Month: May 2018

aging · disability · health · injury · monthly check in

Sam’s monthly check-in: What’s up, what’s down, the May version

Sam B6 Comments

May! Finally warm weather. The best thing about May is riding my bike. It was 50 km the first week and 60 km the next . Weekdays I’ve been exploring my new home, Guelph, after work and running errands on bike. That’s what’s up. It feels great.

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Not so much “up” is my left knee. It doesn’t feel great.

I met with the knee surgeon again. Total knee replacement still looks far away. At least I hope so. See 9 Things No One Ever tells You About Getting a Knee Replacement for details. We’re still seeing how things go with the goo injections and the brace.

I’m wearing the brace for walking. I’m doing physio still. And I’m riding my bike. That’s all good.

The surgeon and his team are busy telling me that all the activity I’ve done isn’t responsible for my knee osteoarthritis. They do also tell me never to even say the word “running” again. Fine. See Sam struggles not to run, ever!

But they do say I’d be in less pain if I lost weight. More seriously they say that losing weight would help me put off total knee replacement. That’s big.

Now they used to also say that knee patients should lose weight first, before the surgery. See Researchers Find Weight Loss Not Necessary for Joint Surgery

But if you think you must lose those extra pounds before a knee or hip replacement, think again, as researchers with UMass Medical School found long-term relief from joint replacement surgery was almost the same in obese and non-obese patients.

“The conventional wisdom is that the lower your body weight, the lower your body mass index, the better you will do in joint replacements, and there has been an increasing push to say that if you are obese you should not have joint replacement – either knee or hip replacement,” Dr. David C. Ayers, chairman of orthopedics and chairman and professor of orthopedics and physical rehabilitation at UMass Medical School, said Thursday.
Dr. Ayers is the co-author of a study reporting the findings published last month in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.

“What this study shows is that people who are overweight and are obese get the same type of pain relief and improved function that non-obese patients do,” he said.

Surprise! Fat people are people. Fat bodies are bodies. And knee pain hurts a lot no matter what your size.

The old wisdom sounds just like, “You’re fat so must pay the price! Suffer! No knee replacement for you!” Doctors can be jerks.

But in my case we’re not talking about weight loss before surgery. The issue is weight loss to put off the necessity of joint replacement. Total knee replacement is worth avoiding. Right now knee replacements last 20 years max. So if all goes well, I might need a second one. It’s big painful surgery with a very lengthy recovery time. I don’t want to do it twice.

See here. Point 1: “For many, weight loss is a basic but crucial way to help avoid knee surgery. Shedding just 15 pounds can cut knee pain in half. And should you need arthritis knee surgery later, you’ll decrease your risk of complications and reduce strain on your knees, which will make your rehabilitation go more smoothly.”

So, what to do?

I’m reading a lot about knee pain and weight. No surprise there!

But I’m also researching weight loss for medical reasons. Maybe like me you thought that weight loss is hard but once you’re told you need to lose weight for medical reasons, you just do it.

I’m here to tell you the sad news that it’s not so simple. Your body doesn’t care what your motivation is. It’s not like it ignores the diets for beauty’s sake and pays attention to the diets for urgent health reasons.

I think when I was younger I even thought it would be good to have a medical reason to lose weight because then you’d be serious about it and just do it. I could be a feminist and be skinny because I was dieting for health reasons. Bah.

Now I have very good reasons, I’m being serious about it, and I’m still struggling.

Tracy and I were chatting today about whether it ever makes sense to talk about weight and weight loss on the blog. It’s not something we talk about much. It’s a blog about fitness not weight and shape and we’re very keen to distinguish these things. In this case though weight loss isn’t a goal that I want to result from my fitness efforts. Weight loss may be necessary to keep me active.

We’re all about staying fit and strong in midlife and beyond. That’s the overarching message of our book. But given my knee and the state it’s in, staying active may mean losing weight. I’m trying. I won’t post much about my successes and failures. I know that’s too much for those of you with histories of disordered eating. Even though I’m one of the larger bloggers here, that’s not me. I like food and my relationship with it. But I also feel the need to be honest on the blog about what’s up with me fitness wise.

Have you had or contemplated having knee replacement? Have you struggled with medical reasons to lose weight? Tell me your story

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Also, hello May, I’m tentatively making plans. There are plans afoot for bike/boat holidays, for canoe/camping trips, for long bike rides. I love the summer and I’m going to enjoy it.

