Martin's Must-Reads

Martin's Must-Reads

By Betty Martin, Mark MartinArtsBooks
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Martin's Must-Reads episodes

  • To Your Health: Backpack Awareness
    What if when we talked about kids going “back to school” we considered their actual backs and their spinal health? A 2006 study in The Pediatric Journal of Orthopedics found 37% of children experience back pain due to carrying heavy backpacks. Rob Danoff, a doctor of osteopathic medicine and a certified family physician with Philadelphia’s Aria Health System compares the spine to the frame of a house: it’s what keeps your child’s body sturdy and upright. Put too much weight on this frame while a
    2 min
  • To Your Health: Burnout
    In the late 1970s, psychoanalyst Herbert Fruedenberger coined the term “burnout” to compare his feelings of exhaustion in response to stress with the way his patients’ cigarettes sometimes burned out while they were holding them. While burnout has been the focus of many studies in the last four decades, and an inventory was developed by Dr. Christina Maslach to measure it, the concept of burnout was often disputed and not officially recognized as a mental disorder. The World Health Organization
    2 min
  • To Your Health: Dehydration
    Runners sometimes joke about the strangest places they have gotten a drink when putting in long, hot miles ---from a stranger’s garden hose, a spigot on a golf course---but dehydration is no laughing matter. It’s also not something to cry about...because people who are dehydrated can’t produce tears. According to The Mayo Clinic, dehydration occurs when you use or lose more fluid than you take in, and your body doesn't have enough water and other fluids to carry out its normal functions. In the
    2 min
  • To Your Health: Spread the Word
    You stand up and all your papers fall out of your unzipped bag. As you begin picking everything up you mutter, “I’m so…” How did you fill in those blanks? Clumsy? Messy? If you chose any word other than the “r-word”---retarded---you may have been influenced by the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign. For almost two decades, professional organizations, such as The American Speech and Hearing Association have used the terms Intellectually or Developmentally Disabled instead of mentally
    2 min
  • To Your Health: "Person-First" Language
    The other night my daughter Lily was listing how where we live could be turned into nouns to describe us: Americans, Missourians, Jacksonians. However, there are so many things other than our geography that make up who we are. Similarly, there is much more to people who have disabilities or health conditions than their disability or condition. This is the rationale for person-first language. The “People First” movement began in 1974. In 1992, the American Psychological Association advocated
    2 min
  • To Your Health: Summer Blood Shortages
    The American Red Cross reports that although an estimated 38 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood, less than 10 percent of that eligible population actually donate each year. Donations at high school and college blood drives account for as much as 20 percent of the supply during the school year, but during the summer months, these donors are not as accessible. When vacations disrupt other regular donors’ schedules, we are faced with a summer blood shortage. Despite many
    2 min
  • To Your Health: Firework Safety
    John Adams wrote his wife, Abigail that July 4th “ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more." Independence Day is almost here and many of us will be celebrating it in a style that would make John Adams proud. However, this is also the time of year that the National Council on Fireworks Safety reminds the public of the safe and responsible use of
    2 min
  • To Your Health: Heat Stroke
    Did you know that the term “dog days of summer” actually has nothing to do with canines? Jon Katz, author of Dog Days says it actually goes back to the Romans belief that Sirius, the brightest star in the “big dog” constellation rose with the sun to create great days of heat. However, dogs may know how to better deal with hot days than humans do...they find shade and lay down, while we just go about our busy lives. Do you know how to tell when you are too darn hot? Johns Hopkins School of
    2 min
  • To Your Health: Antibacterial Soap
    Have you noticed that when you purchase your favorite hand soap, the label no longer says “Antibacterial”? In, 2016, the Food and Drug Administration banned 19 supposedly antibacterial additives commonly found in over-the-counter soaps. Manufacturers had two years to comply with the ruling This may seem strange to us as consumers, as we know washing hands kills germs---wouldn’t having antibacterial additives in our soap kill more germs? Well, after years of research, the FDA didn’t find any
    2 min
  • To Your Health: Mosquito-Borne Illnesses
    How many mosquito bites have you already received this summer? While most of the time, mosquitos just provide us with itchy annoyance, according to the World Health Organization, of all disease-transmitting insects, the mosquito is the greatest menace, spreading malaria, dengue and yellow fever, which together are responsible for several million deaths and hundreds of millions of cases every year. The mosquito became even more infamous recently due to it being the source of transmission of the
    2 min

About Martin's Must-Reads

From the publisher's feed

There are one million new books published each year. With so many books and so little time, where do you begin to find your next must-read? There’s the New York Times Bestseller list, the Goodreads…