January 28, 2013 • 31 mins
From ancient Greek stone-lifting to modern-day shake weights, fitness fads have been around for ages. What's the deal with gendered marketing and fitness fads? Listen in to learn why toning sneakers - and other fitness fad products - are completely bogus.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristen. Kristen. You talked about exercise before,
but we haven't talked about why we let ourselves get
(00:25):
duped year after year, decade after decade, and in this case,
century after century by fitness fads. Yeah, we have been
talking about fitness and exercise quite a lot since it
is January, and in our research for podcasts on things
(00:46):
like New Year's Resolutions and our previous sweaty history of
the American gym, we ran across lovely and sometimes not
so lovely reminders of fitness fads. And I'm not just
talking about like Jane Fonda and jazzercizing, but the weird
(01:09):
contraption things. Yeah, butt sculptors. Uh, there's a picture of
a man using a butt sculptor. He's he's standing, he's standing,
and there's this contraption sort of around him, and he's
wearing a full suit. So it really wasn't sweat inducing.
But yeah, things, things that were scary looking and could
potentially hurt your organs, as we'll talk about with one
(01:31):
particular fad. Well and Essentially, what we found out was
that since ancient times. Of course we're gonna harken back
to the Greeks, the Greeks who were exercise loving in
the nude exercise loving folks. Um since the Greek times,
the Greek times. That makes it sound like of those
(01:51):
naked Greeks. Yes, those naked Greeks. Back since then, people
have been building a tool to assist with exercise. We've
never been like a very pilates minded species where it's
like we just use our body as like a resistance band.
We just could jog. No, we always need things. Well,
(02:14):
because if you buy something, or in the case of
the Greeks, make something, I mean, obviously you're going to
get more fit, right. Well, the Greek's obviously thought so,
because we have them to think for something called the halteres,
which is a semi circular chunk of rock with a
hole in it that inspired the dumbbell and the kettle ball. Yeah,
(02:35):
they couldn't just do push ups, you know, they were like, oh,
we need to be strong men. Well, I wonder if
it has to do with because you said strong men,
I wonder if it has to do with some kind
of masculinity. Masculinity construct around like feats of strength. You know,
it wasn't just they could just do either do push
up contests until the sun goes down, or rock they
(02:58):
could see a feast is can you pick up that rock?
I shook? Can't? Person? Is? Now? I picture I picture
one guy like walking around outside of the gymnasium naked
and naked, and he's standing there with his hands on
his hips, and he's like, I really need to show
this guy up. I need to show this guy that
I'm fit, And so I just picture him like with
a side I looking at the other Greek guy and
(03:18):
he picks up a rock, and the other Greek guys like, well,
I can do that. He picks up a bigger rock,
and then it's just like pandemonium. They just continue to
pick up big rocks until they're the fittest men in
the gymnasium. See. I imagine like one of those guys
walking out and putting his hands on his hips and thinking,
I should have worn a loin cloth, but that's just me.
There is a breeze. Well moving forward, we uh, we
(03:42):
have a German guy to thank for for gymnastics. I
had no idea. So the German father of gymnastics is
Friedrich Lordvigian. He invented the parallel bars, rings and balanced
theme and it's actually like catapulted a huge movement in
the universe. We mentioned in the University know We mentioned
this in our gym History podcast. However, there were these
(04:05):
people who left Germany and brought gymnastics to the United
States and all of a sudden, like gymnastics was cool.
And this was in I think the late eighteen hundreds.
I believe that's quite an import yes, And wasn't there
something like the Germans didn't want an outbreak of gymnastics
(04:26):
to happen. There was something about like they were afraid
of the young people getting to nationalistic. Oh, I don't
know about that. As far as I know. It was
the opposite of the United States, where they wanted to
get gymnastics programs into every school because the American children
with some soft Yes, that's exactly right. There are lots
(04:47):
of impressions for this episode of stuff. Mom never told you.
Do you have one for jacku Loline? No, I don't. Well.
We also talked about Jacque Laine in our in our
fitness episode, our sweaty gym history one in the nineteen fifties.
So so Jacqueline was this big fitness guy, right, and
he was the father of you know, he had the
first exercise TV show and and whatnot. But in the
(05:08):
nineteen fifties there was a little old thing called Jack
Lelane's Glamour Stretcher. I love that name. It does sound wonderful. Yeah.
