regularly attend a rehabilitation center due to factors such as work commitments and travel restrictions. Many pulmonary rehabilitation centers are working to establish home-based programs.

Exercise training is central to pulmonary rehabilitation. An individualized exercise training plan, or exercise prescription, often is based on the information gathered from exercise tests performed before starting the program, and such a plan is developed for each participant. Exercise training, which combines aerobic exercise, such as treadmill walking or riding a bike; strength training; and exercises that improve balance and flexibility, is designed to improve strength and stamina, and reduce breathlessness, fatigue and tiredness in people who take part in pulmonary rehabilitation. The rehabilitation team may recommend using medication to open up the airways before exercise or teach people how to adjust their regular oxygen therapy during exercise to maximize the benefits gained. As pulmonary rehabilitation participants become more familiar with their exercise program and confident in performing regular exercise, they are encouraged to exercise independently at home or in another setting, such as a fitness center, in addition to the supervised sessions.

Participants also may learn specific breathing techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing, pursed lip breathing or yoga breathing. These techniques can help people with lung conditions better control their breathing, and help them better cope with stressful situations and avoid feeling out of breath, especially during exercise. In some situations, the rehabilitation team also may have a participant take part in specific training of their breathing muscles. This training is designed to increase the strength of the breathing muscles. And when done in combination with exercise training, it has been shown to reduce breathlessness and improve exercise capacity, compared to exercise training alone in some people with respiratory disease.

Education and counseling are also key parts of pulmonary rehabilitation. Participants may receive education on how to more effectively take their medicines and manage their disease; develop a plan to quit smoking, if applicable; and discuss how routine daily tasks can be modified to minimize breathlessness or avoid becoming breathless. In addition, many pulmonary rehabilitation programs offer individual or group-based support on how to best manage and alleviate depression and anxiety, and how to alter diet and prepare meals for long-term health benefits.

Overall, participation in pulmonary rehabilitation is a critical component in managing COPD. I encourage you to talk with your father and his health care provider about the value of pulmonary rehabilitation. I believe it is effective in helping people with lung conditions better manage their symptoms, improve their fitness and ability to perform routine daily tasks, and enhance their overall health and well-being as much as possible.

Dr. Bryan Taylor, Cardiovascular Disease, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida

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2021 Mayo Clinic News Network. Visit newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Mayo Clinic Q and A: Benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD and other lung conditions - Union Democrat

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July 30, 2021|By Ilana Newman

Life Time is moving into yet another realm of lifestyle and wellness classes with its digital meditation programs.

If you spend time outdoors, you probably know the flow state that comes from the combination of focus and movement. With a new digital meditation collection, fitness and lifestyle brand Life Time teaches users to access that place of flow.

The on-demand meditation programs build on Life Times current selection of wellness programming. (It currently includes virtual training, on-demand and live streaming exercise classes, health and wellness content, and access to Apple Fitness+.)

The digital meditation programs consist of visual and auditory stimulation, like soothing videos of nature and soft voices. Five categories are offered and include stress management, mental power, daily gratitude, mindful movement, and sleep improvement. Sessions range from 2 to 15 minutes designed to fit a busy schedule.

More than 80% of Americans experienced stress symptoms in January 2021, reported the American Psychological Association. Stress causes cortisol to flood the brain. Practicing meditation releases hormones like serotonin and oxytocin, which reduce inflammation, promote healing and rest, and improve your mood, according to Life Time.

The digital meditation programs allow users to practice both mindfulness and meditation.

According to Life Times meditation preview video, the difference between the two is that mindfulness increases the ability to concentrate and focus (left brain). On the other hand, meditation is the art of letting go. It works the right side of your brain while also strengthening the corpus callosum the part of your brain that connects the right and left hemispheres.

Best of all? Life Times program organizers will release new meditations each day, so there will be a pretty good variety of options.

Interested? You can access Life Times meditation programming through its Digital and Access membership options. First-time members can get their first month of a digital subscription for free. From there, pricing begins at $15/month.

We've all had a tough year. Being able to enjoy the outdoors makes it better. Inhale, exhale, repeat. Read more

Originally posted here:
Om Demand: Fitness Brand Adds Digital Meditation Program - GearJunkie

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For years, health insurance plans have been offering perks like a Fitbit or free gym membership as a reward for working out. Now life insurance companies are increasingly getting into the game.

The trend to what might be called insurefitness began about five years ago, when John Hancock launched its VitalityPLUS plan, which allows you to earn up to a 25% discount on premiums. Now online broker Health IQ says it also offers such breaks to its healthiest applicants. Sproutt, another such broker, says it will soon launch policies that provide up to a 20% benefit for fitness activity, either through a discount on premiums or a free increase in death benefit.

Apart from the benefits to policyholders, the programs make good business sense, says John Hancock chief executive Brooks Tingle. Theyre the life insurance equivalent of good-driver discounts on car policies a reward to the customers who embody less risky behavior. And many more insurers will soon be joining in, says Jonathan Godsall, a partner at McKinsey & Company. He sees incentives for healthy living as the most important trend in life insurance in at least a decade, and predicts industry-wide adoption of fitness and healthy behavior as a ratings factor within three to five years.

Even if your insurer doesnt have such a program yet, theres value in knowing how the current incentives work and how the growth of insurefitness might benefit you, now or in future.

Activity-based life insurance programs require sharing more information with your insurer than the usual medical data or exam specifically, details about your exercise, eating and sleeping habits, either self-reported or via such wearable monitoring devices as Fitbits and Amazon Halos.

The experts we contacted for this story all reported a high level of comfort among customers with such sharing, especially when there are incentives to do so. And when data must be self-reported people tend strongly to tell the truth, says Sproutt president Assaf Henkin in part, he says, because they may know the importance of accuracy when applying for life insurance, since fudging on the facts can complicate things later.

Here are details on three of the major programs:

Tingle correctly describes his companys plan as a frequent flier program for life insurance, but with rewards for healthy behavior rather than miles flown or dollars spent with an airline. All John Hancock customers have the option to automatically enroll in the Vitality GO program for free at the basic Bronze membership level. That allows points to be earned for workouts and other positive behaviors, data on which is mostly fed automatically to the insurer via the Vitality app. So, as examples, you can earn 10 Vitality points a day for walking 5,000 steps and 30 points for completing a 30-minute workout at home or in a gym.

Earning 3,000 points grants an upgrade to VitalityPLUS. (That perk also comes free if you have a term policy with Hancock, or for $3 a month extra if you hold a permanent policy.) You can then enjoy such discounts as 25% off healthy foods at thousands of grocery stores, Tingle says, and be eligible for premium discounts. Being upgraded to Silver through your healthy behavior might cut your premiums by 5% to 7%, he says, while earning Gold status increases the discount to more like 10%, and achieving Platinum status entitles you to up to 25% off.

Tingle says the programs most rewarded members arent really triathletes and the like. Instead, he says, theyre more like average people who are less healthy when they start the program and then take measures to improve their health, such as quitting smoking or losing weight in order to better control their diabetes.

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Sproutt now uses self-reported data on your fitness activities, eating habits and more to help complete a pre-approval process that Henkin says helps the broker pitch and match customers to insurers, using information beyond what is typically asked when applying for life insurance to get better rates for applicants.

But within a few months, says Henkin, Sproutt plans to unveil its own policies, underwritten by major re-insurers, that will incorporate ongoing fitness data into policy pricing and coverage. Henkin says benefits from healthy behaviors could either cut premiums or increase the policys death benefit. Lets say you qualify for a $1 million benefit under the other factors, and pay 100 bucks a month. Because youre fitter than most, we might increase that benefit to $1.2 million but still charge you only the $100.