That's not my name! Obese people? People with obesity? How about this: People.
fitness · weight stigma

Obese people? People with obesity? How about this: People.

catherine w8 Comments

Language matters. What words people use for us have lots of effects– they contribute to the way we see ourselves and also how others see us. In school, I was known as “that smart girl” in a way that was definitely not complimentary. It was as if that was the box I had to occupy, never to stray into other territory. Luckily, I got over this once I arrived at university, where being hailed as “smart” was definitely considered praise.

For people who are living with illness or disability, language does additional harm by burdening them with labels that identify them with the illness or disability they are dealing with in their lives. Calling someone sick, disabled, or other terms simplifies them by identifying them with one feature of their lives to the exclusion of all the complexity and richness of personhood.

Luckily, there’s a solution to this problem: we can use what’s called people-first language (see here for a good handout on how to shift from harmful to more accurate language).  Here’s what the organization The Arc has to say about it:

People-First Language emphasizes the person, not the disability. By placing the person first, the disability is no longer the primary, defining characteristic of an individual, but one of several aspects of the whole person. People-First Language is an objective way of acknowledging, communicating, and reporting on disabilities. It eliminates generalizations and stereotypes, by focusing on the person rather than the disability.

Disability is not the “problem.” For example, a person who wears glasses doesn’t say, “I have a problem seeing,” they say, “I wear/need glasses.” Similarly, a person who uses a wheelchair doesn’t say, “I have a problem walking,” they say, “I use/need a wheelchair.”

So what does this have to do with obesity? In a blogpost this week, James Fell reported that Obesity 2018 Canada has shifted to using people-first language when talking about people’s weight.  He says:

From a post by endocrinologist Dr. Sue Pedersen: “Obesity is a diagnosis, and not a way to describe a person. Thus, instead of the terminology ‘overweight or obese people’, the correct terminology is ‘people with overweight or obesity’. This is a critical step in breaking down the stigma against obesity!”

I thought “people with overweight” sounded a bit weird, but Yoni [Freedhof, obesity medicine physician and writer of this blog ]told me, “people with excess weight” could be an easier way to address that.

I have a bunch of responses to these developments. First, let me say that people-first language strikes me as respectful and indeed a necessary step in the direction of destigmatizing lots of diseases, conditions and modes in which people make their way through their lives.

That said, let me turn to its application to the terms “overweight” and “obese”. It’s true that both  the Canadian Medical Association and the American Medical Association having a BMI >30 as a disease (even though scientific and other subcommittees of the AMA recommended against this classification; see here for one such report). However, announcing that people with BMI >30 (the standard medical definition for obesity) have  a disease is both massively stigmatizing and arguably incorrect. Announcing that people with BMI >25 (the standard medical definition for overweight) have a disease is arguably absurd and definitely flies in the face of loads of evidence to the contrary.

I’m aware that what I’m saying is controversial.  I’m questioning whether all or most people with BMI>30 have a disease/are unhealthy. I think I’m on safer ground questioning whether all or most people with BMI>25 have a disease/are unhealthy.

So, if I’m right (which of course I think I am, and I have a gigantic bibliography of evidence available), then maybe the language we need is not people-first, but people-only.  Do we need these terms  “overweight” and “obesity” at all? If medicine needs precision, there are actual body weights and dimensions available for help in assessing someone’s health. And BMI can be calculated easily from those measurements using tables (I’m not linking to one, but you can find them anywhere). I don’t think these terms are helpful in medical contexts (I’m working on an article with a colleague– Hi Dan!–  on this now), and as general descriptors they are stigmatizing and shaming (and often an inaccurate way to convey information about a person).

If we want to describe someone’s dimensions, there are lots of words to use, including large, big,  fat, heavy, etc. These are descriptive words, and many people in fat acceptance movements embrace them. I just happen to think that obese and overweight aren’t helpful as descriptors. And I think that using the terms “people with obesity” or people with excess/over weight” is terrible– its strangeness calls attention to the person’s size, maybe also invites stigma, and presupposes something that I argue elsewhere is false. For more on this, you can look at this blog post. And when the article comes out, I’ll blog about it too.

So what do y’all think? Do you prefer “obese people”? “People with obesity”? Or maybe just using their names?

 

 

cycling

Women and bike jokes: Finally one for us!

Sam B

A few years ago I asked, Why do all the bike jokes feature male cyclists?