It was the first elastic band used for resistance training.
And here we go with some gendered marketing. It was
marketed to women for quote a lovelier, more exciting figure.
(05:29):
I wonder if by exciting they mean hourglass. And I
mean that's also the interesting thing about fitness fads in particular,
as distinct from just straight up exercise, where it's always
been sort of a gender equal game in terms of
they've always been products hawked both at women, especially like
things like glamorizers and fat dissolvers, etcetera, and at men.
(05:53):
But men's obviously have been more focused on like building
hulking muscles, doing things like American Bodybuild or Charles Atlas
is thirteen lesson course on bodybuilding that is still going strong.
And why wouldn't you trust a man with the name
Atlas holds up the world. Uh in the nineteen seventies.
(06:14):
I love it. This is when the roller skating trend happens.
The short shorts and a fair faucet hair and the
little roller skate. I would not have been a very
fit in the nineteen seventies, for I am a terrible
roller skater. Obviously. There no I'm going to say that
is the only way too to exercise in nineteen seventies.
I can roller blade. I'm clearly a child of my
(06:35):
generation because I can roller blade, but I cannot roller skate.
I told you about the time I ended up under
the vending machine right when I was roller skating. I
tried to stop myself and I couldn't, so I just
full speed jumped off of the rank and onto the
carpeted area and my feet went up and I went
back and I shot under the vending machine. And this
(06:57):
family just like nobody offered to help. It just all
laughed at me. That sounds like something from America's fun videos.
And I would have voted for it. That's what Bob.
It's almost validating. And then in the as we also
mentioned in our gym podcast, we have the emergence of aerobics,
the coining of the term aerobics, and all of a
sudden everyone was putting on their high cut leotards and
(07:20):
sweat into the now oldies. Well, I mean that that's
an okay trend. I mean if we're talking about as
far as fads go, like there are things out there that,
as we'll talk about, have been yanked off the market.
People have been sued, people have been injured. But aerobics
and even roller skating, as silly as it is, like
at least they get your heart rate up, that's true. Um.
(07:40):
And nowadays, while we were poking fun earlier things like
glamour stretchers and butt shapers, the stuff is still weird.
We still like, you know, people are still coming up
with bizarre fitness tools and also of course technology is
now playing a huge role their video games apps. Do
we need to mention we fit? Um? I was actually
(08:05):
I did? I did we bowling one time and was
so were That's not don't we your wrist? It was
my shoulder? Oh no, maybe you should then take a
zoomba class I have. It is exhausting, yeah, is it?
Do you just dance? You dance? I took a class
from a woman who can only be described as a
(08:27):
pirate because she had really big hair and a gold
tooth and wore red lipstick, and she had like a
she wore tight gym clothes but then had like some
kind of a little sorry tied around her waist and
she I'm moving for Christen's benefit, you guys, can I'm
picturing Charro teaching a zoomba class. Yeah, I was special.
Um well, I would also like to see that woman
(08:48):
wielding a shake weight. Perhaps let me take a moment too.
Who invented the shake weight? Somebody who knew that he
or she could sucker a lot of people? Yeah, but
I think you know what, Honestly, I don't know that
anyone's ever bought a shake weight in a serious effort
to improve their muscles. Yeah. It was either a misguided
(09:08):
exercise fiend or a comedian who invented the shake weight.
I'm not sure. If you don't know what shake weight is,
I recommend that you google it right now. Don't wait
called today. Um. Then there's also the body blade, Karl,
can you describe it a body blade? It's like this
big pole thing or like a blade looking ski item.
(09:29):
Kind of thing, and you you hold it above your
head and you shake it, and so the oscillating requires
you to use your massive amount of strength to stop it.
