Two seemingly unrelated articles popped out at me last week, connecting themselves in my mind. And so, this blog post.
In 2008, the Oxford Junior Dictionary (a dictionary geared to 7-year olds) updated their text, removing many nature words. Here they are:
Acorn, adder, allotment, almond, apricot, ash, ass (come on. What now are 7-year-olds going to look up and snicker at?), bacon (um, what?), beaver, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bluebell, bramble, bran, bray, bridle, brook, budgerigar (had to look it up, in my 2007 Oxford Junior Dictionary), bloom (Orlando), bullock (Sandra), buttercup, canary, canter, carnation, catkin (again, had to look it up), cauliflower, cheetah, chestnut, clover, colt, conker (what you do to your sister when she knocks down your blocks on purpose), corgi (with apologies to my Grandma and the queen who I’ve recently learned are not the same person), county, cowslip, crocus, cygnet (I think this is a color?), dandelion, diesel, doe, drake, ferret, fern, fungus, gerbil, goldfish (dead), gooseberry, gorse (offspring of a goat and a horse), guinea pig, hamster, hazel, hazelnut, heather, herring, heron, holly, horse chestnut (I just looked this up last week I KID YOU NOT), ivy, kingfisher, lavender, lark, leek, leopard, liquorice, lobster, magpie, manger, marzipan (remind me to tell you about my 8th birthday party, when the queen-I-mean-my-grandma made me a gorgeous princess MARZIPAN cake and it tasted horrible to my 7-year old palate – good riddance, MARZIPAN!), melon, minnow, mint, mistletoe, mussel, nectar, nectarine, newt (this one is breaking my heart), oats (um, what’s porridge is made of?), otter, ox, oyster, panther (pink), pansy, parsnip, pasture, pelican, piglet, plaice, poodle (I’m fine with the removal of this one), poppy, porridge (oh, nevermind), porcupine, porpoise, poultry, primrose, prune, radish, raven, rhubarb, sheaf, spaniel, spinach, starling, stoat, stork, sycamore, terrapin (the best way to open a birthday present), thrush, tulip, turnip, vine, violet, walnut, weasel, willow, wren.
According to an official statement from Oxford University Press on the matter “[Our dictionaries] reflect the language that children are encouraged to use in the classroom as required by the national curriculum. This ensures they remain relevant and beneficial for children’s education.”
Some words that were added:
analogue, blog, broadband, MP3 player (are the kids listening to MP3s again, on players?), voicemail, attachment, database, export, chatroom, bullet point, cut and paste (does sticking the words together really change the meaning that dramatically?), analogue. Celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, citizenship, childhood, conflict, common sense*, debate, EU, drought, brainy, boisterous, cautionary tale, bilingual, bungee jumping, committee, compulsory, cope, democratic, allergic, biodegradable, emotion, dyslexic, donate, endangered, Euro.
*I’d like to point out that my 6th grade teacher would have lost her $hit if anyone used a part of the word in the definition. Just saying.
Oxford University Press is getting some flack for removing these words, and petitions and letters are being created to let these words back in. You know I love nature, but I also love getting to the root of a problem rather than dallying around with a bunch of symptoms. Oxford University Press does not shape language; they report it. Kids aren’t using nature words any longer because their lives no longer include it. Is that the fault of a dictionary company?
IN SEEMINGLY UNRELATED NEWS, the Journal of Obesity Research and Clinical Practice published a study that explains (I’m paraphrasing; this is not a quote): in studies where people report their calorie and daily exercise and activities, it appears that people are more obese than what their calorie consumption warrants. We keep assuming these people are underreporting because we “know” that it’s “calorie-in-calorie-out”, but maybe it’s not only “calorie-in-calorie-out”. Recent studies show that hormonal changes brought about by physiology-altering habits (intrinsic) or environmental toxins (extrinsic) may be altering the disposition of calories in the body.
Or, if studies were in the form of a single diagram:
I know you’ve been missing my gorgeous diagrams.
The paper goes on about researched variables associated with higher BMI (and it’s here I’ll just say, really? We’re still using BMI in academia?); I’ll list some here:
Persistent organic pollutants (chemicals that can be found in food and everyday products—I remember seeing this research last year, on flame retardants and obesity)
Pharmaceutical prescriptions associated with weight gain
Lack of varying ambient temperature
Inadequate amount of sleep
Low calcium
Bacteriome/microbiota
“As well, the majority of agricultural beef cattle are given exogenous sex steroids in order to increase weight gain and feeding efficiency. Although there are concerns that this may influence human health, more research in this area is needed”
The reason these two SEEMINGLY UNRELATED articles connected themselves in my mind was due to the headline Science Daily placed on an article about the research: Millennials, Gen Y need to eat less, work out more to stave off obesity, researchers say
Um, what?
