Vegan family opens up about being bullied over choice of lifestyle

Agencies
September 15, 2019

Washington D.C., Sept 15: The argument about consuming less meat and more plant-based foods has been going on for ages now. But what happens if that argument takes an ugly shape leading to you being bullied for your choice of lifestyle?
A family of five recently opened up about losing friends and being bullied because they are vegan, reported Fox News.

Jacqui, Ryan Robins and their three children Skye (15), Skipp (14), and Cadan (5) are vegan and hog on a range of lip-smacking dishes without meat or dairy.

However, the family from Probus, Cornwall, England, admitted that the transition to a vegan lifestyle has not been an easy one. The family revealed that they have lost friends due to it, and are often met with aggression and bitterness.

Jacqui, who was 8-years-old when she decided to give up meat, shared that other parents hold back from speaking to her when she goes to her children's schools.

"Passion is misunderstood to be aggression or hatred. I have been to parent's evenings and had people turn their backs to me. They would rather do that than engage in a conversation that will make them feel uncomfortable," she said.

Meanwhile, Ryan has been a victim of online trolling for his choice of lifestyle. According to the online trolls, his dietary choices are disrespectful to his late father, who was a "highly-respected" butcher.

Whereas, Skipp confessed that he is targeted at school over his vegan lifestyle, and frequently has meat waved in his face.

However, despite all the ups and downs, the family defends their dietary choices and hopes to put an end to the misconception that vegans are "crazy".

Jacqui, a nutritionist, said that they are just "trying to raise awareness about practices" people should be aware of, noting that many "good and kind people" won't make the same choices if they "knew the reality".

"There seems to be some kind of divide where people meet vegans with aggression and resistance, when you are just trying to raise awareness about practices that people should know about," she said.

"I know there are so many good, kind people making choices that they wouldn't make if they knew the reality," she added.

Jacqui decided to turn vegetarian at the age of 8 after realising that animals were used in the preparation of her shepherd's pie. But two years ago, after watching "horrifying" documentaries and researching about dairy-farming processes, the nutritionist decided to ditch dairy, too.

"I saw a video that went into the reality of the dairy industry. I was horrified and straight away I didn't want anything to do with the dairy products," she said.

"I thought, if I couldn't cope with watching it happen, but I was buying the product, I was inadvertently funding it," she added.

Jacqui's son Skipp soon followed her footsteps, after watching the 2017 documentary 'The Land of Hope and Glory' with his mother, which showcases the UK's farming practices.

"All of the kids have made their own decisions and have recognized why they are vegan. Some parents say 'you're not having that and that', but we wanted the kids to understand why we do it, take on the information and decide for themselves," Jacqui said of her kids' lifestyle choices.

However, for Skye, the dietary transition took a little longer because she was afraid to watch the documentaries featuring the farming practices.

"Once I watched them it was easy. I now want to know where my food has come from and how," Skye said.

The youngest child Cadan was switched to vegan milk alternatives after he suffered a variety of digestive issues from consuming dairy milk.

"Even Cadan understands exactly - he knows that the baby animals suffer and are taken from their mommies and he doesn't believe in that," Jacqui said.

However, for Ryan, the journey to veganism has been very different from his family since his father was a butcher. He grew up surrounded by the farming industry and used to frequently visit slaughterhouses.

"Dad was a highly respected butcher and worked part-time on a farm and neighbours would bring animals around to be skinned and plucked. It wasn't abnormal for me to be around dead animals for much of my life," he said.

"I would help put animals on trailers and get the animals into the slaughterhouses and it was all normal to me. I witnessed chickens being killed on the farm, I worked on the turkey line just before Christmas and I always just thought 'we need animals to be healthy and strong'," Ryan added.

He initially opted for veganism due to health reasons, after his father passed away, and Jacqui's mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

"I wanted us and our family to live a life as healthy and as nutritiously as possible so that we could live as long as possible," Ryan noted.

The family said that a very common misconception about vegans is that they are "militant" and "crazy".

However, they claimed that they have no problem with other people's decision to eat meat, but their refusal to understand the processes behind the meat and dairy processes.

Jacqui said that she doesn't want vegans to be called crazy, but she wants to make people aware by explaining them the processes. And the family often practices this through social media but this has taken an ugly shape leading to losing friends and family.

Jacqui noted that it is "corrupt" to sell a product without "transparency".

"A lot of people don't realize, and I think we are manipulated by the industry to think everything is happy and everything is great. I think that it is corrupt to sell a product without transparency," she said.