It's such a trend with all these the belts that
caused the shaking that's supposed to shake the fat away,
the shake weight, the body blade. There's a strange thing
in the human brain that thinks that we can just shake,
(09:50):
just shake calories. It's not true. Apparently we can also
hoop them away. Weighted hula hooping is all the rage apparently. Yeah,
this actually the has um some merit. In two thousand eight,
fun fact for avid hula hoopers out there, that was
the fiftieth anniversary of the hula hoop. But if you
don't want to risk the embarrassment of being caught hula
(10:12):
hooping in your backyard, there is a we fit version
of it, and they're even gym classes with weighted hula
hoops and a trainer in. Spokesman Jim White for the
American Dietetic Association says that the hula hoop actually can
give you a decent workout. But if you're a beginner,
I love this advice, stick with a normal hoop so
(10:34):
you don't pull a muscle, and he ELPs says that
that women are far likelier to be able to hoop. Well, Jim, Jim, Jim,
Jim Jim. I feel like that's a little bit of
a gendered assumption. I've seen guys hoop. I don't think
I am the worst hooper. I'm not the best hooper.
I have been a professional hooper, though, who traveled with
jam bands, and not only did she make an impressive
(10:57):
living off of hooping with l ed lit hula hoops,
she also had some funny stories to tell, as you
can imagine. I'm sure, but that's not wiping away the
skeptical look on my fast. Well, raise your eyebrow a
little bit more, Caroline Irvan, because we're gonna talk about
stripper sizing, are we. Yeah. I feel like this also
could merit its own podcast, because not only at first
(11:21):
it was just like, oh, pole dancing could be taught
as an exercise class, and I get that that takes
some upper body strength to hoist yourself up a pole.
Sim yeah, and spin. I haven't tried, but I have
also very little upper body strength, so I can imagine
it would be difficult, says the person who's never successfully
crossed the monkey bars. But now there are lap dance
(11:45):
classes you can take. There are stiletto workouts. I recently
posted that on our tumbler page stuff Mo'm never told
you dot tumbler dot com if you'd like to check
it out, like the newest you know, and of course
it's always in New York, always knew you. Work is
put on stilettos, woken out, perfect accent. Warning stripper heels
(12:07):
could lead to injury. And that's a warning. I think
that's good for everyone. Now on the opposite end of
the spectrum, though, stripping from stripper heels barefoot running, yeah,
what about that? Well, people need to be careful with that.
This is either literally like going running barefoot or buying
those what do they call like, they're called like finger
shoes or something weird. I call them toe shoes because
(12:27):
toe shoes or ballet right, But no, no, those are
point shoes. Lord, okay, poe shoes. Clearly you are not
a button head, Carol Lot, but those shoes are what
non ballerinas called point shoes. Okay, I'm closing the can
of worms now. Um. Yeah, Basically they argue that we
should run barefoot or in these shoes because our ancestors
(12:50):
did not have fancy running shoes like Nikes, so that
we should all go back to a time of barefoot running.
But a lot of doctors, in physical therapists and everybody
worn that you shouldn't just jump into this because you're
probably if you're like most people, used to walking in
shoes of some types. So they do warrant to be
(13:11):
careful with such high energy or high impact exercises like running.
If you're going to do a barefoot yeah, especially barefoot
running on on those hard surfaces. Sounds like a recipe
just go to the Caribbean, find a beach and go running.
I like that fitness fab Now speaking of shoes though,
shoes are the reason why we initially did this podcast
(13:35):
because a few listeners wrote in asking about toning sneakers
in particular, and we're like, oh, yeah, toning sneakers, let's
do that, and then it kind of exploded into a well, wait,
we have all these other fitness questionable fitness things going on.
And if you're not familiar with toning sneakers, they sort
of resemble moon boot They they're tennis shoes that are
(13:59):
marked it did um to enhance your burn more calories,
improve your buttocks tone and calf tone just by going
about your daily business. You don't have to walk more
or run the thickness of the and I guess the
angle of the tread on these these toning sneakers supposedly
(14:25):
just to do the work for you, which any time
it comes to fitness and something says that it will
just do the work for you, Come on, people, Well, uh,
you know who else is interested in these toning shoes?
Kim Kardashian. Well, yes, but there's someone else, Kristen. So
these shoes are marketed to women. Correct, yes, but I
(14:48):
have seen men in them. My dad asked me. Good
Old Chad asked me if I thought that toning sneakers worked,
I and a lot of people do. I've heard some people,
you know, say that they that they do in fact work.
