Men’s Health

Write an essay of 300 to 500 words on your reactions to the video "The End of Men." Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kty0BqGAZwg

Compare and contrast it with the article "Save the Males"

Identify and describe 2 – 3 most important themes in the video.
Identify and describe 2 – 3 most important themes in the reading.
Describe 2 – 3 important or main ideas that are similar in both the video and the reading
Describe 2 – 3 important or main ideas that are different between the video and the reading.
Taken together, what are the main challenges to men’s health and wellness?
Offer a few ideas of your own on how to meet these challenges.
This reflective essay should be 2 pages that thoughtfully reflect upon the questions asked above. Your reflective essay must be typed, double-spaced, 12-point, Times New Roman font, with one-inch margins.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JESSE LENZ December 2015 | MENSHEALTH.COM 65
HERE’S A REVEALING THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: TAKE ALL THE
bad things that happen mostly to men and try to imagine
how you much worse you would feel about them if they
happened to women. What if women died five years younger
than men did, for reasons that had nothing to do with
biology and everything to do with neglect? What if women
had higher death rates than men from nine of the 10 top
causes of death, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, and
lung disease? Wouldn’t those sobering facts warrant the creation
of a federal agency charged with reversing the trend?
A half dozen federal agencies are dedicated
to protecting women’s health, while the
health of men is virtually ignored. That double
standard could kill you. BY PAUL JOHN SCOTT
Save the Males!
Men of America,
unite! Improve
your lousy mortality
rates, now!
HEALTH
66 MENSHEALTH.COM | December 2015
THE ANSWERS, OF COURSE,
are yes, yes, and yes. Yet
if you flip the script so it’s
men holding the losing
hand in the health game,
those what-ifs go from
hypotheticals to statements
of fact. Men do die younger—and of almost every
major sickness and trauma—than women do. But
far from setting off alarms in legislative chambers,
this grim data elicits only yawns. Of course
men die younger and more violently. We just do.
“There is a popular perception that it’s normal
or natural for women to live longer than
men,” says Ron Henry, cofounder of the Men’s
Health Network, an advocacy group based in
Washington, D.C. (MHN is not affiliated with
this magazine, except for our shared mission.)
“But once you start looking, you realize that
there’s nothing biological about men suffering
premature death and disability.”
According to CDC figures, the life expectancy
of an American man in 1919 was 55.5
years, versus 57.4 for women. By 1979, both
sexes lived longer (thank you, vaccines); however,
the longevity gap between men and
women had widened dramatically. Men’s average
life span rose to just over 70, compared
with almost 78 for women. That’s a fourfold
increase in the female advantage.
“It’s not because the DNA of either sex has
changed,” says Henry. “The things that protect
us from dying have changed.” That the longevity
gap has closed to “only” five years today
just means that it has gone from outrageous to
downright unacceptable.
MULTIPLE AGENCIES ARE
dedicated to protecting
women’s health, but barely
a government-issued stapler
is requisitioned on
behalf of the health of men.
It’s fair to say that the physical
well-being of men is a glaring societal blind
spot—a casualty of outdated notions about gender
roles and male privilege.
There are evolutionary reasons why men are
first into danger and last into the mobile molescreening
lab. “Every society that survived did
so by calling a boy a hero if he was willing to
die—whether at war or at work—so others could
live, even if he was a father,” says Warren Farrell,
Ph.D., author of The Myth of Male Power.
“Therefore, any country’s survival is in competition
with its sons’ health.” Men, in turn, have
internalized these lessons; as a result, they are
less likely than women to have health insurance,
develop a regular relationship with a doctor,
or seek treatment for a condition.
Another common assertion—that all health
research is men’s health research because until
recently, it was conducted by men—comes with
an outdated view of health. It assumes that we
are a collection of organs and nothing more,
and that we are unaffected by the ways various
cultural influences turn into risk factors. The
lopsided mortality statistics suggest that men
could use a lot of help with behaviors that are
closely linked to gender.
Heck, even the Onion can see what’s going
on here. When legislators introduced a bill back
in 2009 to create an Office of Men’s Health—one
of multiple attempts in 10 years—it was left up
to the satirical website to voice once and for all
the folly of masculine health fatalism in all its
unadorned glory. “What do you think about an
Office of Men’s Health?” a fictional man on the
street was asked. “Health is for women and children,”
came the sardonic answer. “I plan to live
with chronic pain and die early of an easily preventable
ailment, just like my father before me.”
Advocates say blowing off the health of men
is a luxury that society can no longer afford. Our
poor longevity and heightened odds of addiction,
self-harm, and committing violent crimes
affect not only us but also the welfare of women
and children and even the economy as a whole.
See? You still have to make an argument about
the care of everyone else in order to validate an
upgrade in care for men.