"So when I started posting about it and raising awareness, I lost a lot of my friendships - because they were telling me to be quiet about it," the nutritionist added.

Jacqui said that she lost many friends because they wanted "to inform people" about the processes.

"If I had just gone vegan and kept quiet about it, my friends would have probably left me alone. But the breaking of friendships was mostly because we wanted to inform people," she said.

Living in Cornwall, the family is faced with increased pressure for being vegan as they are surrounded by agricultural farming. Many of the kids' classmates are from farming families.

However, the parents noted that they are not anti-farmers, but are against the "process and lack of transparency".

"We are not against farmers, they are intelligent people that we need in this world - it's the process we are against and the lack of transparency. If we are moving towards a vegan world we will need farmers and we want to work with them - because we need them," Ryan said.

Jacqui and Ryan stated that veganism is all about replacing meat and dairy options with healthier alternatives. According to the couple, it is as easy as replacing meat with chickpeas, lentils and beans now that vegan alternatives are so readily available.

"The main thing we do is swap meat for beans, lentils, and chickpeas. We eat lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. We then replace meat with legumes and swap dairy milk and cheese to plant-based alternatives," the parents said.

They also said that they don't feel like they are missing out on something due to their choice of lifestyle.

"As long as we do that we seem to be thriving. Everywhere we go to eat out we can have pretty much anything. We don't feel like we are missing out," the couple said.

The family's lifestyle choice has also encouraged Jacqui's father John and his wife Sarah to follow suit.

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Agencies
February 26,2020

Feb 26: While too much stress can be toxic to your health, a new study suggests that despite its negative side effects, it may also lead to a surprising social benefit.

The research, published in the journal Stress & Health, found that experiencing stress made people both more likely to give and receive emotional support from another person.

This was true on the day they experienced the stressor as well as the following day.

"Our findings suggest that just because we have a bad day, that doesn't mean it has to be completely unhealthy," said study researcher David Almeida from Penn State University in the US.

"If stress can actually connect us with other people, which I think is absolutely vital to the human experience, I think that's a benefit. Stress could potentially help people deal with negative situations by driving them to be with other people," Almeida added.

For the study, the researchers interviewed 1,622 participants every night for eight nights. They asked the participants about their stressors and whether they gave or received emotional support on that day.

Stressors included arguments, stressful events at work or school, and stressful events at home.

The researchers found that on average, participants were more than twice as likely to either give or receive emotional support on days they experienced a stressor.

Additionally, they were 26 per cent more likely to give or receive support the following day.

The researchers said that while this effect, on average, was found across the participants, it differed slightly between men and women.

"Women tended to engage in more giving and receiving emotional support than men," said study researcher Hye Won Chai.

"In our study, men were also more likely to engage in emotional support on days they were stressed, but to a lesser extent than women," Chai added.

The researchers said they were surprised that stress was linked to people not just receiving emotional support, but giving it, as well.

"We saw that someone experiencing a stressor today actually predicted them giving emotional support the next day," Almeida said.

"This made me think that it's actually possible that stress helps to drive you to other people and allows it to be ok to talk about problems -- your problems, my problems," Almeida added.

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Dr G K Sudhakar Reddy
August 4,2020

Being overweight or obese is now recognised as a serious cause of ill health and disability. There is a significant positive association between orthopaedic disorders and the level of obesity causing pain, deformity and difficulty in walking.

Excess body weight accumulation increases pressure on joints, particularly the hips, knees and ankles.

Here are a few type of  arthritis:

Osteoarthritis

It is a condition of damage/ wear and tear of the joint lining or cartilage. Obesity triggers this by loading excessive weight on the weight bearing joints like the knee and the hip. 

Knee Osteoarthritis

This is the most common arthritis especially in the Indian subcontinent.

While walking, an individual exerts 3 to 6 times pressure that of the body weight on the weight-bearing knee joint, which means in an obese with excess body weight, larger forces are exerted, which lead to higher risk of deterioration of cartilage.

In addition, there are excessive fat tissues that produce hormones and other factors that affect the joint cartilage metabolism and cause inflammation of the joints giving rise to joint pathology.  Leptin is one of the hormones causing knee osteoarthritis. 

Hip osteoarthritis

The force exerted across the hip is 3 times that of body weight. Hip osteoarthritis is caused by factors such as joint injury, increasing age and being overweight.    

Hand osteoarthritis

The observation that obese individual has a higher risk in having hand osteoarthritis has led to a hypothesis that the metabolic effect produced by fat tissue is the underlying factor. 

