7/26/2019 Editorial the Hindu 3Jan
1/1
10| THE HINDU SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2016NOIDA/DELHI
WEEKEND
BEING
Indias annual running calendar listsaround 150 marathons and
runs thesedays. Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ben-galuru, Delhi, Pune
have a growing run-ner community that attempt the 5K, 10K ,half
marathon and full marathon withgreat gusto. Weekday short runs are
sup-plemented with weekend long-distancegroup runs and rigorous
exercising. Butwith running bringing in much braggingrights, and
looking easy, are beginnersjumping headlong into something that
re-quires more thought and planning thanimagined? Are they injuring
themselves
unnecessarily in a hurry to win the race?Many, like Ashwin Bala
of Runners For
Life, whos been running over six yearsnow and is part of the
organising team forthree of Bengalurus marathons, believeits a
problem of too much, too soon.Either they increase their mileage
be-yond the 10 per cent rule [of not increas-ing ones weekly
mileage by more than 10per cent over the previous week], or
in-crease their pace without building an ad-equate aerobic base,
points out Mr. Bala.
Slow and steady
Marathoner Ashok Nath, a seven-timeconsecutive Boston Marathon
qualifierand three-time winner at the StandardChartered Mumbai
Marathon whocoaches and mentors runners through hisorganisation
Catalyst Sports, also be-lieves runners just speed things up
un-necessarily at the outset. He observes:Initially there are some
short-term re-sults but as the body cant keep pace withthe
increasing levels of stress, aches-pains-injuries start to happen.
Statisticsreveal that annually 65 per cent of run-ners face some
running-related injury.Our modern lifestyle has led to our bod-
ies carrying stress, tension and, in allprobability, excess
weight, he says. Thehuman body is capable of great things butyou
must adhere to gradual progressionand not be dictated by what your
neigh-bour, best friend, or the aunty down the
street is capable of doing. Another hugemistake beginners make
is that they dontget enough exercise. Sports physiother-apist and a
marathoner and triathlete forthe last five years, Dr. Gladson
Johnson,who runs Attitude Prime, believes exer-cise is
medicine.
He says, Many runners dont do suffi-cient strength and
flexibility exercises tocomplement their running. Hence inju-ries
become a natural consequence ofpoor training. He suggests that
begin-ners should have a balanced proportionof running and strength
and flexibility ex-ercises first. They must run a minimumof two
days per week with three days ofstrength and flexibility exercises
and twodays of rest. Stick to one category for atleast a year do
only 10-km runs for ayear and then take it forward.
To coach or not?
The other huge debate is whether youneed a coach to teach you
how to run oryou can figure things out with the help of
a support group and peer-sharing. Mr.Nath is very clear that
while running mayseem simple, it is actually a skill
sport.Successful distance running is all aboutenergy management,
and if you have theright running technique then you con-sume (or
waste) less energy and are ableto maintain your running form
longer.The longer you are able to maintain form,the faster and
further you are able to run,he argues.
Mr. Bala, however, believes you can runwithout a coach and not
harm yourself ifyou simply follow certain general ruleswith regard
to running start slow andgradually work your way up. The advan-tage
or rather the belief is that if you have
a coach, he/she will guide you and not letyou commit
mistakes.
The perfect posture
There is variation in the running skillsto be practised for
short- and long-dis-tance races, for running uphill and down-hill,
for handling fatigue, to pick up thepace, elaborates Mr. Nath. It
is onlywhen your upper body, lower body andmid-section are
synchronised that youtruly experience fluency in your running.This
requires diligent practice as onlythen do you build positive muscle
mem-ory, he says. He adds that it i s vital to ap-preciate the
muscle fibre type of the run-ner as that will dictate whether
thetraining plan follows a top-down or bot-tom-up approach. It also
helps to studythe runners personality type, runninghistory and
aspirations, health considera-tions, body composi tion, etc. To run
at hisoptimal best, Mr. Bala believes in threethings eating right,
sleeping well, andtraining smart. In that order. The firsttwo are
the tough ones to crack. The daysI give my best effort on the run
are theones when I would have got at least one, ifnot both of them
right.