THERE ARE EVOLUTIONARY
REASONS WHY MEN ARE FIRST
INTO DANGER AND LAST INTO THE
MOBILE MOLE-SCREENING LAB.
m
T
Health
68 MENSHEALTH.COM | December 2015
GOOGLE THE PHRASE
“office of women’s health”
and you’ll discover pages
of admirable URLs ending
in “.gov.” The main overseer
of this lineup is the
federally funded Office on
Women’s Health (fiscal year 2015 budget: $30
million), a decades-old entity with 10 regional
offices serving all 50 states. The office was key
to numerous women-helping provisions in the
Affordable Care Act. And its efforts are complemented
by a half dozen other federal entities
dedicated to women’s health, with taxpayerfunded
and fully staffed civil servants working
within the National Institutes of Health, the
CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, and
the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Now google the phrase “office of men’s
health.” Your search will produce advocacy
groups fighting for such an office, as well as
niche outposts for men within the Office on
Women’s Health and the Indian Health Service,
along with an awful lot of articles with the word
“office” in the title from the magazine you are
now reading. “What we don’t really have right
now is anybody in government who’s paying
attention to men as men,” says Henry.
“It is so invisible that almost nobody brings
it up in Washington,” says Farrell, who has
made multiple forays there himself, without
much progress. “One perspective out there is
that men run the world and they have everything
already, so why would you want to take
resources away from women?” says Farrell.
There are two arguments within that sentence,
beginning with the idea that because
the Capitol has a lot of urinals, the government
doesn’t need anyone to coordinate urology
research and education.
One gender studies expert, in dismissing the
creation of the Men’s Health Network back in ’92,
had this to say: “A men’s health movement has
about as much relevance as white liberation.”
“The fact that 80 percent of senators are men
doesn’t do anything for the guy coughing his
lungs out in a coal mine,” counters Henry. Male
power in Washington may actually be hindering
the cause. “Guys basically have a protective
instinct and are looking for ways to help women
and children. So even though the Senate and
House of Representatives are overwhelmingly
male, they are still looking for ways to create
women and children’s programs but not men’s
programs,” he says. You could note that women
vote more regularly than men—hence the politicians’
attentions. But should men be denied
lifesaving research and care because they’re less
likely to show up in the polling booth?
Then there is the zero-sum position, the fading
but extant reactionary notion that money
directed toward the health of men is somehow
funding taken from women. For men’s health
advocates, nothing could be further from the
truth. “We’ve been working with the Office on
Women’s Health on programming for years,”
says Brandon Leonard, legislative director for
the Men’s Health Network. “We have had to
ASKING FOR HELP WAS DEADLY
FOR MEN. IT EFFECTIVELY TOOK
THEM OUT OF THE GENE POOL.
DEATH TRAP
The stats are stark, men. You’re
destined to die five years earlier than
she is. Here’s why.
1918
Influenza torpedoes
life expectancy by
12 years for men and
women alike. Had
your flu shot yet?
1941–1945
Up to 75 percent of
soldiers light up free
cigarettes sent to the
troops. As if Germany
weren’t foe enough.
1968
Virginia Slims’ lady
cancer sticks debut.
The mortality gap narrows
as more women
develop lung lesions.
1975
Mortality gap all-time
high: 7.8 years. Blame
heart disease and
men’s smoking, and
the cancers it causes.
1981
The AIDS epidemic
begins. It will become
the second leading
cause of death for
men ages 25 to 44.
1988
Men’s Health magazine
debuts. Death
rates decline among
men and increase for
women. Coincidence?
1991
The U.S. government
establishes the Office
on Women’s Health.
To this day, no such
office exists for men.
2015
The death gap is still
five years. The Office
of Men’s Health
will have plenty to do.
Source: CDC —MELISSA ROMERO MEN WOMEN
YEAR
LIFE EXPECTANCY
g
1918
1991
2015
1981
85
65
45
1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
1941-45
1975
1988
1968
Health
December 2015 | MENSHEALTH.COM 69
I z a b e l a Habur/Get t y Images (woman) , p h o tosmash/Ge t t y Images (pr o tes to r s)
FOUR REASONS MEN
DIE FIVE YEARS BEFORE
WOMEN DO
Unless, of course, you heed
our death-defying advice.
1/ SHE GOES TO THE DOCTOR
Hypochondriac or not, women have
checkups about 33 percent more
often than men do, according to the
National Center for Health Statistics.
But 52 percent of women took at
least one prescription drug in the past
30 days, versus 43 percent of men,
the CDC reports. Some of the drugs
were opioids, which contributed to
16,000 deaths in 2013. Go to the doc
for prevention, not pills, guys.
2/ SHE’S BETTER CONNECTED
Nearly one in five men over 50 have
contact with their friends less than
once a month, as opposed to only
12 percent of women. Loneliness is
a health hazard: In a Swedish study,
half of elderly participants with close
friends and family lived at least 1½
years longer than those who lacked
a rich social network. Take a class
or join an exercise club or rec league
to benefit from more social time.