Like this one,

Image of a man on a bike riding away from a woman in a wedding dress. Text says, "Sell your bike she said. Rode away I did."
Image of a man on a bike riding away from a woman in a wedding dress. Text says, “Sell your bike she said. Rode away I did.”

And this came across my newsfeed,

I would’ve preferred “partners” to “husbands” but hey, it’s the woman buying and riding the bike this time.

Progress!

health · Sat with Nat

Nat learns a little more about the nuances of blood pressure

natalieh (she/her)7 Comments

It’s that time of year for my annual “my high blood pressure journey” post. (Please remember I’m not a health care professional and what follows isn’t advice on what you should do. )

Last month the guidelines around what constitutes high blood pressure were changed in Canada and the US. You can read about it here. It created a mild ripple of panic as folks were surprised to find they suddenly had “high blood pressure”. It certainly gave me pause to think about my own numbers just days before my regular check up.

I showed up to my appointment to discover my family doctor no longer working Wednesdays. The thought of seeing a different doctor filled me with panic. I’ve been having follow ups for many years and am really comfortable with my doctor. Other doctors, well, it’s a mixed bag. I tried deep breathing and relaxing while anxiety washed over me.

I met with the new doctor, a lovely human who stared at my stomach while we talked. I had shared that my numbers were creeping up over the years and I was worried. She offered that once hypertension sets in it slowly worsens over time as we age. She talked about how lifestyle changes were very important and that pills only did so much. I smiled and waited for her to go on. I couldn’t muster the courage to confront her assumption that I hadn’t already made those lifestyle changes, initially 20 years ago and really honed in on things about 5 years ago.

She asked how my at home monitoring was going. I had never seriously tracked my blood pressure at home despite having been gifted a monitor.

She offered that I didn’t need to come in unless my at home blood pressure was regularly over 130/90 as my prescription could be renewed via fax.

I walked out confused but committed to tracking my blood pressure at different times at home.

I was shocked to see a few trends. After my morning coffee my blood pressure spikes by 20 points. By mid afternoon I’m regularly sitting at 105/60. Way lower than the reading at the doctor’s office. It was such a shock I had my partner measure his to make sure the monitor was working. I tried different sizes of cuffs. All good.

I keep thinking about those “lifestyle factors” that are within my control. The big ones most folks are familiar with: be a non-smoker, move your body, avoid high amounts of alcohol, eat a healthy diet. Just this week a CNN article boasted we can all extend our longevity by 10 years doing those things and maintaining a healthy BMI.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/04/30/health/life-expectancy-habits-study/index.html

I’ve got 4/5 and, as the Meatloaf song goes, that ain’t bad. I have decided that the long view of my health and wellness are the biggest assets for me. I look for ways to make it easy to make healthy choices and get movement in my day and that seems to be working out damn fine.

Four smiling humans gather in for a sidewalk selfie on a warm sunny day

Me and my favourite humans walking from home to see a movie downtown.

athletes · gender policing · Guest Post · Olympics · research · stereotypes

The Latest Nonsense from the Gender Police (Guest Post)

marenbehrensen3 Comments

When the Court of Arbitration for Sports struck down the IAAF’s Rules on Hyperandrogenism, Sebastian Coe wasn’t amused. When Caster Semenya took the 800 meters gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Coe was downright unhappy, and he announced that the IAAF was working to deliver the evidence that the CAS had found missing in its 2015 ruling: evidence for the proposition that elevated testosterone levels in women athletes provided these athletes with an unfair competitive advantage.

In 2017, the IAAF presented what they took to be such evidence; and last week, they presented their new rules on gender eligibility. According to the new rules, in all races from 400 meters to the mile, women with elevated testosterone levels will be forced to either lower them – or to give up their sport.

These rules, to take effect in November, are no better than their predecessors. In fact, they might be worse.

There is, first, the glaring ethical issue of forcing athletes to accept an unnecessary medical intervention in order to be allowed to compete. (The Rules on Hyperandrogenism were used to justify castrations, vaginoplasties, and clitoroplasties on young women athletes, who may not have been in a position to give informed consent to these procedures.)

Second, there is the selectivity of the new rules. They only apply to four (Olympic) disciplines out of 21. The justification for this is a study commissioned by the IAAF, published last year. The authors of the study purport to show that the correlation between “free testosterone” levels and performance at the top level is significant in these disciplines. What the new rules do not reflect is that the authors also found a significant correlation in two other disciplines, the pole vault and the hammer throw. No other discipline showed a significant correlation.

