Comment by turtlemir | Hacker News Reader

Comment by turtlemir | Hacker News Reader

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I feel there are so many health issues plaguing our modern population.

-Bad conditions for eyes leads to growing amounts of glasses wearers, glasses make an active healthy lifestyle harder, early health development seems really important (playing physically as a kid) putting glasses on kids seems a terrible thing, and worse, people act like this is normal.

-The types of food we eat, and our bad breathing habits (maybe from posture or air pollution), maybe even our tongue posture, leave us with poor jawlines, poor facial structure.

-Our disconnect from the natural world leaves us unwhole.

-The extreme of either sedentary lifestyles (office worker) or too repetitively physical (warehouse worker) breaks people down.

Its really sad, most people I see today seem really unhealthy. Fat or flabby, aching body, bad posture, stressed out. I fell into the trap too, had to loose 50 pounds recently. Cleaned up diet, working on posture, flexibility, strength, proper muscle activation, knowing ones body. And that is hard to do, maybe only possible because a WFH job lends towards healthy living. Most are not so fortunate. Also having no family or responsibility beside myself really helps. But neglecting such things are not sustainable for society.

We need a society where being healthy is easier, and better rewarded.

I am sorry if this rant is not acceptable to Hacker News, but I wish as a society our focus was "what makes us healthy". Literally that should be a primary principle in guiding our politics. Compared to the rest of history, we are living in a special time, at least in developed countries. We have the means to be creating healthy, beautiful, smart, well rounded, well adjusted individuals. But I feel the opposite is happening, and it seems like the majority of people don't care

Your comment makes me feel mixed feelings. First, I think generally speaking, we do live in a time and society where people can be and are healthier than ever before. I agree with you, that it should be a priority to further improve that situation. Some of your points however (e.g. glasses, jawline, beatiful, well rounded) sound like you are confusing modern beauty standards with good health. As someone who really enjoys wearing glasses, I am also a tiny bit offended by your view :) And kids seeing well with glasses vs not seeing sharp is an absolute no brainer to me... There are glasses for doing sports too. The main driver of poor health today, imo is inequality. Being healthy is a privilege. While, generally speaking, illness does not care about your net worth, treatment options do. Eating healthy is expensive in terms of money and time. So are healthy hobbies, physio therapists and so on. Living a healthy lifestyle should not be better rewarded but more accessible.

I have worn glasses since I was a kid, and I didn't ever really mind too much (though I'm starting to be bummed out by it now that I'm in my 40s and my eye accommodation is starting to noticeably atrophy), but... you "really enjoy" wearing glasses? Why? How? Regardless, even if you have vision that doesn't require glasses, you can always just wear un-powered lenses--or even just empty frames--if that's what makes you happy...

Health is just a means to an end. Eating healthy and exercising comes at a cost. There is no benefit I see for me in having different jaw lines or facial structure. I don't need to live as long as possible. I just want to maximize the enjoyment while I am here. So I just do enough so I have the body to do my favorite hobbies.

Some hobbies also happen to be exercise and can be done nearly daily. Just do more of them and now there's a much lower 'cost' to exercise. Whether or not you find these types of hobbies enjoyable is another story.

Well, the jaw is related to tongue posture, breathing and facial pain, migraines etc. Also the muscle imbalances, back pain, weird walking is also related to the jaw and its symmetry.

I know this because I suffer from it

"Our disconnect from the natural world" makes us not die at 40 from a broken leg.

> putting glasses on kids seems a terrible thing, and worse, people act like this is normal

I'm not following on this one - is it because this may make them less physically active?

You should be asking what kind of vision problems they may have, that got them the glasses in the first place. For example, I have astigmatism, have crossed eyes without glasses, and +8 power correction. I had to have surgery when I was 3 years old just to be able to get glasses in the future. Not having glasses is a great way to make me miserable and unable to see or read anything.

The intent is to reduce the likelihood of these conditions developing by encouraging exposure to sunlight and far distances as a child.

Not wearing glasses is a poor solution, to say the least. I, personally, would much rather have myopia as an adult than be unable to see or read well for years as a kid.

There’s an interesting middle ground that’s being studied: “peripheral defocus” lenses. The idea, as I understand it, is to give sharp central vision, but to blur the peripheral vision in a way that encourages the eyes to grow appropriately.

I got plenty of both of those things as a child (grew up on a farm). I still needed glasses from the age of 9 to see far away things clearly. Some people get cursed with bad genes.

There are plenty of people who got exposure to sunlight and far distances as a child who need glasses anyway.

My dad grew up on a farm, and rarely spent much time inside, still needed strong glasses all his life to see.

Anecdotally, I grew up playing outdoors on a farm, not much computer time until I was 11 or 12 or so, which is also around the time I had to get glasses with almost the same prescription strength as my father.

Either computers are quick to ruin eyesight or it was genetic.

Hence GP's use of the word reduce instead of eliminate

In my case, I'm farsighted; and while screen time and lack of sunlight can make myopia worse, there's already a genetic tendency that is being aggravated.

Farsighted though is awfully convenient for staring at screens with a good prescription - at worst, my vision improves over time. :)

I'm glad you're getting healthier, but what are the odds that all of your theories have any basis in reality, after spending , I'm guessing, years or decades living an unhealthy lifestyle.

Like, do you really think your tongue position is affecting your facial and jaw structure? I'm guessing you believe in "mewing", and every before/after image I have seen has just been a joke.

I'm waiting for them to drop mouth-breather as some kind of slur.

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