Insights

<p>With my <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/blogs/clearing-air-air-pollution-issue… entry</a> in this blog, I described some of the potential environmental effects that could be caused by massive expansions at the Port of Long Beach and nearby facilities. With our Reporting On Health Fellowship beginning this weekend, I thought I would post another quick update with a few details.</p>

<p>Last year, I was reporting a story about alternative churches in San Francisco. I talked to Matthew Fox, an Oakland pastor and the creator of the Cosmic Mass, a Christian rave that replaces sermons and hymns with techno music and dancing. Hold the drugs. Fox developed his event as a way for people to experience and process intense feelings of ecstasy, anger, and grief.</p> <p>"We're not shown ways to deal with grief," he said. "It's where a lot of our addictions come from. We bottle it up, we take a drink or a pill."</p>

<p>I attended a meeting Tuesday evening where I felt real inspiration.</p>

<p><em>We have a guest post today from <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/users/ivanoransky">Ivan Oransky</a>, executive editor of Reuters Health and co-author of the newish Embargo Watch and Retraction Watch blogs. Here, he has some tips for dealing with embargoed medical research. </em></p>

<p>Only if you were too caught up in celebrity divorces this week could you have missed the latest blockbuster investigation from ProPublica: <a href="http://www.propublica.org/topic/dollars-for-doctors">Dollars for Docs</a>.</p>

<p>Here’s what we’re checking out today:</p> <p><strong>Nutrition:</strong> Irony alert: Chicago public schoolchildren <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-school-gardens-20101019,0,4…’t eat the healthy, organic produce they grow in their school gardens</a> because of rules that commercial growers <em>don’t have to follow</em>.&nbsp;</p>

<p>For the viewing, I sported green Nike running shoes and a 2nd hand brown suit. I thought I looked fine. But on the way over to the church, my friend, who I'll call Tony, laid into me:</p> <p>"You look like an idiot. What the hell are you doing wearing that? You're the only fool I know that would go to a funeral dressed like you're running to a 1975 prom."</p>

<p>For the first time in U.S. history, the current generation of children have a lower life expectancy than their parents, due mostly to obesity and other diet-related diseases.</p> <p>The strain on our health-care system caused by diabetes and obesity alone can be calculated in the billions. We are just beginning to see the extreme negative ramifications to our communal health brought about by the switch in the 50’s and 60’s from a local farming culture to a food culture based on super-markets and fast-food restaurants.<span>&nbsp;</span></p>

<p><!--StartFragment--></p><p class="MsoNormal">Really painful but doable. Not as bad as I expected. Those are my first answers when someone asks me about the birth of my son. I always tell people that the most difficult part for me was after the birth, especially when it came to breastfeeding.</p>

<p>This year's <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/fellowships/seminars/california-health… Health Journalism Fellows</a> are pursuing stories important to communities. They're investigating air quality, the on-the-ground effects of health care reform and children's health, and asking important questions about how neighborhoods can be healthier. Here's a quick rundown of some of their projects, with links to their own blog posts so you can learn more, comment and offer ideas.</p>