Maybe though maybe more that I was about to say that, Yeah,
maybe it's kind of a thing of what you have
these toning sneakers. You assume they're going to work more,
(15:10):
so you're gonna put them on, You're gonna walk around
a little bit more. Yeah, Well, Reebok and Sketchers actually
got in a lot of trouble. Sketchers in particular, I
think was just trying to sell Kim Kardashians. But yeah,
a lot of the and we're not trying to be crashed,
but a lot of Again with the gendered marketing of
(15:30):
fitness products, the Sketchers was an interesting case study because
Kim Kardashian reality show star Um was their spokesperson for it,
but it was more like a spokes but because since
the Sketchers were marketed to really um tone the calves
and and the rear, all of the the I have
(15:54):
no idea what shoes look like because all of the
advertisements just honed in on her on her mind. Yeah. Well,
Sketchers ended up having to pay forty million dollars to
set settle false ad claims in May. The money went
to provide refunds to consumers, and David Vladdock, who's the
director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection,
(16:17):
said that the settlement is believed to be the FTC's
largest ever involving consumer refunds, and the settlement was bigger
than Rebox basically because Sketchers had more market share and
those those shoes are not cheap. The Sketcher shoes ran
a hundred dollars a pair, Yeah, and a flip flops
went for sixty dollars. So it's it's they kind of
(16:39):
knew it seems like what they were doing. So the
Federal Trade Commission is on the lookout at least for
these phony fitness fads. Yeah, well you talked about like,
you know, these these shoes are supposed to tone you well, rebox.
So Reebok in September faced the same the same music.
(17:01):
They ended up having to pay twenty five million in
customer refront refunds to subtle charges of deceptive advertising for
their easy Tone shoes. The FDC complaint alleged that Reebok
falsely claimed that using the shoes had proven to lead
to twenty eight percent more strength and tone in your butt,
eleven percent more strength than tone in your hamstrings, and
(17:22):
eleven percent more strength in the calf muscles than using
regular walking shoes. So yeah, I'm I don't know how
they could come up with these numbers unless people really
were actually just getting out and walking more regardless, Yeah,
and um with sketchers though, to me, the thing that
I found to be the most disheartening was not so
(17:42):
much false advertising, um, towards adults, but their marketing of
these shape up shoes to the tween set. I found
this post over at Sociological Images, and they had a
screen grab from the animated commercial that shows a young girl,
probably thirteen years old. She's wearing her her tone ups,
(18:05):
and she's walking past boys dressed in a hot dog costume,
a cupcake costume, and something that looks kind of like
either doughnut or a cake pop. I'm not entirely sure.
It's a black and white picture. I would like to
date a donut. I would like a cake pop right now. Um.
And it was such troubling advertising because okay, no, it's
(18:28):
it's not bad at all to say, hey, you know,
exercise is good for you, get off the couch and exercise,
young person. But it was equating exercising with shunning food.
It's like, not only will you put on the issues
and walk your way to fitness, you will also walk
your way to never eating junk food. Again. That's not
(18:49):
I don't know, it's messing. No, No, that's it's a lot.
I can't even talk. Let's not let's not confuse our twains. No, no,
talk about some some major league false advertising. And the
FDC is not just coming down though on toning shoes. No. No,
the ab Circle Pro, the Body Flex System, all these
(19:14):
kinds of things are cracking down on false fitness claims. Yeah,
the ab Circle Pro pitch woman said that it helped
her lose eighty pounds and then launch a career as
a fitness model. And here's what she said. She said,
you can either do thirty minutes of abs and cardio
or just three minutes a day. The choice is yours.
And I feel like that's what sucks all these people
(19:34):
into these fitness fads that are ridiculous or unsafe or
just playing weird. Is the promise of you ate all
that turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas, now just like put
these shoes on, or put this vibrating belt on for
a little while and wipe it all away. Well, sure,
because this ties in so much to our episode on
New Year's Resolutions and thinking about the science of willpower,
(19:56):
Because I think the way that these kinds of fitness
fads get us is our flawed way of conceptualizing long
term goals. Because we look in the mirror, we see
where we are, and in our minds, IE, our goal
is to be something chiseled and perfect, and that's perfect
in quotes and some idealized image. And so of course
(20:20):
all of these things offer you the quick route to that,
because otherwise, you know, if we don't take it in
baby steps, it can be incredibly hard to meet fitness goals. Yeah,
but we spend so much money on these things every year,
not just not just the gadgets and the gizmos, but
also supplements and you know, diet foods and things that
(20:41):
promise to make us a better version of ourselves. That
manufacturers are just going to keep making them thankfully though.