The study was based on blood samples taken during the IAAF World Championships in Daegu 2011 and Moscow 2013. Every athlete who finished her competition and went through an anti-doping control was counted – even those whose high testosterone levels could be traced to doping. The study took the highest and the lowest tertile of testosterone levels and compared the athletes’ performances to the mean performance. Yet the testosterone levels in the highest tertile ranged from “somewhat elevated” to “extremely elevated” (or “in the normal male range”, in IAAF doctor speak). There is no way to tell from the study whether extremely elevated levels also lead to an extremely enhanced performance. Nor is there a way to tell what specific advantage testosterone is supposed to confer in the disciplines that showed a significant correlation; the authors speculate that it might be enhanced visuo-spatial coordination in the pole vault and increased lean body mass and aggressiveness in middle distance running – but the study itself doesn’t give any definite clues; and the question remains why, if testosterone can have such varied effects, they show up in less than 40% of all Olympic disciplines.

And even if the study constituted proof that testosterone conferred an unfair advantage, there’d be no reason whatsoever to exclude pole vault and hammer throw from the new rules. So as things stand, the new rules look completely arbitrary even on their very own terms – and it seems obvious that they primarily target Semenya. They affect her disciplines (the 400, 800, and 1500 meters) and Semenya is the most prominent and by far the most successful athlete to have come to the attention of the IAAF gender police. Bluntly put, it seems that the IAAF either wants to get rid of Semenya or force her to artificially lower her performance levels to a point where she’s no longer winning.

The IAAF has been trying to come up with definitive rules for eligibility in women’s competition for over half a century. (Access to men’s competitions was never regulated.) Their efforts have largely been unsuccessful. By now, they have largely given up on the specter of the “male impostor” (suggesting that men might pose as women for “easy” athletic success) which ruled the introduction of eligibility rules in the 1960s. But they still insist that not every woman should be allowed to compete. In other words: while they have accepted that Semenya is a woman, they still cannot accept that she ought to be allowed to compete as she is.

Third, the IAAF still hasn’t explained convincingly why they insist on regulating eligibility in (pseudo-)medical terms in the first place (other than the obvious and obviously poor reason that they don’t like the media attention for Semenya and the races she participates in). They claim that they want to ensure fair competition, but on the basis of the (pseudo-)medical terms they have introduced into women’s track and field, there can’t be fair competition.

The IAAF’s obsession with testosterone suggests that by leveling one anatomical factor, they can level the entire playing field for professional sport. But that’s obvious nonsense. Not only is the commissioned study unclear about what exactly the relevant advantage conferred by testosterone might be, there’s also no mention of other obvious anatomical factors that confer an advantage: for instance, height in high jumping. (If high jumping had a scoring system that was adjusted to the jumpers’ height, Stefan Holm, one of the smallest-ever high jumpers to compete at the top level, would have been literally unbeatable.)

So either a lot more anatomical factors would have to be regulated, and consequently, a number of height, weight, flexibility, etc. classes created – or the IAAF could simply accept that one’s social and legal identity as a woman is enough to be allowed to compete in women’s competitions.

But what about Semenya’s obvious dominance? – one might ask. (After all, many of her opponents have complained about having to compete against her without standing a chance). If we look at Semenya’s 800 meter races in the most recent international events, she was dominant, but not beyond what “dominance” means in other disciplines. (In the 1500 meters and the 400 meters, she can compete for international medals, but she isn’t dominant at all).

Consider the pole vault and the hammer throw, the two discplines excluded from the new rules. For years, the pole vault was dominated by Yelena Isinbayeva – to such a degree that the only interesting question in a high-profile competition was whether Isinbayeva would set a new world record (she set 30 world records during her career; Semenya’s times haven’t come anywhere near a senior world record).

The hammer throw is currently dominated by Anita Włodarczyk. Włodarczyk has improved the world record seven times, became Olympic Champion in 2012 and 2016, World Champion in 2015 and 2017 (in 2013 losing only to Russian Tatiana Lysenko, a repeat doping offender, whose Olympic Gold from 2012 went to Włodarczyk) and European Champion in 2012, 2014, and 2016. If Włodarczyk is in shape and mentally sharp during the competition, her opponents typically don’t stand a chance. Yet if this is not an issue of fairness, why is Semenya’s performance? After all, we can assume that Włodarczyk, like Semenya, has an athletic predisposition that makes her exceptionally suited for her discipline – and that she trains extremely hard to stay on top of her game. Yet only in the case of Semenya is it assumed that somehow her predisposition is unfair (and thereby implied that she could be so successful even without training).