Osteoporosis

It is a progressive bone condition of decrease in bone mass and density (Bone Mineral Density or BMD) which can lead to an increased risk of fracture. Recent research suggests that obesity may accelerate bone loss. It is the amount of muscle mass which is seen in an active person, which accounts for bone strengthening effects and not due to the fat seen in a heavy person.

Low back pain

Low back pain from degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine is one of the most disabling conditions in the community and overweight and obesity have the strongest association with seeking care for low back pain.

Managing Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis

Life style changes

If one is overweight, try to lose weight by doing more physical activity and eating a healthier diet. Regular exercise keeps you active and mobile and builds up muscle, thereby strengthening the joints and can improve symptoms. 

Pain Killers

Painkillers help with pain and stiffness for short term. They don’t affect the arthritis itself and won’t repair the damage to your joint. Creams and gels can be applied directly onto painful joints.

Nutritional Supplements

Glucosamine and chondroitin are nutritional supplements. Animal studies have found that glucosamine can both delay the breakdown of and repair damaged cartilage. However, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of glucosamine in humans and one can expect only a mild-to-moderate reduction in pain

Joint injections

If pain from osteoarthritis is severe joint steroid injections are injected into the joints that can reduces swelling and pain. The injections can start working within a day or so and may improve pain for several weeks or months. 

Hyaluronic acid injections, which help to lubricate your knee joint also give short term relief. In early stages. Stem cell treatment or cartilage regeneration procedures are being tried in young people with small defects, however it is still experimental and lacks long term evidence.

Surgery

May be recommended if you have severe pain or mobility problems.

Arthroscopy

If one has frequent painful locking/stiffening episodes especially in the knee joint, an operation to wash out loose fragments of bone and other tissue as joint can be performed by a minimally invasive key hole procedure called Arthroscopy.

Arthrodesis

If hip or knee replacement is not suitable, especially in young people who do heavy manual work, one can consider an operation known as an arthrodesis, which fuses your joint in a permanent position. This means that your joint will be stronger and much less painful, although you will no longer be able to move it.

Osteotomy

In young, active people in whom a knee joint replacement would fail due to excessive use one can consider an operation called an osteotomy. This involves adding or removing a small section of bone either above or below your knee joint.  This helps realign your knee so your weight is no longer focused on the damaged part of your knee. An osteotomy can relieve your symptoms of osteoarthritis, although you may still need knee replacement surgery eventually as you grow old

Joint replacement surgery

Joint replacement therapy is most commonly carried out to replace hip and knee joints. It involves replacing a damaged, worn or diseased joint with an artificial joint made of special plastics and metal.

For most people, a replacement hip or knee will last for at least 20 years, especially if it is cared for properly and not put under too much strain.

Dr G K Sudhakar Reddy is a Sr Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Citizens Speciality Hospitals, Hyderabad

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Agencies
July 7,2020

The World Health Organization (WHO) is reviewing a report that suggested its advice on the novel coronavirus needs updating after some scientists told the New York Times there was evidence the virus could be spread by tiny particles in the air.

The WHO says the Covid-19 disease spreads primarily through small droplets, which are expelled from the nose and mouth when an infected person breaths them out in coughs, sneezes, speech or laughter and quickly sink to the ground.

In an open letter to the Geneva-based agency, 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined the evidence they say shows that smaller exhaled particles can infect people who inhale them, the newspaper said on Saturday.

Because those smaller particles can linger in the air longer, the scientists - who plan to publish their findings in a scientific journal this week - are urging WHO to update its guidance, the Times said.

"We are aware of the article and are reviewing its contents with our technical experts," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email reply on Monday to a Reuters request for comment.

The extent to which the coronavirus can be spread by the so-called airborne or aerosol route - as opposed to by larger droplets in coughs and sneezes - remains disputed.

Any change in the WHO's assessment of the risk of transmission could affect its current advice on keeping one-metre physical distancing. Governments, which also rely on the agency for guidance policy, may also have to adjust public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

"Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence," Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO's technical lead for infection prevention and control, was quoted as saying in the New York Times.

WHO guidance to health workers, dated June 29, says that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and on surfaces.

But airborne transmission via smaller particles is possible in some circumstances, such as when performing intubation and aerosol-generating procedures, it says.

Medical workers performing such procedures should wear heavy-duty N95 respiratory masks and other protective equipment in an adequately ventilated room, the WHO says.

Officials at South Korea's Centers for Disease Control said on Monday they were continuing to discuss various issues about Covid-19, including the possible airborne transmission. They said more investigations and evidence were needed.

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