There are many health and fitness clubs that offer special opportunities for their female clients. Most of the gyms and health clubs have classes that are co-ed, and they are also offering more individualized programs that target specific exercises for women.Women need to learn stretching techniques that can be used to keep their bodies flexible, and these methods are sometimes different from the types of exercises available for men. The female body is often far more flexible than a man’s and, unless they keep the joints trained and moving, they will lose this ability over the years.Some of the co-ed classes that are offered at a health and fitness club include spinning, stepping, Pilates, yoga, cardio, and weight training. Women are the dominant members of the stepping, Pilates, and yoga classes in almost every health and fitness club. The weight training classes generally have few, if any, women participants.There are a couple of reasons that women tend to steer away from weight training. Women tend to believe that weight training and body building are synonymous and, therefore, they do not want to bulk up their bodies and look like male body builders.Women may not know that much about weights and weight lifting techniques and many are reluctant to ask anyone for information. The barbells and heavy apparatus are still viewed as a man’s domain by many.However, health and fitness clubs are now helping women rethink their ideas about weight training. It has been scientifically proven that working with weights will increase bone density in women. Strong bones and toned bodies are what women will gain from participating in weight training classes.The bulk and large muscles will not appear on women unless they use testosterone drugs, since it is physically impossible for a female to develop those large and imposing muscles just by working with weights.

The various definitions of health status indicate that it can be determined on the basis of both objective and subjective measures. Typically, in the workplace, it is determined on the basis of clinical biometric measures such as BMI (body mass index), blood pressure, weight, cholesterol levels and blood sugar level. These objective measures are derived through a process commonly known as biometric screening.Since health status can involve both objective and subjective data, knowing these different data points is important.Subjective Data Sources• Biographical information• Physical symptoms• Past health history• Family history• Health beliefs and values• LifestyleObjective Data Sources• Physical characteristics• Appearance• Health, lifestyle and other behaviors• Body systems functioning• Measurements and screening results• Results from lab testingSince there is no standard for health status, it can be based on either objective or subjective data. Generally though, current approaches are focused almost exclusively on the effects of illness and the varying states of ill-health.How individuals conceptualize their health has been shown to vary as a function of:• Age and gender• Social class• CultureThis means that how they view their health status will vary as well. Given that the conceptualization can vary, it is important to make the assessment about the individual employee as a whole person and not just about their current biometric data. This means that the employee needs to be viewed in the various contexts that can and will influence their health and not just as an isolated individual. An effective health assessment requires a contextual awareness and understanding in addition to observing and understanding any objective measurement and test results.Despite the worksite wellness community’s heavy reliance on objective measures as indicators of health, I found it interesting to read that “self-assessed health contributed significantly to the prediction of mortality, even after controlling for a wide array of objective health indicators.” (Wright, 1977)In his book, Healing Beyond the Body, Dr. Larry Dossey wrote: “Our own opinion about the state of our health is a better predictor than physical symptoms and objective factors such as extensive exams, laboratory tests or behaviors.” Dr. Dossey also wrote that how people answer the question “Is your health excellent, good, fair, or poor is a better predictor of who will live or die over the next decade than in-depth physical examinations, and extensive laboratory tests.”The quotes by Wright and Dossey are particularly note-worthy given the worksite wellness community’s heavy promotion of workplace biometric screening results as being indicators of an employee’s health status. Given that health can be defined in very broad conceptual terms and health status can be very subjective as well, it might behoove the worksite wellness community to take a look at its current approach to wellness being limited to just individual employee health status that is based on biometrics and health risk assessments.When it comes to the status of an employee’s health, the worksite wellness community would be wise to look beyond just the results of biometric screenings.ResourcesDossey, Larry. MD. 2001. Healing Beyond The Body. Boston: Shambhala Publications.Wright, Stephen. 1997. Health Status Assessment in Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine. Baum, Andre. Newman, Stanton. Weinman, John. West, Robert. McManus, Chris. (Eds.) New York: Cambridge University Press.

Charcot’s foot is one of the many problems which might occur in those with diabetes mellitus. The higher blood sugar levels that stem from all forms of diabetes have an affect on numerous body systems including the eyesight, renal system as well as nerves. In long standing cases, particularly if there has been an unsatisfactory control of the blood sugar levels, you can find problems with the nerves supplying the feet. This will make the feet in danger of issues as if something fails, you don’t know it has gone wrong as you can not really feel it due to the harm to the nerves. This might be something as simple as standing on a rusty nail and that getting contaminated and you are not aware that you’ve stood on the nail. Should it be a blister or ingrown toenail which gets infected and you do not know that it is present on the foot unless you have a look. This is why foot care can be so necessary for those with diabetes and why it will be provided a great deal of emphasis. A Charcot foot is the destruction occurring to the bones and joints if you have an injury and you do not know that the injury has happened.

A way of looking at it could be to consider this way: pretend that you sprain your ankle horribly and you also are not aware that you have simply because you do not experience the pain from it. You then carry on and walk around on it. Picture all of the additional harm which you do by walking about on it. The earliest you may possibly discover that there may be something wrong happens when you take a seat and look at the feet and you observe that one is a great deal more swollen compared to the other foot. This is exactly what occurs in individuals with diabetes who develop a Charcot’s foot. There may be some destruction, such as a sprained ankle or maybe a progressive failure of the arch of the foot and as no pain is sensed they carry on and walk around on it. It should be apparent simply how much more injury that gets done to the original injury prior to the problem is finally observed because of the swelling. At times there is not much swelling, but the Charcot’s foot is picked up from the difference in temperature between the two feet as a result of inflammation related process in the damaged foot that generates more warmth.

The development of a Charcot foot really needs to be dealt with as a bit of an urgent situation since the further it advances the much more serious it’s going to be and the more challenging it can be to handle. The individual definitely needs to quit all weightbearing without delay or at least obtain a walking support so that the damage is protected. For the not too major instances and those conditions which were serious and have improved a really supportive orthotic in the footwear is required to support the feet and the injuries. Sometimes surgical procedures are required to straighten the subluxed and dislocated bones. By far the most critical situations can end up with the foot and/or leg required to be amputated as the trauma has been doing an excessive amount of impairment.