And what, finally, about the possibility that national sports federations could specifically seek out “intersexual” women with athletic talent? – This, too, is widely accepted practice, as long as it does not concern women who might have intersex traits. And it’s called “scouting for talent,” not scouting for intersex traits. Of course, physical features will play a role, but consider, for instance, the criteria any basketball scout would use to find promising young players. So in this case, it is not clear either why testosterone – or intersex traits more broadly speaking – should make a significant difference.

And so the supposed concern with ensuring fair competition still look like it’s really about policing gender presentation.

M.B. is currently a post-doc at the Institute for Christian Social Ethics at the University of Münster, Germany. She specializes in the ethics of sexuality and gender and the ontology of social groupings.

fitness

I Can Still Run

Susan Tarshis4 Comments

My 50th year has not been my fittest. So far, I’d say I peaked at about 48 and a half. This is not to say I will not peak again, just not right this second.

Anyway.

The fun thing is I went for a wee run on Monday. It was about 3.5k. Now those of you who have ever stoped running and then done 3.5k a few months later may wonder, “How could that ever be FUN?”

It was fun because I ran with my kid.

My almost 19 year old son has not, thus far in his life, been much of an athlete. He’s a pretty good downhill skier and an excellent amateur stage actor. He’s a bright funny young man. I heard a rumor that he ran 5k one night while trying not to study for finals. So I asked him, “Hey, wanna run with me tomorrow?” and he said YES.

I remember when I was about 20 and my mom wanted me to learn tennis. She paid for some lessons and was so thrilled to have me on the court with her while she whupped me. I don’t think I quite understood her thrill until that run.

The run itself was unremarkable, but the joy of me being active with my adult kid was pretty special. It’s is now officially one of the numerous documented perks of being fit at midlife.

(Did you like how I did that? Book promo. BANG)

And for those of you who think you raised a couch potato, this is also an example of how you just never know what will happen in the young adult mind.

I’m looking forward to more.

A yellow lab looking forlorn while a pair of white black and yellow running shoes sit empty of feet in the foreground Come run with me, says Shelby

fitness

Rocketbody Tracker? No thank you, says this intuitive eater

Tracy I11 Comments

There’s a kickstarter fund for a new fitness tracker called Rocketbody. It tells you when to eat and workout based on tracking your metabolism. As an intuitive eater, I had a negative and visceral reaction to this.

For one thing, it’s no secret that I dislike tracking. It feels like a type of surveillance under which I do not thrive. See my post about tracking as the panopticon.  It’s a topic I’ve revisited a number of times. See here and here and here (for an alternative approach).  We also recognize on the blog that there are diverse views about it. “For and against” tracking post here.

It took me a long time to get into the rhythm of intuitive eating (took 27 years to be exact), where I actually sense hunger, respond to it with the food I want in the amount that satisfies me, and get on with my day. It has been the key, for me, to freedom from obsession. That more than anything to do with weight and body image, was a transformative outcome for me, increasing my sense of well-being and my confidence in my ability to make good decisions for myself, and my ability to have a loving relationship with my body.

The very idea of Rocketbody, a fitness tracker that monitors metabolism to tell you when to eat and when to work out, is antithetical to every value I hold dear. In this age of trackers, where monitoring our steps and our activity, tracking our food intake, and deciding in advance when/what/how much we should be eating, I’m often a voice in the wilderness in my call for less (no) surveillance and more self-love.

People are often surprised to discover that I do not use a fitness tracker. Who ever heard of such a public fitness enthusiast who doesn’t wear a thing on her wrist 24/7 to monitor activity and report to her about how well she slept? I’ve taken various forays into tracking and they always end badly.  I am in the process of resisting the temptation to enter the corporate step challenge at work — 100 days of counting steps as a member of a team. The first year I signed up without thinking, vowing never to do it again. The second year (last year), I caved after some time, ultimately becoming my team captain. To see how I felt about it that time, read my post “100 days of counting steps is like a marathon, only longer.” This year…not doing it. I already said that at the end of last season. 100 days of step counting just does not work for me, even if it did (I admit) get me to walk further last summer than I otherwise would have.

I know not everyone is of this mind and that for some people, who have adopted tracking as a way of life, the possibility of having a thing tell them when to do things like eat and work out is a welcome way of taking the decision-making factor out of the equation. When it’s the tracker’s decision and not yours, you might be more inclined to do it. I get that, and if that’s your style, go for it.