And we've talked about the FCC. They are here to
protect us and take up issue with advertisers false claims.
And I thought this was on um Lisa Johnson's fitness
blog Lisa Johnson fitness dot com. She she has some
(21:02):
things to keep in mind when reading those fitness claims,
and I think one of them ties in very well
to the toning shoes and the ABS Circle pro in
particular that the models that they hire to be the
spokespeople probably didn't get where they are physically by using
the product that they're hawking. They probably actually went for
a run, or Kim Kardashian was simply blessed with certain
(21:26):
genetics that went straight to her butt And I can't
I will never be able to tone my button enough, yeah,
to make it look like that. I know. I think
it involves lunges or something. No, I thinks to get
that that lovely butt. Um. She also recommends to keeping
(21:48):
in mind that look, people, results will vary. Don't trust
anything that says lose five pounds in a week, loose
ten pounds in a week, because if you are losing
that much weight, something is desperately wrong. Yeah, it's not.
It's not a healthy way to go. Um. But one thing, Caroline,
that you looked a little bit deeper into that maybe
(22:09):
I don't know, maybe this could be a little bit
of a quick, quick route to slimness. That a word, slimness.
It's late in the day, limicity. Slimicity Electronic muscle stimulators,
which apparently have been around in some form or another
for a really long time. According to the British Journal
(22:29):
of a Rheumatology. Yeah, electricity has been used in the
treatment of arthritis, in particular since the time of Socrates,
using torpedo fish. Those are apparently very special fish. Um.
By the eighteenth century, this has really been in vogue forever.
So by the eighteenth century, electrotherapy was used to treat
(22:50):
various illnesses in se Specifically, Luigi Galvani figured out that
the leg muscles of a frog twitch when an elector
current goes through them, and so people are like, wait
a second, muscles, electricity, are we onto something? So go
to Reverend John Wesley. He actually speculated, and this is interesting,
(23:12):
and I don't know what he means, but he speculated
that electric fire deluded the minute vessels and capillary passages
and separated the clogging particles of stagnating fluids. Hallelujah. It
sounds like it gets your gets your heart pumping and
your blood moving. That's a weird way to say it
get you. Maybe I should be a reverend. Um. Well,
(23:34):
the interesting thing is is that today there are still
electrical muscle stimulators because Luigi Galvani was around the money
and thinking that you can send an electric current to
stimulate the leg muscles. Because when our muscles stimulate, that
is a form of an electric current that is in
our body naturally, but electric muscle stimulators today are FDA
(23:56):
regulated and intended for use in physical therapy and rehabild rotation. Yeah. No,
e m S devices, Electronic muscle stimulating devices have been
cleared by the FDA for weight loss or fitness purposes.
They will not people, They will not give you a
six pack. Yeah. Even though in the nineteenth century the
(24:16):
kind of electronic muscle stimulants became a fashionable treatment, it
became discredited by the mid nineteenth century, So you know,
we'll have to move on to that. But what about
jiggling belts? But we still found the and these are
the kind of like the glamour stretcher things that we're
talking we talked about earlier. Um, and I'm jiggling in
my seat, so I have one. When I when I
googled them, I totally expected to find just pictures of
(24:39):
you know, like ye old timey jiggling belts from the
thirties and forties. Oh no, Kristin, they still exist, still exist. Yeah,
one site that sells them, and I'm not even going
to say the site because why would I claims that
they can develop muscles and improve circulation using vibration therapy.
Oh and this is fascinating too in terms of the
(25:00):
popularity of jiggling belts and the glamour stretcher and why
it would have been marketed specifically. Two women said they
didn't have to move around and get all sweaty, yeah,
because that's not feminine exactly, say all they had to
do with stand there, so it was an acceptable form
of an attempt at weight loss. Yeah. One blogger said
(25:21):
that she used to go with her mother when her
mother went to it was some brand name Jim went
to the gym to get on the jiggling belt, and
so she just sat there and watched all these women
get jiggled around as they smacked their gum and their
mouths and said it was not a not a pretty sight.