The research article doesn’t state anything about people needing to approach their body mass index (groan) through a caloric perspective. What it is stating is, there might be MORE than calories eaten or burned affecting the current shape of your body. From the Science Daily article:
“Kuk further explains that our body weight is impacted by our lifestyle and environment, such as medication use, environmental pollutants, genetics, timing of food intake, stress, gut bacteria and even nighttime light exposure. ‘Ultimately, maintaining a healthy body weight is now more challenging than ever.’”
Although it might feel like “the problem”, obesity is a symptom. “The problem” is still being identified. BODY FAT ISSUES have been reduced to PUTTING TOO MUCH IN YOUR MOUTH problems, and certainly, WHAT ONE PUTS IN THEIR MOUTH is playing a role, as is the amount/rate/way one expends energy. But, these aren’t the only variables at play. To continue with this narrow view is to assume that our physiologically-taxing habitats are unchangeable, with the only solution being to EAT FEWER CALORIES and EXERCISE MORE. Not to eat higher-quality foods, and a more suitable macronutrient and micronutrient profile, not to get more rest and remove the chemicals from your home, office, and schools, not to stop overdosing on antibiotics and antibacterial products, and not to get out of your homes on a daily basis and get into the dirt. But instead, continue to live the same lifestyle that resulted in the problem while following the insufficient prescription HARDER.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to skip past the headlines, and usually past the articles as well, these days. I always go straight to the source. P.S. This usually requires that you spend money to find out what’s actually been written, because you have to pay to read the source. The headlines you get for free, so can you see the problem? Maybe they should just charge for correct headlines. It just occurred to me that a good headline for this post could be “While Research Suggests Calorie-In-Calorie-Out Might Not Be Entire Story, Media Concludes Young Folks Will Have to Calorie-In-Calorie-Out Harder to Fill Up Void Created By Lifestyle Impacts on Obesity. Or maybe all headlines should be in the form of diagrams, in which case,
I am available for diagram illustration and just graphic artistry in general, in case you’re interested.
So these articles were swirling around in my head because SYMPTOMS. It seems our mental framing of or approach to most things is symptom-based.
“The problem” is not that Oxford University Press is removing these words from the dictionary; it is their job to do that. The removed words are apparently obsolete in our current society (the assumption being that society is a single composite of people who go to school, learn a particular curriculum, get particular jobs, follow specific rules, and desire the same outcomes). The language in the OJD is a symptom of the language we actually use, which is a symptom of how we have chosen to live.
Of interest to me is how variables listed as potential risk factors for obesity are scenarios brought about by our attempt to live successfully (normally?) in society. So it seems like there are two courses of action. Protest the loss of words, and an institution’s failure to uphold a particular language, or live in a way that keeps natural language relevant. Perhaps this also has a direct impact on the shape of your body?
Stack your life and #solvealltheproblems.
******* Some references from the research******
Baillie-Hamilton, P.F. Chemical toxins: a hypothesis to explain the global obesity epidemic. J Altern Complement Med. 2002; 8: 185–192
Lind, P.M., Lee, D.-H., Jacobs, D.R., Salihovic, S., van Bavel, B., Wolff, M.S. et al. Circulating levels of persistent organic pollutants are related to retrospective assessment of life-time weight change. Chemosphere. 2013; 90: 998–1004
Lusk, J., Roosen, J., and Fox, J. Demand for beef from cattle administered growth hormones or fed genetically modified corn: a comparison of consumers in France, Germany, the United Kingdon, and the United States. Am J Agric Econ. 2003; 85: 16–29
Chaput, J.-P., Després, J.-P., Bouchard, C., and Tremblay, A. The association between sleep duration and weight gain in adults: a 6-year prospective study from the Quebec Family Study. Sleep. 2008; 31: 517–523
Gangwisch, J., Malaspina, D., Boden-Albala, B., and Heymsfield, S. Inadequate sleep as a risk factor for obesity: analyses of the NHANES I. Sleep. 2005; 28: 1289–1296
Keith, S.W., Redden, D.T., Katzmarzyk, P.T., Boggiano, M.M., Hanlon, E.C., Benca, R.M. et al. Putative contributors to the secular increase in obesity: exploring the roads less traveled. Int J Obes. 2006; 30: 1585–1594
Knutson, K. Does inadequate sleep play a role in vulnerability to obesity?. Am J Hum Biol. 2012; 24: 361–371
Nieuwdorp, M., Gilijamse, P.W., Pai, N., and Kaplan, L.M. Role of the microbiome in energy regulation and metabolism. Gastroenterology. 2014; : 1–9
