“I am extremely honored to have been selected to participate on the 614Startups podcast. Elio Harmon is a huge driver in the startup culture that is thriving in Columbus and getting the Apportis story out in this fashion is fantastic.”
To hear the podcast, episode 14 Philip Payne, please go here: https://www.614startups.com/
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According to a recent NYTimes article, “gaming disorder” refers to a serious addiction to video games; so serious, in fact, that it is now being recognized by the World Health Organization as a legitimate illness. This is big news because addiction to gaming, the article says, is a problem with precious few solutions. As a new illness, relatively few therapists are trained to deal with it, meaning that there are long waitlists for the treatments that are available.
A large base of people who need help, a limited number of qualified professionals, and a pressing need all call for the implementation of telemedicine. With a telemedicine app like Apportis, these obstacles can be overcome. Those suffering from gaming disorder would no longer be reliant on the single, potentially expensive resource nearest to them. Telemedicine revolutionizes healthcare by giving the patients a choice. When physical distance is no longer a barrier to meeting with a professional, those seeking help can find it from as near or as far as they would like.
Telemedicine democratizes healthcare, allowing patients to act as clients in choosing who services them, from where, and for how much. An illness such as gaming disorder might seem disheartening due to the lack of resources and information that is available. The future of telemedicine doesn’t only bring doctors, therapists, and support in reach: it brings hope to people who didn’t expect it. And that’s something to look forward to.
BMI might seem like just another number attached to your health. Your BMI, or body mass index, is found by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in meters. It gives you more information than your weight alone, because it puts your weight in context of how tall you are. In other words, BMI accounts for the difference of a 5’2” person weighing 150 pounds and a 5’8” person weighing 150 pounds.
The purpose of measuring BMI, according to the CDC, is to screen for weight category. This is different from determining the level of fat on your body; it also stops short from being an individualized report of your health.
The CDC says the following of BMI’s usefulness and limitations:
“A high BMI can be an indicator of high body fatness. BMI can be used as a screening tool but is not diagnostic of the body fatness or health of an individual.
To determine if a high BMI is a health risk, a healthcare provider would need to perform further assessments. These assessments might include skinfold thickness measurements, evaluations of diet, physical activity, family history, and other appropriate health screenings.”
It’s important to know that a BMI can suggest a weight category (such as underweight, healthy, overweight, etc.), but this suggestion is fallible. A BMI is in no way the end-all, be-all of your health. It can be used to decide if you want other tests to gain a better idea of your personal health—something you may want to do if your BMI is overweight or obese—but the BMI is not holistic in nature. For instance, BMI does not take into account the difference between weight from fat and weight from muscle. An athlete could very easily be considered “obese” when in reality they are very healthy.
For more information about BMI, watch this video from Vox.
I had never heard of the keto diet until I came home during a break and was greeted by my mother who was (and looked!) 30lbs lighter than she was when I had last seen her. I was surprised, because my mom has traditionally scoffed at dieting trends, as they preach ideas she doesn’t agree with, like starving yourself or trying to get skinny at all cost. In her early 50’s, making changes to her body was difficult. She had tried on and off for several years to get in better shape, but to no avail; besides, my mother found herself incredibly busy…being a mom.
Her last, and most successful, foray into the world of weight loss was prompted by her upcoming wedding. She was motivated by the dress she wanted to buy and all the loved ones who she would see on her big day. It was really simple: on her big day, my mother wanted to look, and feel, her very best.
When I asked her about what made her go keto, she told me that it came down to the diet sounding reasonable and fact-based.
“I understood it,” she said. “It made sense to me.”
Keto is a diet that works because of how the human body processes food. Basically, your body burns easy energy before it burns anything else. Carbs and sugar are really easy for our bodies to break down, so that’s what goes first. Any excess energy is converted into fat storage.
The keto diet simply directs the body to use the current fat storages as energy. This is accomplished by eating a diet high in fats that lacks carbs and sugar. The idea is that once your body burns the fat you feed it, your body will naturally go into burning the fat that has been stored on your body.
There’s disagreement about whether the keto diet is something that is sustainable long-term, or if it’s something that should be done for a short period of time, like a few months. My mom has weaned herself off of it because she hit her goal weight, but I have a friend from college who is committed to sticking to it as long as possible.
If this diet sounds interesting, you can learn more about it here.
As always, consult with a doctor to see if this diet is right for you.
How’s your New Year’s resolution going?
I was talking to my friend the other day about how I had gone on a run for the first time in months, and how sore I was because of it. She told me that she had made a New Year’s resolution to work out twice a week, and, although she hadn’t forgotten about it, she had almost completely given up.
This was a total surprise to me, because out of the two of us, I would say she is in better shape. During our first year of college, she was the one who would walk across campus, even when it was cold and dark out, to make whatever fitness class she had signed up for that week.
If I’m being honest, I didn’t make a resolution at all this year. I don’t think I’ve ever held to a resolution for more than a week or two into January. But if I had made a resolution, it would undoubtedly be about running. I ran a lot in high school and more or less quit when I got to college. I was never super great at running, and I had liked running in the afternoon, which was hard to fit into my schedule.
So I had told my friend that I would start going running again during the summer, and I think it’s safe to say that neither of us really believed me. I haven’t been a “runner” for almost three years now! It isn’t really a habit of mine any longer. If anything, it’s just a memory of a habit.
To all of our disbelief, I actually started running again. I’m not going to tell you my stats, but my first run was a little over a mile, and I was sloooow. I’m sticking to it; I have a plan that will have me going on 3-mile runs during August.
When I think about why I have decided to take exercise more seriously, while my very healthy friend is currently in a little slump, is because I only have one year left of college, and I’ve been told by a lot of people that the habits you form while when you’re young tend to stick with you throughout life. I figure the more work I do now, the less I’ll have to do later.
I want to be a runner because it makes me feel great. It helps me to relax and it’s good for my body and mind. If I don’t start now, I might never do it. Running isn’t something I want to do, it’s something I know I need to do.
My friend is on a different level than me, even if she is in a mini-slump right now, because she has exercised consistently throughout the last three years. My goal, or my “resolution,” is high-stakes because I need to prove to myself that I can see it through.
And who knows? Maybe by next January, I’ll set a real resolution of running a 10k. But until then, I’m going to go on another very slow, very short run this afternoon. We’ll see what happens.
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