We have less detail on Health IQs offerings than those of the others, since the company did not respond to an information request a situation some other media outlets who have contacted the online broker have also reported.

But the Health IQ website suggests the company delivers discounts to its customers of up to 8% for displaying health literacy, plus potentially up to an additional 9% for having an active lifestyle. Further discounts of up to 24% are awarded, the company claims, through reclassifying applicants into more favorable risk categories based on their health knowledge and fitness activity.

Obviously, the programs weve profiled are intriguing options if youre shopping for life insurance and also plan or at least aspire to initiate or continue healthy habits in your life. The prospect of lowering the cost of insurance by taking better care of yourself may even provide added incentive to take steps youve wanted to take for a while. You can kick the tires of the Sproutt program by completing the companys online healthy living questionnaire, which will yield a Quality of Life Index that allows you to see which health and fitness factors are helping and hurting your eligibility for insurance.

When insurefitness programs come to your life insurer, says Godsall, theyll almost certainly utilize devices such a wearable monitors, together with either existing fitness apps or new ones the insurers develop. So the likely arrival of such programs could be further incentive, too, to begin using such devices and apps now to track your activity and encourage you to exercise more.

A proper life insurance policy will protect your loved ones from the unexpected.

No time like the present to get on the estate planning path. Do it right with life insurance and take care of your family. Click below for more information.

The Best Life Insurance Companies of 2021

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3 Ways To Get Term Life Insurance When Your Policy Has Ended

(An earlier version of this story misstated Assaf Henkins title.)

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Life Insurers Are Promising Discounts if You Let Them Track How You Exercise and Eat - Money

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Bonnie Starwalt smiles when you ask her about her pool. Her energy radiates through her arms when she instinctively demonstrates poses for tai chi, yoga or Pilates.

Starwalt teaches tai chi aquatics classes at the Richard E. Workman Sports & Wellness Complex. In these classes, she has participants move through various exercises and martial arts forms in the complexs recreational pool.

In the pool, youre like a kid again, Starwalt said.

Her playful attitude is apparent when she teaches, cracking jokes and smiling the entire time as people move and flex underwater.

I can do exercises with you that you cant really do on land, she said.

The aquatics classes at Workman have a variety of styles, which include Starwalts tai chi as well as low-impact exercise, cardio, Zumba, Core Stix, deep water exercise and several combination classes that blend different workout methods.

In the water, the bodys natural buoyancy means less weight is placed on joints. This makes the classes popular with people coming out of physical therapy or who have recently had joint replacements. One student even came to classes after losing a lung.

If you can relax, you can heal yourself, said Starwalt.

Though instructors at Workman do work with physical therapists and even share the pool with HSHS St. Anthonys Physical Rehab and Wellness Center, Starwalt stressed that they are not doctors or even therapists.

The aquatic workouts are low impact, but that doesnt mean they are low energy.

Just walking in the water is six times harder, said Starwalt.

When someone moves through water for an exercise, that persons limbs and body has to push water out of the way, effectively making it more difficult to move through, adding another dimension to the workout that cant be easily replicated on land.

There are some senior specific classes offered at Workman, though all of the classes are open to anyone.

For the people who are self-conscious about getting into the pool because of looks or ability, Starwalt said her class members tend to be welcoming and that, for the most part, people dont see you anyway since they are mostly in the water.

No one knows and no one cares! she said. You cant see and youre having a good time.

Classes at Workman are included in the cost of membership, which for Effingham Park District residents runs $39 per month for an individual and $25 for people 65 and older. For out-of-district residents, its $45 for an individual and $30 for those 65 and older. You can also attend classes by paying for a $10 day pass.

The complex also offers memberships through the SilverSneakers program, which is available to some people with a Medicare Advantage Plan. About 14% of the complexs members are SilverSneakers members. Beyond that, the complex offers memberships to people through other UnitedHealthcare plans, Silver Fit and others.

Weve partnered with so many programs, said Leah Ritter, the complexs general manager.

For people interested in classes that arent so wet, Workman offers classes for a variety of skill levels on land, including sunrise workouts, sculpting, strength building, pilates, yoga and dancing-based fitness classes.

Ritter teaches a Treadz class that focuses on using a treadmill, which she says includes people of all ages. One of the ways she is able to do that is by offering changes to the workout to meet individuals needs.

We can provide that modification, she said.

Stacy Stanford is the fitness coordinator at Workman who coordinates, among other things, the personal training program. She has first-hand experience identifying workouts to benefit people at different ages.

I have a couple clients in their early 60s, Stanford said. Theyre working on their balance and their core.

Personal training is offered for $30 for a half hour and $50 for an hour, though the complex does offer sales. Stanford added that she sees people in the classes she teaches and personal training clients have already raised their family and use their newfound free time for personal improvement.

Maybe some of them are empty nesters and theyre ready to invest in themselves, she said.

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Workouts in the Water: Workman Sports Complex offers alternative for fitness - Effingham Daily News

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Rachel Dyal no longer cared what happened to her, or even if she ended up in the hospital, as long as she didnt have to get taped.

Dyal, a 27-year-old Army first lieutenant, came to that realization in September 2019 after she failed a tape test designed to capture body measurements in order to calculate body fat. She was nearing the end of the Armys Graduate Program in Nutrition through Baylor University that would culminate with a masters degree in nutrition. A tape test was the only thing standing in her way.

It wasnt the first time shed failed the test. In October 2016, before she entered the program, she went to a recruiters office to get more information about the Army. Not knowing much about the service, she showed up to the recruitment office in a business suit and had no concept about height/weight requirements, she said.

The Armys height and weight requirements are laid out in Army Regulation 600-9, the guidance for the Army Body Composition Program, which dictates how much a soldier should weigh depending on their gender, height, and age. If a soldier doesnt meet the standard on that body mass index (BMI) table, they have different parts of their body measured as part of the tape test, to determine their body fat percentage though experts say the scale, created in the 19th century, is outdated and perhaps based on pseudoscience.

That day in the recruiters office, Dyal was told she didnt meet the required weight standard, so the recruiter brought in a female soldier to take measurements of Dyals neck, waist, and hips. She doesnt recall what her body fat percentage was at that point, but she hadnt met the standard.

At the time, she was a full-time student with a full-time job, and she worried there wouldnt be enough time to exercise and drop weight ahead of being taped again.

So she started restricting her diet. She was a nutrition student, Dyal reasoned; while she knew what she was doing wasnt necessarily healthy, she figured she could handle it. And besides, she anticipated strict dieting for only a short period of time to drop weight and get into the program. Yet over the next year, she become hyper conscious of the food she ate, hungry most of the time, and only allowed herself to eat certain foods for every meal.

By January 2018, Dyal had completed the Armys basic officer leader course and was starting the masters program in nutrition. That was when the pressure really began, she said, recalling an overwhelming stigma over Army dietitians needing to be taped.

Dyal exhibited textbook signs of an eating disorder which can lead to muscle weakness, low hormone levels, hair loss, or even kidney failure and it was only getting worse: The food she ate or didnt eatbecame the focus of every thought, every day. She avoided going out with friends on the weekends for drinks or dinner, or shed plan what she was going to order days in advance. She felt guilty constantly even if she ordered what shed planned and would restrict her diet even more afterwards to make up for it. It was a miracle she passed her classes in the program, she said, because all she was thinking about was food, her body size, and her weight.

Once, a friend made dinner plans with her only to later decide she wasnt hungry and call it off. It was a relatively simple change of plans, but Dyal was furious, because she was starving, and couldnt justify eating unless she was there, she said.