But these machines were actually pulled from the market after
being all the rage in the sixties because apparently hundreds
(25:44):
of people developed serious oregan complications from it getting shaken
up like a can of coke. I have a feeling
that the rule about you you're supposed to wait what
like an hour after eating meal get in the water,
would definitely apply when it comes to the jiggling and
maybe it's more of a first thing in the morning exercise,
So what do we have to look forward to in
(26:08):
because his fads aren't going anywhere, we still buy into him.
That was one thing, though, one bit of scholarship that
I dug around for for this podcast and I could
not find, which was some kind of analysis on like
the patterns of buying into these things, like the marketing,
the gendered stuff, and how I could I wasn't coming
(26:29):
up with anything. Yeah, there's not a lot of research
out there that we found. So listeners, if you happen
to be in that field of research, yeah, baby, hit
us up right, because there's there's a lot on you know,
exercise in general, because that ties into body politics and
you know, masculinity ideals and all of that, but specifically
with these like the mentality of how we for so
(26:52):
long have bought into these essentially like fitness quacks. I
I mean I really think I I would I with
theorize that it really goes back to I don't want
to exercise, but I want to look really hot naked,
So I'm going to try the turning shoes or the
body blade or the vibrating plate thing that you stand on.
(27:14):
I don't give that one. Like I saw one with
people doing crunches on it. And I tell you, Krystal,
I went to that website. If I can't tell what
your product does within five seconds of going to your website,
it's questionable. I'm buying it just to find out. So
for especially for the ladies. Uh. The American Academy of
(27:35):
Sports Medicine says that strength training and body weight training
are expected to be the top fitness trends, especially for women. Yeah.
They say that women are particularly attracted to the trend
since cultural ideas of femininity are gradually focusing on strength
over slimness, with fitness becoming a priority. So I want
(27:56):
to know, a year from now, two years from now,
are we going back to like the Lamazon Cindy Crawford
aesthetic where we're all like sweaty with headbands and we
look all like big and ripped, big and ripped as
opposed to like the Kate Moss waifiness strength versus slimness. Yeah,
I think that I think we're moving a little bit
away from away from wayfishness. I better buy some self tanner.
(28:21):
But I feel it's just I feel like it's a
pendulum though that for so long is just gonna keep
swinging back and forth. And the thing that we need
to do a podcast on, Caroline spoiler alert, the stuff
on men's body image, because all the body image anxiety
and phobia is that for so long was talked about
just in relation to younger women and of course older
(28:42):
women as well, but starting with younger women were now
seeing in big numbers among men as well, including things
like eating disorders. So things to look forward to on
our end in twenty thirteen. Um, and yeah, if you
you mentioned that if anyone is in fitness industry and
can offer us some insight into this, let us know.
(29:04):
Anyone who has bought into any fed don't be ashamed now,
we want to hear your story the shame free Zone
and send us your story. If anyone owns a shake weight,
I would I would like to know all these things,
or anyone like the blogger you mentioned who remembers going
with their parents or grandparents to use an old timey
fitness contraption that would be fun to hear about as well.
(29:26):
You can send us an email at mom Stuff at
Discovery dot com or also find us on Facebook as
well and messages there. And we've got a couple of
listener letters. Well, I've got an email here from Amanda
in response to our episode on estrogen, and particularly in
response to when we brought up these scares behind estrogen
(29:50):
replacement and menopause. She says, I know way too much
about this topic. As an undergrad, I worked in the
lab of Dr Jill Daniel at Tuling University and I
was tasked with doing vaginal fluid standing on a wrath
to determine their cycles. Yes, daily paps mirrors, but to
make the story longer, the reason behind our research was
to refute the NIH claims that estrogen was harmful. There
(30:13):
was a huge error in that n a H study.
The median age of the women given estrogen was something
like eighty years old, which is about thirty years after
menopause would have occurred. Well, thirty years later, your body
won't have a clue what to do with estrogen, and
it happens to be an incredibly toxic substance. Luckily, women
going through menopause are given estrogen as menopause is occurring.
(30:33):
Dr Daniel's lap has found that hormone replacement can stave
off sides of aging, memory and learning, even if for
just a short period. Of time just after ordering menopause. Anyway,
I've since moved on to a lab studying graph versus
host dis ease so to do a podcast on transplants,
and you'll probably get a very detailed letter on that
as well. Can you imagine if it doing rat peeps
(30:56):
us every day? How tiny are the speculums? Well, if
you have any idea of how to all those rat
speculums were actually, don't email us, But if you'd like
to talk about anything else, you can send us a
letter at mom Stuff at Discovery dot com. You can
always find us on Facebook, start a conversation there like us.