Fixing the bad spots
When runners approach him withproblems, Dr. Johnson says he
first identi-
fies what they are deficient in strength,flexibility or both.
Depending on the de-ficiency, I prescribe strength or
flexibilityexercises. We also need to investigate ifthere are other
factors at play such as vi-tamin, iron or generational
nutritionaldeficiency.
Which brings us to the other bane thatplagues Indians the little
devil calledvitamin D. Let us accept that most Indi-ans are
deficient in vitamin D but thisknowledge is a starting point. There
is noreason why through corrective measures food, sunlight and
proper supplements the deficiency cannot be addressed,says Mr.
Nath.
[email protected]
FITNESS
Run, but dont jump the gun
Many runners dont dosufficient strengthand flexibility
exercisesto complementtheir running
Bhumika K.
Theres a rage to run in the country, but are we doing it right?
You cant possibly just lace up and run.Theres a whole deal of
science and training that goes into this skill
CMYK
ND-ND
aby laptops, baby cell phones, talkingfarms these are the
whirring,whiz-bang toys of the moment, manyof them marketed as
tools to encour-age babies language skills. But in themidst of the
holiday season, a newstudy raises questions about wheth-
er such electronic play-things make it less likely thatbabies
will engage in theverbal give-and-take withtheir parents that is so
cru-cial to cognitivedevelopment.
The study, published onWednesday, December 23, in
JAMA Pediatrics, found thatwhen babies and parents
played with electronic toys that were
specifically advertised as language-promoters, parents spoke
less and re-sponded less to baby babbling than
when they played with traditionaltoys like blocks or read board
books.
Babies also vocalised less whenplaying with electronic toys.
Myhunch is that they were letting thebaby interact with the toy and
theywere on the sidelines, said Dr. AnnaV. Sosa, an associate
professor ofcommunications science and disor-ders at Northern
Arizona Universityin Flagstaff, who led the study.
A little less conversation
The study builds on a growingbody of research suggesting
thatelectronic toys and e-books canmake parents less likely to have
themost meaningful kinds of verbal ex-changes with their
children.
When you put the gadgets andgizmos in, the parents stop
talking,said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor
of psychology at Temple University
who has found similar effects with e-books and electronic
shape-sorters.What you get is more behavioural
regulation stuff, like dont touch thator do this, or nothing
because thebooks and toys take it over for you.
She added, A toy should be 10 percent toy and 90 per cent child,
andwith a lot of these electronic toys, thetoy takes over 90 per
cent and thechild just fills in the blank.
Dr. Sosa said she had expectedsome parent-baby pairs would
talkmore with one type of toy, while oth-ers would talk more with
another.But the results were consistent al-most across the
board.
When electronic toys were beingused, parents said about 40
wordsper minute, on average, comparedwith 56 words per minute for
tradi-tional toys and 67 words per minutewith books.
Filling in for mom
Dr. Sosa said the results were thesame regardless of the sex or
age ofthe baby, and whether the parent (al-most all were mothers)
was a chat-
ty person or not. Since the toy wasproviding some feedback to
the baby if they pushed the button, it did
something, it made a noise, it lit up we think that in addition
to sort ofletting the toys talk for them, the par-ents also sort of
let the toy interactfor them, she said.
The study was small 26 families and most were white and
educat-ed. So the researchers say the resultsmight be different
with a larger andmore diverse group. But the study isnotable
because it sought to capturereal-world parent-child playtime
intheir homes without researcherswatching.
Parents were given three sets oftoys: electronic toys including
babylaptops, cell phones and a talkingfarm; traditional toys like
blocks and
farm animal puzzles; and boardbooks about colours, shapes and
ani-mals.
Over three days, parents and ba-bies, who were 10 to 16 months
old,played for two 15-minute sessionswith each of the sets of toys.
The par-ents were given audio recording de-vices that were turned
on for the fullthree days, including for the 15-min-ute play
sessions.