Thats how much it was impacting me, Dyal said. We went for a walk and I was like, snippy and mean to her, because I was starving to death and she decided we werent getting dinner, so I wasnt going to eat dinner that day. Which is ridiculous, it sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but that is how much an eating disorder had taken over my thoughts.

Then in April 2019, Dyal was in the internship portion of the program observing how a senior Army dietitian counsels a real patient with an eating disorder. She soon realized her colleague could have been speaking to her.

I saw the patients who were being treated for eating disorders, and I was like, Oh my gosh, thats what I do, Dyal said. I think subconsciously I knew at that moment, this is bad.

Still, she didnt reach her breaking point until months later in September, when she was told she needed to pass height and weight again in order to graduate. That was when she decided she didnt care what she needed to do, didnt care if she ended up in the hospital, she was going to pass. Her eating disorder, and her anxiety around food, worsened until she finally asked for help.

Dyal is not alone among U.S. military service members who have leaned on harmful or unhealthy habits in order to maintain body composition standards that trained dietitians and health experts say are antiquated and have no bearing on physical fitness. While experts agree that there should be fitness and health standards for service members, they say the existing standards dont accurately measure those things.

To meet those standards, service members often adopt unhealthy behaviors like starving themselves, working out excessively, taking diet pills or laxatives, or sitting in saunas for prolonged periods of time to drop weight quickly. An Army major who struggled with bulimia for years said taking drastic measures ahead of weigh-ins is so common that nobody looks at it as weird, and while people will fully admit its happening its never discussed as a danger.

At the same time, a lack of data and training for leaders often leaves service members without the care they need and at risk of losing the job theyre desperately trying to keep.

Priscilla Rumph, a registered dietitian at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, estimated that a fair amount of service members across the military deal with eating disorders, but said the lack of data is one of the hardest obstacles to overcome in addressing it. The Pentagon does not appear to keep that kind of data; when asked for it, a Pentagon spokesperson referred Task & Purpose to the individual services.

While the Army Public Health Center tracks medical diagnoses across the force, eating disorders are grouped into the broader category of mental and behavioral health conditions.

We dont have anything that gives us a really reliable answer, Rumph said. And that does bother all of us because then its hard to figure out how to best care for the situation.

This article is based on interviews with 13 service members across the military men and women, officers and enlisted. While some are being named with their permission, others are not in order to protect their personal health information. The interviews reveal the pervasiveness of a problem that can have lasting health impacts, and illustrate how normalized taking extreme measures has become for troops worried about meeting military requirements.

Dyal eventually sought out help and started recovering in October 2019, and in December was put on a temporary profile while she was receiving treatment, which meant she couldnt deploy but she could still participate in PT and height and weight. Three months later, her therapist determined she was eating enough to be able to deploy if necessary, so she was taken off the profile. She graduated from her program and has continued improving and recovering.

But it hasnt been an easy road, and it wasnt until she was in that recovery process that she realized how common the problems she faced actually were, after hearing stories from other people about their struggles and the methods theyd turned to in order to pass tape.

We are all suffering in silence, she said.

In spite of the Pentagons lack of available data, advocacy groups have tried to fill in the gaps. The Eating Disorders Coalition, a group of organizations that promote awareness of eating disorders and initiatives to address them, said over 3,500 service members were diagnosed with an eating disorder between 2004 and 2013, citing a study from the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center. The same study found that the rate of anorexia and bulimia were higher among Marines than the other services.

One study estimated almost half of U.S. service members reported at least one experience with weight stigma in the military in 2017, noting that stigma is associated with harmful thoughts and behaviors, including diet pill and laxative use, purging, and overeating.

Those behaviors fall into a category of disordered eating. While not the same as an eating disorder, disordered eating often lays the groundwork for someone developing one. The American Psychiatric Association outlines specific criteria that someone must meet to be diagnosed with an eating disorder like anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating. Disordered eating, however, means engaging in unhealthy and destructive eating behaviors such as restrictive or compulsive eating, skipping meals, vomiting, or taking laxatives or diet pills, according to the National Eating Disorders Collaboration.

These behaviors can be situational, explained Dr. Jillian Lampert, the chief strategy officer of The Emily Program and Veritas Collaborative, two organizations which focus on eating disorder treatment like when someone severely restricts their diet leading up to having their height and weight measured in the military. While eating disorders are believed to impact an estimated 10% of the population, Lampert said up to 50% of the population could be struggling with disordered eating.

Disordered eating, people do a lot of weird things with their eating. And a lot of them are societally supported, Lampert said. Eating disorders, people are doing a lot of stuff that they are not showing anyone else, and that they really dont want people to know about.

According to Katrina Velasquez, the chief policy officer with the coalition, all of the research thats out there shows eating disorders occur at a higher rate in the military than in the civilian population. And its not just the service members who are at risk; a 2007 study found that the rate of disordered eating among military dependents was significantly higher than the civilian population. The study found that military families should be considered at high risk for disordered eating and eating disorders.

Why? Velasquez says there is a perfect storm in the military, where there are normal risk factors for an eating disorder, but then there are additional triggering elements in the service.

Those other triggers can be post-traumatic stress disorder from combat or military sexual trauma or being weighed in front of your peers and judged by how you look in a uniform. The military on its own does not cause eating disorders, Velasquez said, but for someone who may be genetically predisposed to an eating disorder, the military can be the tipping point.

PTSD, military sexual trauma, and eating disorders go so, unfortunately well together, Lampert said. Thats why we believe we see a higher prevalence, and the diagnoses of eating disorders do seem to be increasing over the last five years or so.

Through conversations with service members, its abundantly clear how pervasive disordered eating habits and eating disorders are in the military, and how early in their careers it can start.

But these habits dont happen only among young service members, or just women. The problem extends to men and women, officers and enlisted, from new lieutenants to senior non-commissioned officers.

Army Capt. Jordan Holmlund was in ROTC when her mentor told her about the height and weight standards. Despite scoring well above the minimum standard during physical fitness tests, she wasnt the weight the height and weight table told her she should be.

I was seriously stressing about it, because ROTC and going into the National Guard at the time was something I really wanted to do, and it felt really stupid that this one thing me being able to lose weight and keep it off was going to be the thing that prevented me from actualizing this goal for myself, Holmlund said. She began adopting some very unhealthy eating and fitness habits, which lasted for several semesters during college.

Then a rumor started in her ROTC battalion that just passing the standard wasnt enough, and that anyone who got taped wouldnt be able to go into the Army. She got harder on herself to avoid being taped altogether.

While getting taped is in Army regulations and not technically considered a punishment, there is an overwhelming negative stigma attached to it. Every service member interviewed by Task & Purpose described a certain amount of shame that went along with the practice, summed up by a first lieutenant at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, who has heard soldiers say all the fat kids need to go get taped.

To say only fat service members get taped simply isnt true. The test equally punishes muscular men and women and service members whose body types dont fit the required measurements. That problem was highlighted in March by The Army Mom Life, an advocacy group for mothers in the Army, in a slideshow that showed photos of women and their height and weight results. The photos show women who appear muscular and fit, yet surpass their table weight and in some cases barely meet their body fat percentage requirement.

As one soldier noted on her photo, the terror over being taped has made her rethink strength training, opting to reduce the weight she tries to squat since she would fail if she gained 1.5 inches on her gluteus muscles.

I am perplexed by the idea that we are asking women to gain muscle, and then we use a tape that measures that muscle (gluteus) and punishes them for increasing the size of that muscle, she said.