3/ SHE’S A TRUE BELIEVER
According to a Pew Research Center
study, more women than men are
religious, which is associated with
healthier behaviors. And researchers
at Florida State University found that
people who considered themselves
members of a valued group, such
as sports fans who pull together to
cheer on their team (go Cubs!), had
higher feelings of belonging, resulting
in fewer suicides. A big win there.
4/ SHE SAVES FOR RETIREMENT
She also takes fewer investment risks.
Time to raise your game; high income
is a key to longevity. So don’t be afraid
to start a new career. The American
Institute for Economic Research
found that 82 percent of people who
launched a new career after age 45
were successful, and almost nine
out of 10 said they were happy
with the change. (And the change
in their pockets.) —LEAH POLAKOFF
explain to those outside the process that giving
to one doesn’t take from another. Having an
Office on Women’s Health has been extremely
beneficial and we want to emulate its work.”
Theories about the unique way men are
wired—and short-circuited—may provide the
best possible case for an office of men’s health.
The evidence suggests that men tend to naturally
resist asking for help but will accept
assistance from people they trust; yet health
policies have tended to ignore this, and no public
entity exists to coordinate the attitude shift.
Eric Bothwell, M.P.H., Ph.D., a public health
advisor for the Men’s Health Network, says
that “for thousands of generations, serving frequently
as warriors, men learned to trust only
people in their own social network. Asking for
help from strangers was often deadly, effectively
taking these men out of the gene pool.
We need to find ways to allow them to accept
help instead of making them ask for it, because
far more than women, they will not ask for it.”
WHAT COULD A FEDERAL
office dedicated to men’s
health actually change?
“We’ve seen the impact
of the Office on Women’s
Health,” Leonard says. “It
has coordinated targeted
and effective messaging to women and driven
campaigns around specific women’s health
issues.” The numerous possibilities include
messaging about men and food, men and work,
and men’s access to family leave. “I’d like to see
an initiative that speaks to men in their own
language,” says nutrition expert John La Puma,
M.D., the author of Refuel. In fact, the women’s
health movement has done a masterful job of
mobilizing women on prenatal issues, paid
leave after delivery, and breast cancer. It worked
because women rallied around their causes.
Men could too—with a little encouragement.
An Office of Men’s Health could even inspire
researchers and doctors to change the way people
think of those predominantly male causes
of death. Why, for instance, do we view suicide
exclusively as a mental health problem or even a
veterans’ problem? Since the vast majority of suicide
victims and veterans are men, couldn’t we
just as easily look at suicide as a men’s problem?
“Four times more men than women take
their own lives; yet suicide is still not recognized
as a men’s health problem and remains poorly
funded in terms of research and interventions,”
says Bothwell. “Can you imagine a major cause
of death that was four times greater for women
and no one aggressively taking the issue to Capitol
Hill to demand action?” Along with such
predominantly male troubles as social isolation,
economic struggles, and addiction, research
suggests two other male risk factors for suicide:
higher comfort levels with physical injury and
more exposure to violence. Perhaps an Office of
Men’s Health would help target solutions within
the gender that’s more at risk.
The office could also take up violence as a
health issue—even among its perpetrators, just
as researchers look at pathogens to cure disease.
“Suicide is largely ignored as a male health
problem, and homicide, domestic violence,
and sexual abuse, which are overwhelmingly
perpetrated by men, are perceived as judicial
problems rather than as male mental health
problems,” says Bothwell. “And while incarceration
and women’s shelters are important forms
of ‘damage control,’ they are really not prevention,
so these problems continue at a tremendous
social and economic cost to society.” As an
alternate approach, he points to an intervention
program within the Air Force to develop suicideprevention
training programs and remove the
stigma attached to seeking services.
“They reduced suicide by 33 percent,” notes
Bothwell. “They also reduced severe domestic
violence by 54 percent, homicide by 51 percent,
and accidental death by 18 percent. From a
broader perspective, it’s evident that addressing
these problems in men has huge significance to
families and society overall.”
But to pull that off, men will have to demand
help for themselves. Or empower somebody
to ask, even demand, on our behalf. So, into the
lifeboats, guys. We’ve got to paddle like hell
to catch up with the women and children—for
their sakes, and for our own. 
w
Support an Office of
Men’s Health (or Die Trying)
In 1994, MH readers helped us push Congress to launch
National Men’s Health week. Now it’s time to petition the White
House. Our grievance: federal indifference to your health.
The death gap and the gender-specific maladies that bring men
down are unacceptable. Go to whitehouse.gov to sign our
peti tion to open, and fund, an Office of Men’s Health; 100,000
sig natures in 30 days guarantees a response. Your mother, wife,
and kids should sign too. You deserve it. —THE EDITORS
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