The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7406 p764
24 June 2006

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

PDF 50K, Acrobat Reader

Virtue’s colour — but an embarrassment to some more
How can we tackle the problem of obesity? more
Correct use of the language is important more
Using the owl as a symbol more

Virtue’s colour — but an embarrassment to some

In the 22 April edition of The Lancet there is an interesting comment on the not uncommon phenomenon of blushing. There is a 17th century proverb that blushing is virtue’s colour. It has the reputation of being common but embarrassing.

In most individuals affected, blushing is fleeting but in a few it is severe enough to be debilitating and socially devastating. Health care professionals are said to be poorly informed concerning treatment options if a sufferer calls for them. Oddly enough, despite the ideas conveyed by 18th-century novelists, both men and women show a similar prevalence of troublesome blushing.

Individuals affected tend to avoid social contact, and social phobia may be implicated in the phenomenon. Blushing affects the face, ears and often the neck, often with a tingling or burning sensation. It is involuntary, uncontrollable and triggered by the mildest of emotions. Charles Darwin classified it as “the most human of all expressions”.

Blushing occurs in people of all races, though it is less of a problem in dark than fair complexioned individuals. Nevertheless, the skin sensation may be much the same regardless of colour.

Non-emotional causes may involve facial vasodilatation due to exercise or a hot environment. The type of post-menopausal flushing results from a falling in oestrogen. Drugs and food or alcohol can trigger flushing. Special makeup or screening may be helpful. Cognitive behavioural treatment and task-concentration training have been applied, and beta-blocking drugs, particularly clonidine, may help. Sympathectomy has been applied, but may heighten depression.

Back to Top

How can we tackle the problem of obesity?

“Overweight” and “obesity” rarely leave the headlines of our journals. This is inevitable, bearing in mind that obesity carries decreased life expectancy brought about by cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. Nevertheless, we neglect it as a risk factor in everyday living. Worldwide, at least 1.1bn adults and 10 per cent of children are now either overweight or obese, according to an editorial in the 13 May issue of The Lancet. Indeed, the only region where the condition is uncommon is sub-Saharan Africa.

The main cause of the obesity epidemic is overeating, and particularly foods rich in fats, extracted sugars or refined starches. The other major factor is known to be a decline in physical activity, due to undue time spent in watching television programmes, for instance. It is necessary to motivate people to eat less, to choose healthier foods and to get plenty of physical exercise. This may prove difficult where fruit and vegetables are expensive, high-fat processed foods heavily promoted and a routine exercise schedule not practised.

It is reported that progress is slowly being made to remedy the situation. In Europe the incidence of obesity, particularly in children, has risen threefold since the 1980s and more than half the adults in most European countries are known to be overweight — this has been accepted as a warning call for political action. The World Health Organization has promoted meetings to discuss the role of sport, transport, urban planning, education, leisure, agriculture and trade in meeting the challenge.

In New Zealand, a worldwide agenda is being studied since 35 per cent of New Zealander adults are overweight and another 21 per cent obese. One in five children aged 5 to 14 is overweight and another 10 per cent obese. This has provoked swift action.

In Europe, planning to provide safe green areas for walking, cycling or play is progressing. Education in schools, on healthy eating and exercise is on the agenda and new ideas about school meals abound. The difficulty lies in teaching children to discriminate and not to follow crazes for eating, drinking and playing games./p

Back to Top

Correct use of the language is important

With all the attention that is currently being devoted to the curricula of schools, it is regrettable to note that the demands of language and literature in the design of individual development are being overlooked in favour of studies of commercial significance.

Modern youngsters are urged to be competitive in a material sense, so that they become richer in pocket and encourage the purchase of more and more possessions, so that trade will increase and those with capital will exert more political influence. The remarks of Herbert Spencer in the 19th century that “Education has for its object the formation of character” seems to have been ignored, greatly to our loss in the long run.

Being too busy looking for gains to attend to the minutiae of reading and writing makes people susceptible to political rigmarole and less critical than they ought to be. The rules of grammar lay down that “media” is plural, with “medium” as its singular. A regular confusion of “practise” and “practice” appears in journalistic efforts, although the first is a verb and the second a noun.

Meanings are warped and we read reports of individuals who have encountered a mild slight as being “furious”, although in its Latin origin fury is akin to utter madness — nothing less. Feelings of anger or contempt are more accurately described as “indignation” or even “disdain”.

We read that a situation is “fairly unique” when in truth it must either be unique or not, and that things are “almost identical” when they are either identical or they are not.

Political spinners use such expressions to conceal what the truth really is. Unless school children are properly indoctrinated into using their native tongue and given incentives to handle it responsibly, education will be wasted on them. They will be victims of those who abuse their language, of spin-doctors and money-grabbers.

Alexander Pope wrote in 1734: “ ’Tis education forms the common mind: / Just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined”.

Back to Top

And I quote …

Using the owl as a symbol
“Owls, being associated with night, are used in many cultures as symbols for two things — first for death, and second, rather differently, for wisdom. Going out in the dark brings danger of death. But, if you have to go out, then it is surely a good thing to have with you a creature that can penetrate the darkness”.
— Mary Midgley: The owl of Minerva (2005).

Back to Top