An Army sergeant first class at the Pentagon said that despite excelling on his fitness tests, hes a naturally stocky guy, and the tape test has been the only thing thats ever threatened my career. He had good reason to be worried. If someone fails to meet the height and weight requirements, and fails the tape test, they are put on the Army Body Composition Program. Theyre given a maximum of six months to show satisfactory progress in losing weight, which the Army defines as three to eight pounds a month.

If a soldier fails to be within weight standards by six months and it is not due to a medical condition the soldier will be separated from the service. The Marine Corps has a similar policy, which says Marines who have not made satisfactory progress within those six months will be processed for administrative separation.

Aside from the threat of separation, theres fear that news of a soldier failing height and weight could damage their reputation. The Army major remarked that so much of peoples reputations are on these silly tests.

If word gets around then its going to professionally affect you, he said. Even if its something you can pass, its still just the fear of that possibility.

The sergeant first class added that he experienced harassment while at the Drill Sergeant Academy because even though he passed tape, he looked bigger than some of the other soldiers who all fit a very particular mold and were fairly skinny people.

Other soldiers interviewed by Task & Purpose echoed that sentiment saying the Army is holding onto an antiquated view of what a good soldier looks like, which they say often translates to a thin runners body. Even the Armys own standards lean on a subjective appearance; the services body composition program regulations say that commanders have the authority to direct a body fat assessment on any soldier that they determine does not present a soldierly appearance.

What the hell is a soldierly appearance? Lampert said. Where does the idea of a soldierly appearance come from Is there a soldierly appearance handbook that people get trained in? So they know what to look for? I kind of doubt it.

Matt Leonard, an Army spokesman, didnt provide specifics when asked to define soldierly appearance.

The determination of soldierly appearance is based on the requirement that soldiers are in compliance with body composition standards at all times, he said. The commanders assessment of the soldier takes into consideration the proper and safe fit of uniforms and equipment.

Lampert pointed out that a problem with that regulation is that if a commander is deciding that someones appearance is not soldierly enough, would a passing tape test change my mind about how I judge you?

I dont think so, she said.

The Marine Corps has similar regulations regarding how Marines look. The Military Appearance Program, a commanders program, focuses on personal appearance and can apply to things like personal hygiene, grooming, and uniform inspections as well as body fat percentage and body composition. Marines can be assigned to the program even if they meet height and weight standards.

Such an assignment would normally be oriented towards weight redistribution, vice loss, and a Marine should be given an opportunity to correct deficiencies before being formally assigned to the MAP, the regulation says. Marines have the ability to appeal their assignment to the program.

Theres also an argument that measuring someones health with BMI is not only outdated, but biased towards anyone who is not a white man. BMI was created 200 years ago by a Belgian mathematician who sought to measure the height and weight of the average man based on a sample of White, European men, according to The Washington Post, despite modern research studies showing differences in body shapes along race and ethnic lines.

Lampert, noting the Pentagons renewed efforts to combat racism and increase diversity in the military, said the existing standards are not representative across racial or ethnic identity at all.

So getting a more racially diverse military, you dont have standards that will reflect that in the standards, she said. Youre holding your soldiers against a historically white standard.

Experts also say its not accurate. Velasquez, with the Eating Disorder Coalition, said BMI doesnt take things like muscle mass, cardiac health, or metabolic health into consideration, which she and other experts agree are more important indicators of health. (For context, Dwayne The Rock Johnson was considered obese according to BMI standards, Mens Health reported in 2015.)

When were testing our service members on these standards, its kind of a one-size-fits-all that does not fit who we are as a nation anymore, she said.

The tape test, which is conducted if a service member is over the regulation weight, is not much better. Lampert called it a terrible and notoriously unreliable way to measure body fat. Notably, a Military Times study of the tape test in 2013 found it was inaccurate in measuring body fat for 10 out of 10 active duty service members. Dr. Jordan Moon, the director of the Sports Science Center Research Institute, told Military Times the tape test can vary by as much as 15%.

So, if your results show youre 20% fat, that means theres a 95% chance that youre really somewhere between [five] and 35% fat, Moon said.

One of the most common criticisms of height and weight standards is that they are often enforced differently depending on the unit, your leaders, or the person administering the test.

You have leaders who are like, Oh, you couldnt meet your table weight, so youre automatically a fat-ass, the sergeant first class said, adding that those kinds of comments have been prevalent for as long as hes been in the Army, usually brushed off as a joke by the people making them.

When the Army major was preparing for Airborne School in Fort Benning, Georgia, he said the fear of getting taped was so great that he was training non-stop to avoid being even close to the limit. The thought of letting people down was too much, especially when the tape test can vary depending on whos giving it to you.

You go in there potentially about to end your career or start the downfall, and its all dependent on how this person is going to tape you, the major said. You could have different people tape you how are they actually positioning the [the tape]? How tight are they squeezing the tape, some people say youve got to put your shoulders up, or are they making you stand normal? What are they letting you get away with? And theres so many little tricks Ive seen people hit themselves in the neck thinking it will kind of cause it to swell up, or theyll put their tongue at the top of their mouth If you can get your neck bigger and your waist smaller, then youre giving yourself every possible advantage.

A Marine Corps staff sergeant and Army captain echoed that view, saying that it was not uncommon for men to focus on working out their necks in the days leading up to a weigh-in to help them pass tape.

The Air Force recently became the first military service to get rid of the tape test, though its still unclear what a new body composition measurement would look like; the Army and Marine Corps still swear by it. And in the Armys case, soldiers say the existing standards and tape test arent accounting for the services new fitness test, which emphasizes building muscle for test events like the deadlift, standing power throw, and sprint-drag-carry.

Fundamentally, the Army system for height and weight is broken, said the captain, who is assigned to the 25th Infantry Division. And the Army has a very toxic understanding of health, weight, and fitness.

Ironically, the methods many are using to meet the militarys height and weight standards are hurting the physical fitness theyre supposed to support, and in the Armys case, they know it.

Army regulations factor in the possibility that soldiers may be doing things to rapidly lose weight, and even details various unsafe tactics soldiers may be using to do so. In AR 600-9, the guidance for the Army Body Composition Program, the service urges commanders to allow a seven day period between taking the fitness test and taking soldiers height and weight because some may attempt to lose weight quickly in the days leading up to a weigh-in.

This practice may result in the soldier being unable to perform his or her best on the [fitness test], if the two events are scheduled close together, the regulations say.

Navy regulations also recognize extreme body fat reducing methods, saying [d]ehydration methods are dangerous and sailors put themselves at risk during the [physical fitness assessment] if they have not reduced body fat through a proper diet and exercise program.

Thats because disordered eating habits can have a negative effect on someones ability to exercise. Malnutrition and dehydration, for example, lead to poor energy stores and muscle weakness, according to a study from the National Eating Disorder Collaboration. Extreme dietary restriction inevitably produces a deterioration in sport performance by reducing muscle strength and aerobic performance, a 2013 study published in the National Library of Medicine said. Purging can have the same effect, while also increasing the risk of dehydration, which can lead to fatigue and muscle cramps.

The study concluded that all indications are that eating disorders have a detrimental effect on both physical fitness and sport performance.

Leonard said that despite the Armys regulation, the service discourages unhealthy behaviors such as attempting to lose weight quickly before height and weight screening.

Capt. Holmlund knows how doing so can impact someone from experience. While she was restricting her diet, she said there was a significant difference in her ability to lift weights and do things like push-ups. Her overall score got worse because she felt very, very lethargic.

The same was true for the sergeant first class at the Drill Sergeant Academy, who began strictly limiting his diet to just a few specific things a day in an effort to drop weight, leaving him fatigued and unable to concentrate.

