Sports and Fitness

Julia Sneden writes: With older women and men all across the country doing water aerobics and swimming laps, wouldn’t you think the bathing suit manufacturers would twig to the idea that there’s a huge market out here? Not only do we seniors buy suits; we buy suits more often than even the teenagers do, because we’re harder on them. No clean surf ‘n sand for us, no lying still on a beach blanket for hours, or languidly standing around the lifeguard’s chair. No, we are up to our clavicles in health club pools full of chemicals, stretching our suits (and our bodies) to all sorts of outrageous extremes, sweating inside them even though the water is cool. more »

This is the day of the week I cede responsibility for Tommy to the group I call the Three Musketeers. I fancy Barry, Hal, and Marshall as characters from the Dumas novel because the way they care for my husband; while my love for the Musketeers could be considered self-serving because they give me a day off, Tommy enjoys their personalities. But this would be the last golf season that my husband and his companions would enjoy together.   more »

Val Castronovo writes:“The sporting girls” category of cards that are the main focus of this show was distinct from the more popular female series of the time, such as those depicting actresses and beautiful, alluring women, and bearing names such as Parasol Drills and The World’s Beauties. Nonetheless, sportif females were a “viable, even lucrative category,” we learn here. Now at the end of Women's History month 2013, athletes Lindsey Vonn and Maria Sharapova have become marketing gold. more »

Among rankings that include Canada, Australia, Japan and many European countries, the US is at or near the bottom in nine key areas of health: infant mortality and low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections; prevalence of HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and disability. more »