Old Enough to Die

Yoga up everybody or maybe the direction should be down. There is a new book making the rounds, Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich which details the extreme lengths we go to keep from dying. Ehrenreich compares doctors' examinations to rituals that serve as much to cement the social order and the authority of physicians as they do to advance healing.

Beyond the doctor's office, Ehrenreich takes us into the world of wellness, where, from Yoga to CrossFit to gluten-free diets, we obsessively follow the latest trends that promise eternal youth. She traces this surge of interest in physical fitness to the 1980s, when disillusionment with the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement led to a type of self-involvement where if you could not change the world, you could still control your own body. Yes, she really wrote that!

Cynically, Ehrenreich observes that the $6 billion industry of employee wellness programs, which aim to reduce employer health insurance expenditures, has no measurable impact on corporations' health-care spending. The bottom line: Ehrenreich advocates spending more time enjoying life rather than finding ways to prolong it because no matter what you do, aging, both physically and mentally, is a process you can’t avoid.
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Learn More:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-natural-causes-barbara-ehrenreich-review-20180508-story.html
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/12/natural-causes-by-barbara-ehrenreich-review
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/barbara-ehrenreich-natural-causes/556859