The first lieutenant at Schofield Barracks detailed a long struggle with eating disorders that began in college, but was exacerbated after she arrived at her first Army unit in 2018. Soon after she arrived, she failed the height and weight test, then the tape test. She began starving herself to help her pass.

In college I never admitted to myself that it was an eating disorder, she said. I was like, Im just doing what I have to do to make it in the Army.

After passing the tape test on her second attempt, she went to the Army Wellness Center on post to use the Bod Pod, a device that helps measure body composition. While talking with a civilian employee at the center, she broke down in tears, sobbing. The employee recommended therapists who specialize in eating disorders.

He reached out to me and I sat on it for a little while, she said. I kept telling myself I could just do this for four years, starve myself before weigh-ins, and still even when Im not starving myself Im still only ever thinking about how much I weigh and how much Im eating and what everyone must think of me they probably think Im too fat its all my mind could think about.

She finally decided to call a therapist in November 2018.

Taking that first step to getting help is no small feat; theres a fear among service members dealing with eating disorders that if they seek help, theyll lose the career theyre working so hard to keep. Its also difficult when leaders dont seem to grasp how best to care for an eating disorder.

Chandler Rand was in her first few months as a Marine in 2016 when an eating disorder she thought shed kicked as a teenager reappeared in a different form. She didnt tell the Marines about her history with an eating disorder when she enlisted after college, reasoning that it was under control.

Rand said she scored excellent on her physical fitness test. She wanted to be a leader, and a good one at that, so she did the required PT, and then additional work-outs at night.

Not disgracing the uniform is really what I was all about, she said. From the time I got up in the morning to the time I went to bed at night, I was just trying to put out 100%.

Two months into her time being stationed in Twentynine Palms, California, Rand learned her father had a stroke. Then, just days later, she was weighed for the first time since boot camp, and shed gained weight.

That was what brought her eating disorder back, in a different form than she experienced it as a teenager. She began not only limiting her eating but purging anything she did eat. It manifested itself further into panic attacks, she said, before her roommate convinced her to go talk to the chaplain. The chaplain pointed her to a psychiatrist who she credited as a lifesaver. Rand ultimately spent eight weeks of inpatient care in an eating disorder unit in a civilian facility before she was discharged from the Marine Corps.

Yet while she was seeking care, she said her Marine Corps leaders didnt understand how to help her. They saw her behaviors as suicidal, but she wasnt suicidal she just needed help getting her eating disorder under control. What she needed, Rand said, was a meal plan that keeps me accountable and some therapy. Instead, she was screened to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for suicidal ideation.

After I was screened, they said I dont need to be admitted to a psych ward, I just have an eating disorder, Rand recalled. Which is like, thank you, Ive been telling you that.

When asked what kind of training leaders receive on eating disorders, Maj. Jim Stenger, a Marine Corps spokesman, said leaders at all levels are encouraged to constantly look out for each others health and safety, and are constantly reminded of the resources available to Marines who may be experiencing distress.

Caring for ones fellow Marines could mean recognizing a problem, seeking out resources on their behalf, and then referring that person to a medical authority who can provide the appropriate care, for example, Stenger said.

When Rand started inpatient care with the civilian facility, she said she felt like she could breathe again. She was being cared for by people who knew what her disorder was, and how it needed to be treated. Two other Marines were also being treated for eating disorders while she was there.

I was like well this is silly, theres 10 seats at the table for eating disorder treatment and so far three of us have been active duty Marines. Not to mention veterans who are also at the table, she said. Thats when I started realizing, this is a problem.

The Army and Marine Corps are currently studying their body composition programs. The Marine Corps is asking for volunteers until early 2022 in Quantico, Virginia to undergo three different body composition assessments, according to a press release, to help ensure that Marine Corps policies and standards strike the right balance between health, performance, fitness, and military appearance.

All body fat estimation methods, including the Department of Defense mandated circumference measurement technique (tape), have inherent margins of error, Maj. Stenger said on Wednesday, adding that Marine Corps performance standards are in a constant state of analysis, assessment, and modification if necessary to ensure that they best support the overall readiness of the force.

The Army will study the body compositions of over 2,000 soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, starting in October, according to an Army Times report. The intent is to gather information regarding the taping of soldiers, body fat, and body changes, and considerations of the relationship between body fat and fitness levels.

Leonard, the Army spokesman, said the study will help the Army make informed decisions on future updates which could include changes to regulatory guidance, training and instructional programs, and to the mechanics of the Army Body Composition Program. The findings will be presented to senior leaders by March 2022.

The [Army Body Composition Program] study is part of the Armys focus on holistic health and fitness to increase readiness and prevent injuries, he said.

Continued here:
Inside the US military's pervasive culture of eating disorders - Task & Purpose

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August 2, 2021

The Wyoming Injury and Violence Prevention Program, which is part of the Wyoming Department of Health (WDH), is kicking off a new program to help prevent falls among state residents.

Falls and fall-related injuries are the leading cause of unintentional injury-related hospitalizations and the third leading cause of unintentional deaths in our state, said Jeff Grant, injury prevention coordinator with WDH.

Grant said nationally one in three older adults fall each year and every 14 seconds an older adult is seen in an emergency department for a fall-related injury according to National Council on Aging information.

The good news is the number of falls may be reduced through practical life-style adjustments, and by participating in evidence-based fall prevention programs. Thats why were offering this new program called Bingocize across the state, Grant said.

Bingocize is an evidence-based 10-week program that combines a bingo-like game with exercise and health education. The unique approach that includes bingo in a group setting helps make the game fun, familiar and social.

WDH is currently providing the program to 12 senior centers across Wyoming on a pilot basis: Golden Hour Senior Center in Green River, Thayne Senior Center, Carbon County Senior Center, Rendezvous Pointe in Pinedale, Niobrara Senior Center, Ten Sleep Senior Center, Kemmerer Senior Center, Casper Senior Center, Star Valley Senior Center, Cody Senior Center and Cokeville Senior Center.

Grant noted expansion of the program into other communities is a potential future goal.

Falls are preventable and are not a normal part of aging, Grant said. Older adults who are concerned about falling and want to have fun as they learn how to prevent future falls should consider participating.

For more information, contact a local senior center or Grant at 307-777-2424 or jeff.grant@wyo.gov.

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Department Offering New Program to Help Prevent Falls - Wyoming Department - Wyoming Department of Health

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Photo Submitted

Jessica Danley, clinical education coordinator, U of A Speech and Hearing Clinic

The U of A Speech and Hearing Clinic will offer new therapy services for adults starting Aug.23, including specialized programs for swallowing difficulties, vocal rehabilitation and accent modification.

Student clinicians will be assisted and supervised by speech-language pathologists who are licensed and certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Swallowing Concerns

The national organization reports that 1 in 25 adults experience swallowing difficulty every year.

Signs of swallowing problems may include complaints of pain, a sensation of food "sticking" in the throat, excessive coughing while eating or even unintentional weight loss. These issues can affect an individual's quality of life and overall health, said Jessica Danley, clinical education coordinator and clinical educator at the U of A Speech and Hearing Clinic.

"Our academic coursework and clinical training prepares student clinicians to enter hospitals and other healthcare positions with a firm understanding of current best practices and the ability to think critically through medically complex conditions that affect swallowing skills," she said.

Students gain hands-on experience with specialized diagnostic equipment and develop structured exercise-based treatment plans to help adults eat safely and comfortably. Individuals who may benefit from swallowing therapy services include those with a history of neurologic conditions like stroke, Parkinson's disease or a traumatic brain injury, Danley said.

