This volunteer activity took place right down the street from my house. Bone health? Convenience? Sounds good to me!
Well, first off, do I even really believe in the things American Bone Health is preaching?
If you’re a long-time reader of the blog, you saw my vegan challenge and know that at the time I was all, “oh my precious dairy. I love dairy. Don’t I need it for strong bones?”
But in the time since, I’ve been reading and listening to different places about different things… And as much as I hate to admit I may have been wrong, I do think that our information on dairy is heavily influenced by money. The National Dairy Council has an agenda. Of course they do, and it’s not bad to have an agenda. Don’t we all have some sort of agenda, even if it’s a good one? We all have some interest to protect.
The National Dairy Council has its interest, and its money flows freely to protect that interest. But I will say, I have cut way, way down on my dairy… and I feel great.
I understand that feeling great now doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Will I have weak bones someday? Do I feel great because of any other number of changes? I’ve been losing weight. I’m sure that contributes… But has part of my weight loss been attributed to cutting out a big chunk of my normal dairy consumption? I dunno.
I’m kinda going on a tangent here. But we were there with American Bone Health. On American Bone Health’s website, it gives tips for getting more calcium. It gives tips for people who are lactose intolerant to be able to consume more dairy. From where were those tips adapted? …The National Dairy Council.
None of this really matters, because we weren’t even telling people to drink milk. (Just to be clear, I’m not telling people not to drink milk. I’m just not saying drink it. I’m saying I don’t know the answers.)
All we were doing was telling people if they had a high risk for fractures based on their age, weight, and lifestyle factors. If they did have a high risk, they could talk to a pharmacy intern.
One hilarious thing was that we were told to watch multiple videos (some of them long-ish) to be “trained” for this event. But we didn’t have to be that trained at all. Put info into a computer system. Hit enter. If the person is high risk, send her to the pharmacy intern. And scene.
So, that was just sort of interesting to me.
Basically, I have nothing to really say about this even. I think we saw two people in total, so 1/3 of the number of people volunteering for the event participated in the event.
Other than that, I just talked to the interesting volunteers. We talked and sat and laughed and shared. And two people found they didn’t have a high risk for fractures.
Oh, and then we got certificates of appreciation. I didn’t feel like I did much to earn it. But it’s always nice to be appreciated. 31 down! 21 to go.