Erica Jones, 39, and her son DevinWilly, now 3, participated in
thestudy when Devin was 10 months old.Ms. Jones, who teaches
English com-position, said that when Devin was ababy, I would
sometimes talk to fillup the space, saying this is an on-ion while
cooking, for example. Butshe realised that with electronic toysif
theres this other noise alreadythere, I didnt really feel like I
wantedto talk.
Jones found the researchers find-ings were useful because the
busierI get, the more easy it is to let himplay with different
electronic toys,and because of the study, it just re-minds me to
kind of move away from
that. New York Times NewsService
Traditional toys may beat gadgets in language developmentA new
study asks whether electronic playthingsmake it less likely that
babies will engage in verbalgive-and-take with their parents, that
is so crucialto cognitive development
B
IMPEDIMENT? When you put the
gadgets and gizmos in, the parents
stop talking PHOTO: AP
The study is notable asit sought to capturereal-world
parent-childplaytime withoutresearchers watching.
Pam Belluck
PSYCHOLOGY
An obscure mosquito-borne virus, Z ika, is on the prowl and
hasalready caused an unprecedent[ed] situation in the world
ofscientific research. It stems from a huge surge in babies
being
born with microcephaly, a rare, incurable condition in
whichtheir heads are abnormally small.
What is Zika virus?The virus gets its name from the Z ika forest
in Uganda, Africa,
where it was first ident ified in rhesus monkeys in 1947. It was
re-ported in humans in 1952 but was unknown in the Americas un-til
last year. The virus is transmitted by theAedes aegyptimos-quito,
which is also responsible for the spread of dengue andchikungunya.
In the last few years, confirmed cases have beenreported from
Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, ElSalvador, Guatemala,
Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname andVenezuela.
Why is this outbreak alarming?The Zika virus was considered
benign until recently when
scientists, for the first time in November 2015, linked it to a
surgein babies born with microcephaly. According to Brazilian
au-thorities, by the end of the year, Zika could infect over 1.5
mill ionpeople. Further, the disease is spreading fast and experts
believeit could spread to other countries in the Southern
hemisphere.Puerto Rico reported i ts first case of Zika on
Friday.
What are the symptoms?The most common symptoms are fever, rash,
joint pain, or
conjunctivitis (red eyes). Other symptoms include experienc-ing
muscle pain, headache, pain behind the eyes, and vomiting.The virus
causes a painful but temporary rash in adults. The ill-ness is
usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days to a
week but 1 in 5 people infected with the Zika virus become
ill.How is it treated?There is no medicine as yet to treat Zika.
According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S., the
conditioncan be managed and symptoms treated.
Text by Vidya Krishnan
[email protected]
New Year, new public health threat
BIRTH DEFECT: The Ferreira family, in Poco Fundo, Pernambuco
state, Brazil, watches over two-month-old son,Jose Wesley, who was
born with microcephaly. PHOTO: AP
A little-known mosquito-borne virus,and affecting children, is
causingone of the most alarming healthcrises to hit South Americain
decades
health policies and programmes,and of developing a unifying
na-tional framework for UHC thatcarries all of us in India
towardsthe SDG targets and promoteshealth equity across
geographi-cal, social and gender distinc-tions.
The Central government has totake the lead in developing a
co-herent framework that allowsState-specific health policies tobe
accommodated in a nationallyoperational UHC programme.That will be
a true vindication ofconsultative federalism.
These lofty goals cannot beachieved without developing alarger,
multilayered health work-force that is well-skilled,
sociallycommitted and adequately re-munerated.
Technology-enabledfrontline workers are especiallyneeded to
increase the outreachand effectiveness of primary
health services. Allied health pro-fessionals of diverse
categories,basic doctors, specialist clini-cians and public health
profes-sionals too will be needed in largenumbers.
Will 2016 see a strategic thrusttowards planned human
resourcedevelopment, through coordinat-ed Central and State
initiativesthat can cut through the regres-sive regulatory cobwebs
of anti-quated councils? A national com-mission on human resources
inhealth, that provides trustworthyaccreditation and promotes
inno-vative education, needs to takeshape in 2016.