Therapy for the Aging Voice

Student clinicians will also assist in providing uniquely designed vocal rehabilitation techniques to older adults experiencing presbyphonia, otherwise known as "the aging voice."

It's common for people to experience a natural decline in vocal abilities as they age, but it can negatively affect the daily communication of active older adults. It's important to sustain vocal endurance when delivering a presentation, projecting one's voice across a theater stage or speaking to family members over the phone.

The U of A clinic offers adult voice therapy patients to participate in a structured and intensive rehabilitation program designed to improve vocal longevity.

What is Accent Modification?

Accents are a natural part of spoken language and are not a speech or language disorder. Since accents are marked by our regional variations in speech production, we all have one, Danley said. However, speakers with strong accents may seek help from a licensed speech-language pathologist for assistance with building clearer communication skills. The process of changing or adjusting an accent is known as accent modification.

The goal of this collaborative service is to improve intelligibility and communicative effectiveness for oral English pronunciation, Danley said. "We tailor our program to meet the unique needs of business executives, university professors, graduate teaching assistants, medical professionals and others seeking help in this area," she said.

Larry Aslin, M.A. CCC-SLP, will be leading the accent modification program this fall at the U of A Speech and Hearing Clinic. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech and Dramatic Arts from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1970, and a master's degree in Speech Pathology-Audiology from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1973.

Jessica Danley, M.S. CCC-SLP, CBIS, will be leading the swallowing and voice therapy programs at the clinic. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of North Texas in 2006, and a master's degree in Speech & Hearing Sciences from Tennessee State University in 2009.

To learn more about these services or to schedule an appointment, callthe clinicat 479-575-4509 or email Courtney Vaughn atspclinic@uark.edu.

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New Clinical Services Available to Adults at U of A Speech and Hearing Clinic - University of Arkansas Newswire

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Heres what you need to know:A Covid-19 testing site in Palmetto, Fla., on Monday. President Biden singled out Florida and Texas, where cases have risen sharply.Credit...Octavio Jones/Reuters

President Biden, seeking to reiterate that the rise of the highly contagious variant in the United States is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, voiced his frustration with leaders who have been slow to provide coronavirus relief or get shots in arms.

Mr. Biden singled out Florida and Texas, where cases have risen sharply, criticizing the pandemic response by the governors in those states.

We need leadership from everyone, he said. Some governors arent willing to do the right things to make this happen. I say to these governors, please, if you arent going to help, at least get out of the way for people who are doing the right thing.

transcript

transcript

I want to be crystal clear about whats happening in the country today. We have a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Now I know theres a lot of misinformation out there, so here are the facts. If youre vaccinated, you are highly unlikely to get Covid-19. And even if you do, the chances are you wont show any symptoms. And if you do, theyll most likely be very mild. As of now, seven states not only ban mask mandates, but also ban them in their school districts, even for young children who cannot get vaccinated. Some states have even banned businesses and universities from requiring workers and students to be masked or vaccinated. And the most extreme of those measures is like the one in Texas that say state universities or community colleges could be fined if it allows a teacher to ask her unvaccinated students to wear a mask. What are we doing? The escalation of cases is particularly concentrated in states with low vaccination rates. Just two states, Florida and Texas, account for one-third of all new Covid-19 cases in the entire country, just two states. Look, we need leadership from everyone. If some governors arent willing to do the right thing to beat this pandemic then they should allow businesses and universities who want to do the right thing to be able to do it. I say to these governors, Please help. But you arent going to help at least get out of the way, of the people who are trying to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives.

Mr. Biden has been under pressure to redirect the American publics focus after days of policy whiplash, shifting directives on mask usage, and roiling debates about requiring workers to receive the vaccine.

Mr. Bidens speech reflected in blunt terms what his top advisers have been saying, with varying degrees of success, for days: that the people who get sickest from the Delta variant are unvaccinated, and that his administration is working to make vaccines available to every person who needs one. Fully vaccinated people are protected against the worst outcomes of Covid-19 caused by the Delta variant.

On Tuesday, Mr. Biden was plainspoken and direct in his remarks, calling the rise of the Delta variant a largely preventable tragedy that will get worse before it gets better. He also tackled a criticism directed at his White House in recent days: that his administration had not done enough to synthesize information in a way that Americans could understand.

I know theres a lot of misinformation out there, so here are the facts, Mr. Biden said. If you are vaccinated, you are highly unlikely to get Covid-19. and even if you do, the chances are you wont show any symptoms. And if you do, theyll most likely be very mild. Vaccinated people are almost never hospitalized.

Mr. Biden reiterated his earlier mandate that all federal workers must be vaccinated or subject to strict requirements.

If you want to do business with the federal government, he said, get your workers vaccinated.

He added that the private sector, including companies like Wal-Mart, Google and Tyson Foods, were taking similar steps. Even Fox has vaccination requirements, he quipped.

Mr. Biden had said earlier this year that he wanted to see 70 percent of eligible Americans at least partly vaccinated by July 4. The country hit that goal on Monday, about a month late and only after the Delta variant began disrupting the progress touted by the president and public health officials.

There was no celebration of reaching the delayed milestone. Instead, the Biden administration has been in a race to encourage vaccine-reluctant and vaccine-refusing Americans to receive shots as caseloads rise in states with high unvaccinated populations.

The vaccines are doing exactly what they are supposed to do when it comes to keeping you out of the hospital, out of serious disease, and certainly, preventing your death, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top disease expert, told reporters.

The White House has also struggled to put into context the threat of the Delta variant to those who are vaccinated. Experts say that infections in vaccinated people so called breakthrough infections are still relatively uncommon, and that even in those cases, the vaccines appear to protect against severe illness and death.

Nationally, new cases have reached an average of about 86,000 a day as of Monday, a dramatic jump from about 13,000 daily cases a month ago but still far fewer than in January. Hospitalizations have risen as well, but hospitalizations and deaths remain a fraction of their devastating winter peaks.

Mr. Bidens pledge to donate 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses is by far the largest yet by a single country, but it would fully inoculate only about 3 percent of the worlds population. The United States will pay $3.5 billion for the Pfizer-BioNTech shots, about $7 apiece, which Pfizer described as a not for profit price much less than the $20 it has paid for domestic use.

In a fact sheet released on Tuesday, the administration said that it would work with programs focused on the equitable distribution of vaccines, including Covax, to ensure that the doses arrive in the countries that are in the most need. But health officials in countries that have received some of the doses have already warned that additional funding is needed to train people to administer the shots and fuel vehicles that transport the vaccines to clinics in remote areas.

Mr. Biden also announced during a speech at the White House on Tuesday that the United States has donated more than 110 million vaccine doses globally, a down payment on a pledge he made to send half a billion doses of vaccine to poorer countries over the next year.

Mr. Biden, who for months was under pressure to share doses of the vaccine, is now seeking to position his administration as a global leader in inoculating the rest of the world amid the spread of highly contagious variants of the virus.

The virus knows no boundaries, Mr. Biden said. Theres no wall high enough or ocean wide enough to keep us safe from the virus in other countries.

Azi Paybarah contributed reporting.

Although most children with Covid-19 recover within a week, a small percentage experience long-term symptoms, according to a new study of more than 1,700 British children. The researchers found that 4.4 percent of children have symptoms that last four weeks or longer, while 1.8 percent have symptoms that last for eight weeks or longer.

The findings suggest that what has sometimes been called long Covid may be less common in children than adults. In a previous study, some of the same researchers found that 13.3 percent of adults with Covid-19 had symptoms that lasted at least four weeks and 4.5 percent had symptoms that lasted at least eight weeks.