But this intuitive eater is sticking to her hard won freedom from surveillance and won’t be signing on to the kickstarter campaign for the Rocketbody tracker.

Would that sort of tracking be welcome or unwelcome to you?

cycling · fitness

Cycling versus walking: Both are good but riding’s better

Sam B5 Comments

If you’re cyclist, you probably saw this good news story in your social media newsfeed , shared with delight by cyclists everywhere: New study suggests health benefits of cycling to work are staggering.

“We found that cycling to work was associated with a 41% lower risk of dying overall compared to commuting by car or public transport. Cycle commuters had a 52% lower risk of dying from heart disease and a 40% lower risk of dying from cancer. They also had 46% lower risk of developing heart disease and a 45% lower risk of developing cancer at all. Walking to work was not associated with a lower risk of dying from all causes. Walkers did, however, have a 27% lower risk of heart disease and a 36% lower risk of dying from it.”

I was happy that it answered the question about the health benefits of cycling versus walking. Often studies proclaim health benefits for cycling but don’t compare them to the health benefits of other modes of self-propulsion. Lots of runners, for example, were frustrated by the story which profiled 80 year old cyclists with the health of 20-somethings but didn’t say anything about the anti-aging effects of running and walking.

But what about stress? You have to enjoy it, surely, or at least not be terrified by it. My fave thing about cycling home–when the ride is long enough, right now I’m too close to campus–is how relaxed and happy I feel when I get there. I’ve always associated that with the  health benefits of cycling. But if I was a fearful cyclist, maybe I’d still choose to walk.

I mean, right now I’ve got the world’s shortest bike commute, just 1.5 km. But I can ride without the knee brace so it’s any easy choice.

How about you? Biking or walking? Why?

aging · health

Healthy habits, long lives, and elderly spiders

Sam B

This is a blog post in three parts.

Part 1. It begins when a big study announces something that seems kind of obvious. The five habits that can add more than a decade to your life, from the Guardian.

In short, don’t smoke, drink only in moderation, exercise, control your weight, and eat your vegetables if you want to live a long time.

Researchers at Harvard University used lifestyle questionnaires and medical records from 123,000 volunteers to understand how much longer people lived if they followed a healthy diet, controlled their weight, took regular exercise, drank in moderation and did not smoke. When the scientists calculated average life expectancy, they noticed a dramatic effect from the healthy habits. Compared with people who adopted none of them, men and women who adhered to all five saw their life expectancy at 50 rise from 26 to 38 years and 29 to 43 years respectively, or an extra 12 years for men and 14 for women. “When we embarked on this study, I thought, of course, that people who adopted these habits would live longer. But the surprising thing was how huge the effect was,” said Meir Stampfer, a co-author on the study and professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

2. And then a very old spider died making the point that not all lifestyle changes are changes worth making. “Number 16 built her burrow in the North Bungulla Reserve in southwestern Australia, when she was young. Like all female trapdoor spiders (mygalomorph spiders), she was a homebody, never leaving her burrow.”

Luckily none of the healthy habits involved never leaving the house.

3. Finally, health journalist Andre Picard points out that the healthy habits might not be enough. He tweeted, “Here are 10 other things that are probably more important to a healthy life than lifestyle choices.”

from Picard’s book “Matters of Life and Death,” p. 268

body image

What’s the ideal beach body look like?

Sam B2 Comments

We posted this on our Facebook page.

Our Facebook followers had some more great ideas:

“My beach body would have a self-inflating nimbus that is iridescent, and chimes like harmony bella, acts like sunscreen, and helps me feel warm in the water…the lakes and ocean are cold here! Oh! And it would have a waterproof pouch for a book and sunglasses…my nimbus helps me float so I can just lounge in the water and read. Oh! And a little pouch for a cold drink…perfect beach body.”

“Flippers and a shade hood, maybe a sail.”

“Feet resistant to the searing heat of hot sand, and a rigid forehead flap to shade your eyes.”

“A boat for sailing. Or just drifting. Nobody is saying you can’t just drift.”

“The ideal beach body would fully embrace the oxford comma. I have no idea how arm flaps could act as a sand repentant anus.”

When I was younger my ideal beach body would’ve had eyes in the back of my head for watching children and at least three very long arms for pulling them out of the water.

What’s your ideal beach body?