UHC calls for financial protec-tion, to reduce
out-of-pocketspending, curb catastrophichealth expenditure and
preventhealth-care-related impoverish-ment. While it will probably
takesome years for UHC to evolve tonearly complete levels of
popula-
tion coverage, service coverageand cost coverage, early relief
cancome through the free provisionof essential drugs and
diagnosticsat strengthened public facilities.The various Central
and State in-surance schemes too need to beunified to provide an
expandedpackage of services, with an em-phasis on primary and
secondaryhealth care for all while allowingthe poor unimpeded
access to es-sential tertiary care.
Policy alignment
Actions outside the health sec-tor too need to gather speed in
or-der to provide health benefits.Swachh Bharat needs to
succeed.The public outcry against the ap-palling levels of air
pollution inDelhi, as well as the spirit of glob-al unity following
the historic Pa-ris agreement on climate change,should spur actions
to reduce en-vironmental degradation andprotect peoples health.
From anassurance of healthy nutritionacross ones life course, to
anelimination of the tobacco threat,health calls for supportive
poli-cies in other sectors. Will suchpolicy alignment get
politicalsupport at the highest levels?
With a large and urgent actionagenda to address through a
com-bination of political will and pro-fessional skill, 2016 can be
theharbinger of great change in In-dias health programme. Will
itlive up to that expectation?
(Prof. K. Srinath Reddy ispresident, Public Health
Foundation of India. The viewsexpressed are personal.)
Even as millions of Indians wisheach other health, happiness
andhope in the new year, they alsoawait news on the new
NationalHealth Policy which will becomethe GPS in our journey
towardsbetter health. The draft policy,
which was framed by the UnionHealth Ministry, was placed
forpublic comment just over a yearago but is yet to be adopted as
thedefinitive road map of declaredgovernment priorities. This maybe
because of unreconciled differ-ences in the perspectives of
theHealth Ministry and NITI Aayog.The impasse has to be
resolvedover the next few weeks if healthprogrammes are not to be
leftadrift in uncharted seas.
Budgetary allocation
In a few weeks, the Union Bud-get for 2016 will give us a clear
in-dication of the additional invest-ment the government is ready
tomake in improving health servic-es, especially with regard to
im-proving access, affordability andquality. Will the increase in
theHealth Budget be substantial ortoken? Will the new funding
be
directed towards strengtheningrural and urban primary
healthservices and district hospitals orbe channelled into health
insur-ance schemes that will only se-cure some types of
hospitalisedcare? What will the Central andState governments
provide byway of health assurance? Evenas there is a clear desire
to engagethe private sector as a care pro-vider in
government-fundedschemes, how will it be effectivelyregulated for
cost and quality?Will the Urban Health Mission fi-nally take
off?
These questions assume im-portance and urgency because oftwo key
developments that tookplace in 2015.
First, the transfer of a highershare of Central tax revenues
toStates was tagged to the expecta-tion that the State
governmentswould bear a greater responsibili-ty for the design and
delivery ofhealth services even as Centralschemes are phased out.
How thiswill play out in terms of health eq-uity, across and within
States, re-mains uncertain. Second, Indiasigned up at the United
Nations in
Septemberto the Sustainable De-velopment Goals (SDG),
whichprovide the road map, up to 2030,for global health. The Health
Goalhas nine targets, incorporatingthree core clusters: 1.
Continuedcommitment to the carried-overagenda from the Millennium
De-velopment Goals on maternal andchild health and major
infectiousdiseases; 2. The new agenda ofnon-communicable
diseases,mental health, road safety andpollution control; 3. A
health sys-tem revamp to provide UniversalHealth Coverage (UHC) and
en-sure unimpeded access to repro-ductive and sexual
healthservices.
Framework for coverage
The year ahead should tell ushow the Centre and States
willharmonise the twin agendas ofenabling State autonomy to
drive
In 2016, betterhealth care?
Among other things,the government mustwork towards givinglife to
the NationalHealth Policy
PERSPECTIVE
Actions outside thehealth sector tooneed to gather speedin order
to providehealth benefits.
K. Srinath Reddy