It is reassuring that the number of children experiencing long-lasting symptoms of Covid-19, is low, Dr. Emma Duncan, an endocrinologist at Kings College London and lead author of the study, said in a statement. Nevertheless, a small number of children do experience long illness with Covid-19, and our study validates the experiences of these children and their families.

The study, published on Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, is based on an analysis of data collected by the Covid Symptom Study smartphone app. The paper focuses on 1,734 children between the ages of 5 and 17 who tested positive for the virus and developed symptoms between Sept. 1 and Jan. 24. Parents or caregivers reported the childrens symptoms in the app.

In most cases, the illness was mild and short. Children were sick for six days, on average, and experienced an average of three symptoms. The most common symptoms were headache and fatigue.

But a small subset of children experienced lingering symptoms, including fatigue, headache and a loss of smell. Children between 12 and 17 were sicker for longer than younger children and more likely to experience symptoms that lasted at least four weeks.

We hope our results will be useful and timely for doctors, parents and schools caring for these children and of course the affected children themselves, Dr. Duncan said.

The researchers also compared children who tested positive for the coronavirus with those who reported symptoms in the app but tested negative for the virus. Children who tested negative and may have had other illnesses, such as colds or the flu recovered more quickly and were less likely to have lingering symptoms than those with Covid. They were ill for three days, on average, and just 0.9 percent of children had symptoms that lasted at least four weeks.

Recently, a 28-year-old patient died of Covid-19 at CoxHealth Medical Center in Springfield, Mo. Last week, a 21-year-old college student was admitted to intensive care.

Many of the patients with Covid-19 now arriving at the hospital are not just unvaccinated they are much younger than 50, a stark departure from the frail, older patients seen when the pandemic first surged last year.

In Baton Rouge, La., young adults with none of the usual risk factors for severe forms of the disease such as obesity or diabetes are also arriving in E.R.s, desperately ill. It isnt clear why they are so sick.

Physicians working in Covid hot spots across the nation say that the patients in their hospitals are not like the patients they saw last year. Almost always unvaccinated, the new arrivals tend to be younger, many in their 20s or 30s. And they seem sicker than younger patients were last year, deteriorating more rapidly.

Doctors have coined a new phrase to describe them: younger, sicker, quicker. Many physicians treating them suspect that the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which now accounts for more than 80 percent of new infections nationwide, is playing a role.

Studies done in a handful of other countries suggest that the variant may cause more severe disease, but there is no definitive data showing that the new variant is somehow worse for young adults.

Some experts believe the shift in patient demographics is strictly a result of lower vaccination rates in this group.

As of Sunday, more than 80 percent of Americans ages 65 to 74 were fully vaccinated, compared with fewer than half of those ages 18 to 39, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The vaccines are powerfully effective against severe illness and death after infection with any variant of the virus, including Delta. A vast majority of hospitalized patients nationwide roughly 97 percent are unvaccinated.

I dont think theres good evidence yet about whether it causes more severe disease, Dr. Adam Ratner, associate professor of pediatrics and microbiology at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, said of the Delta variant.

With a new surge of Covid-19 infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve Pfizer-BioNTechs coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people familiar with the effort said.

President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had taken an all-hands-on-deck approach to the work.

Giving final approval to the Pfizer vaccine rather than relying on the emergency authorization granted late last year by the F.D.A. could help increase inoculation rates at a moment when the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus is sharply driving up the number of new cases.

A number of universities and hospitals, the Defense Department and at least one major city, San Francisco, are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. Final approval could also help mute misinformation about the safety of vaccines and clarify legal issues about mandates.

Federal regulators have been under growing public pressure to fully approve Pfizers vaccine ever since the company filed its application on May 7. I just have not sensed a sense of urgency from the F.D.A. on full approval, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said in an interview on Tuesday. And I find it baffling, given where we are as a country in terms of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

Although 192 million Americans 58 percent of the total population and 70 percent of the nations adults have received at least one vaccine shot, many remain vulnerable to the ultracontagious, dominant Delta variant. The country is averaging nearly 86,000 new infections a day, an increase of 142 percent in just two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

Recent polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been tracking public attitudes during the pandemic, have found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people said that they would be more likely to get a shot with a fully approved vaccine. But the pollsters warned that many respondents did not understand the regulatory process and might have been looking for a proxy justification not to get a shot.

The upcoming school year in Idaho may not be conducted entirely in-person, as planned, unless more people in the state get vaccinated, Gov. Brad Little said on Tuesday.

Simply put, we need more Idahoans to choose to receive the vaccine, Mr. Little said, adding that the vaccinations are needed if schoolchildren are going to have a chance at a normal school year, one that is entirely in person without outbreaks and quarantine.

Speaking on a call with reporters, he added, If you are among the folks waiting to see about the vaccine, please consider talking to a doctor about it. Not only for your sake, but to ensure our kids are safe and back in school.

A telephone message left at the governors office on Tuesday night was not immediately returned.

In March 2020, as the pandemic was raging across the country, schools in Idaho closed their doors to in-person learning. According to Mr. Littles comments, the plan to conduct the upcoming school year in person could be in jeopardy.

In Idaho, 37 percent of all people are fully vaccinated, far below the national average of nearly 50 percent, according to data collected by The New York Times. As of Tuesday, the seven-day average of new cases in Idaho is 290, the highest it has been since April, according to The Timess data.

The effort to vaccinate more people has grown increasingly polarized in recent months. On Tuesday, President Biden, a Democrat, singled out governors in Texas and Florida, where cases are rising. If you arent going to help, at least get out of the way of the people who are trying to do the right thing, he said.

Unlike those governors, Mr. Little, a conservative Republican in his first term, has taken a relatively moderate approach to the pandemic.

He resisted enacting a mask mandate for the state, but in May he repealed an executive order issued by his lieutenant governor while he was out of state on business, barring localities from issuing them, KTVB 7 reported.

Earlier this year, he signed an executive order preventing state agencies, but not private companies, from requiring vaccines, Idaho News 6 reported.

In Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, let a statewide mask mandate expire in March. Now, coronavirus cases fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant have skyrocketed in Arkansas, and Mr. Hutchinson is trying to partly reverse course. He is urging state lawmakers to allow schools to require students to wear masks.

Richard Fausset contributed reporting.

transcript

transcript

So today, I announce a new approach, which were calling the Key to N.Y.C. Pass, the key to New York City. When you hear those words, I want you to imagine the notion that because someones vaccinated, they can do all the amazing things that are available in this city. This is a miraculous place, literally full of wonders. And if youre vaccinated, all thats going to open up to you. Youll have the key. You can open the door. But if youre unvaccinated, unfortunately, you will not be able to participate in many things. Thats the point were trying to get across. The Key to N.Y.C. Pass will be a first-in-the-nation approach. It will require vaccination for workers and customers in indoor dining and indoor fitness facilities, indoor entertainment facilities. This is going to be a requirement. The only way to patronize these establishments indoors will be if youre vaccinated at least one dose. The same for folks in terms of work, theyll need at least one dose. This new policy will be phased in over the coming weeks. So weve been working with the business community, getting input. Were going to do more over the next few weeks. The final details of the policy will be announced and implemented in the week of Aug. 16.

New York City will become the first U.S. city to require proof of at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine for a variety of activities for workers and customers indoor dining, gyms and performances to put pressure on people to get vaccinated, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday morning.

The program, similar to mandates issued in France and Italy last month, will start on Aug. 16, and after a transition period, enforcement will begin on Sept. 13, when schools are expected to reopen and more workers could return to offices in Manhattan. Mr. de Blasio has been moving aggressively to get more New Yorkers vaccinated to curtail a third wave of coronavirus cases amid concern about the spread of the Delta variant. He is also requiring city workers to get vaccinated or to face weekly testing, and he has offered a $100 incentive for the public.

If you want to participate in our society fully, youve got to get vaccinated, he said at a news conference. Its time.

This is going to be a requirement, he added. The only way to patronize these establishments is if you are vaccinated, at least one dose. The same for folks in terms of work, they will need at least one dose, he said, holding up a single finger.

On Monday Mr. de Blasio stopped short of reinstating an indoor mask mandate even as large urban areas, including Los Angeles County, San Francisco and Washington, and at least one state did so. He said he wanted to focus on increasing vaccination rates, and was concerned that requiring everyone to wear masks would remove an incentive for those who are considering getting vaccinated now.

Nationally, new cases have reached an average of about 86,000 a day as of Monday, a dramatic jump from about 13,000 daily cases a month ago but still far fewer than in January. Hospitalizations have risen as well, but hospitalizations and deaths remain a fraction of their devastating winter peaks.

About 66 percent of adults in the city are fully vaccinated, according to city data, although pockets of the city have lower rates. The federal government has authorized three vaccines for emergency use in the United States: The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines both take two doses while Johnson & Johnson uses a single dose. Individuals are not considered to be fully vaccinated until two weeks after their final dose.

Fully vaccinated people are protected against the worst outcomes of Covid-19 caused by the Delta variant, but theres a sharp drop in the efficacy if an individual has only had one dose of a two-dose vaccine.

The new program, dubbed Key to NYC Pass, is not a particular document, but rather the strategy of requiring proof of vaccination for workers and customers at indoor dining, gyms, entertainment and performances, including Broadway, the mayor said.

Indoor movies and concerts will also require people to show proof of vaccination to enter. People will be able to continue to dine outdoors without showing proof of vaccination.

To enter indoor venues, patrons must use the citys new app, the states Excelsior app or a paper card to show proof of vaccination. The mayor did not say how the city will handle vaccinations like AstraZeneca or Sinovac that may be common among international tourists.

Children younger than age 12 will not be excluded from venues because they are not eligible to be vaccinated, he said. But the details of those plans remain to be worked out. We have to figure out how to do things in a safe manner, the mayor said.

The city will issue a health commissioners order and a mayoral executive order to put the vaccine mandate in place. The six weeks before enforcement begins on Sept. 13 will be spent educating businesses and doing outreach, he said.

The mayor said the city consulted with the U.S. Department of Justice and got a very clear message that it was legal to move forward with these mandates, even without full F.D.A. approval.

Only people fully vaccinated in the state of New York can get an Excelsior pass, which confirms vaccination against city and state records. Everyone, however, can use the citys new app, NYC Covid Safe, because it is simply a digital photo album that stores a picture that a person takes of their own vaccination card and does not double check it against any registry. A paper card from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must always be accepted, too.

Reactions were largely supportive of vaccine restrictions imposed Tuesday by Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, the most stringent steps announced recently in any major U.S. city, though some health experts suggested they might not go far enough. Workers and customers in New York will soon have to provide proof that they have received at least one vaccine dose before engaging in activities like indoor dining, exercising in gyms and seeing performances, Mr. de Blasio said on Tuesday.

The new requirements could have been rolled out sooner, some health experts said, and vaccination and mask requirements could be further expanded.

Still, the new restrictions got a positive response from one important trade group, the N.Y.C. Hospitality Alliance, which represents restaurants and bars, a sector still recovering from months of limited capacity and other restrictions.

Andrew Rigie, the trade groups executive director, said that the new restrictions could avert another broad lockdown. The rules may prove an essential move to protecting public health and ensuring that New York City does not revert to restrictions and shut down orders, he said in a statement.

At the White House, the press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration supported local efforts to control the virus.

Different communities and states are going to take steps to protect the people living in their states, and also incentivize, whether its through carrots and sticks, more people getting vaccinated, Ms. Psaki said at a news conference. The federal government, she said, has no plans to issue similar guidance on a national level.

Later in the afternoon, President Biden reiterated the point, saying he thought that more cities and states should announce rules like New York Citys.

Mr. de Blasio said the program will start on Aug. 16, and that enforcement will begin on Sept. 13, when schools are expected to open and more workers could return to the office.

Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University, said that she wished the mayor had imposed the restrictions earlier and that she did not see the point in further delaying them.

Once vaccination was widely available to people, which was weeks ago, I think requiring vaccination for access to such venues would have been appropriate, Dr. El-Sadr said.

The citys vaccination program has slowed in recent months, despite efforts like a $100 payment to people who get vaccinated and inoculating people at home.

Fully vaccinated people are protected against the worst outcomes of Covid-19 caused by the Delta variant, but theres a sharp drop in the efficacy if an individual has only had one dose of a two-dose vaccine.

Dr. Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist at New York Universitys Grossman School of Medicine and an adviser to city officials, also recommended that city officials expand their message about the importance of masking and testing, even for vaccinated people, noting that we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

About a week ago, the federal government updated its health guidance, recommending that people wear masks indoors in virus hot spots even if they are vaccinated.

Mr. de Blasio said on Monday that he strongly recommended that people wear masks indoors, but that he would not immediately impose a requirement in the city, as many municipalities have.

Wuhan, the city in central China where the pandemic first emerged, is planning to test all of its 11 million residents for the coronavirus, officials said on Tuesday, as they announced the first local transmission there since last spring.

The city, the first to show the world the damage the virus could wreak, had not recorded any local cases since May of last year, after a harsh two-and-a-half month lockdown helped eradicate the virus there. But city officials said they had detected three symptomatic local cases in the previous 24 hours, as well as five asymptomatic ones.

Wuhan had some of Chinas strictest measures to stop the spread of the virus, and many residents continued to wear masks even as people elsewhere relaxed as the country brought the outbreak under control. But China is battling several new flare-ups as the Delta variant makes inroads, including in the cities of Nanjing and Zhangjiajie, and several more in the countrys south. The authorities in Zhangjiajie also barred residents and tourists from leaving the city, imposing a de facto lockdown.

Wuhan had previously tested all its residents in two weeks last spring, mobilizing the Chinese Communist Partys vast network of local officials in a feat unprecedented at the time. Since then, the country has carried out several mass testing campaigns.

Officials said that Wuhan was a major transportation hub and that it was crucial to cut off any further transmission there. Liu Dongru, a provincial health official, said at a news conference on Tuesday that the authorities would firmly protect the hard-won results against the epidemic.

Original post:
Biden calls Delta Variant a Largely Preventable Tragedy That Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better. - The New York Times

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The local hands-on childrens museum in Binghamton has a new leader.

Doctor Brenda Myers has been named Executive Director of the Discovery Center of the Southern Tier.

The childrens museum says Dr. Myers is a researcher and practitioner of social cognitive theory and instructional design with over 36 years of experience in education, leadership and instruction. Most recently, Dr. Myers was the superintendent of schools for districts in New York and Connecticut.

Interim Executive Director Cheryl Dutko will continue with the Discovery Center as Assistant Executive Director according to board president, Erik Jones.

Dr. Myers officially begins her new role August 4.

Residents have a chance to meet the new director during an event for adults at the Discovery Center. The annual Evening of Wine and Roses fundraiser is being held Thursday, August 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Discovery Centers Story Garden. Tickets are still available at http://www.thediscoverycenter.org.

The Discovery Center is located next to Ross Park Zoo on Morgan Road on the South Side of the City of Binghamton.

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Discovery Center of Southern Tier Gets New Executive Director - wnbf.com

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