While you're at it, you can follow us on Twitter
(31:16):
at mom Stuff Podcast. Check out our tumbler at stuff
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(31:36):
dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristen. Kristen. You talked about exercise before,
but we haven't talked about why we let ourselves get
(00:25):
duped year after year, decade after decade, and in this case,
century after century by fitness fads. Yeah, we have been
talking about fitness and exercise quite a lot since it
is January, and in our research for podcasts on things
(00:46):
like New Year's Resolutions and our previous sweaty history of
the American gym, we ran across lovely and sometimes not
so lovely reminders of fitness fads. And I'm not just
talking about like Jane Fonda and jazzercizing, but the weird
(01:09):
contraption things. Yeah, butt sculptors. Uh, there's a picture of
a man using a butt sculptor. He's he's standing, he's standing,
and there's this contraption sort of around him, and he's
wearing a full suit. So it really wasn't sweat inducing.
But yeah, things, things that were scary looking and could
potentially hurt your organs, as we'll talk about with one
(01:31):
particular fad. Well and Essentially, what we found out was
that since ancient times. Of course we're gonna harken back
to the Greeks, the Greeks who were exercise loving in
the nude exercise loving folks. Um since the Greek times,
the Greek times. That makes it sound like of those
(01:51):
naked Greeks. Yes, those naked Greeks. Back since then, people
have been building a tool to assist with exercise. We've
never been like a very pilates minded species where it's
like we just use our body as like a resistance band.
We just could jog. No, we always need things. Well,
(02:14):
because if you buy something, or in the case of
the Greeks, make something, I mean, obviously you're going to
get more fit, right. Well, the Greek's obviously thought so,
because we have them to think for something called the halteres,
which is a semi circular chunk of rock with a
hole in it that inspired the dumbbell and the kettle ball. Yeah,
(02:35):
they couldn't just do push ups, you know, they were like, oh,
we need to be strong men. Well, I wonder if
it has to do with because you said strong men,
I wonder if it has to do with some kind
of masculinity. Masculinity construct around like feats of strength. You know,
it wasn't just they could just do either do push
up contests until the sun goes down, or rock they
(02:58):
could see a feast is can you pick up that rock?
I shook? Can't? Person? Is? Now? I picture I picture
one guy like walking around outside of the gymnasium naked
and naked, and he's standing there with his hands on
his hips, and he's like, I really need to show
this guy up. I need to show this guy that
I'm fit, And so I just picture him like with
a side I looking at the other Greek guy and
(03:18):
he picks up a rock, and the other Greek guys like, well,
I can do that. He picks up a bigger rock,
and then it's just like pandemonium. They just continue to
pick up big rocks until they're the fittest men in
the gymnasium. See. I imagine like one of those guys
walking out and putting his hands on his hips and thinking,
I should have worn a loin cloth, but that's just me.
There is a breeze. Well moving forward, we uh, we
(03:42):
have a German guy to thank for for gymnastics. I
had no idea. So the German father of gymnastics is
Friedrich Lordvigian. He invented the parallel bars, rings and balanced
theme and it's actually like catapulted a huge movement in
the universe. We mentioned in the University know We mentioned
this in our gym History podcast. However, there were these
(04:05):
people who left Germany and brought gymnastics to the United
States and all of a sudden, like gymnastics was cool.
And this was in I think the late eighteen hundreds.
I believe that's quite an import yes, And wasn't there
something like the Germans didn't want an outbreak of gymnastics
(04:26):
to happen. There was something about like they were afraid
of the young people getting to nationalistic. Oh, I don't
know about that. As far as I know. It was
the opposite of the United States, where they wanted to
get gymnastics programs into every school because the American children
with some soft Yes, that's exactly right. There are lots
(04:47):
of impressions for this episode of stuff. Mom never told you.
Do you have one for jacku Loline? No, I don't. Well.
We also talked about Jacque Laine in our in our
fitness episode, our sweaty gym history one in the nineteen fifties.
So so Jacqueline was this big fitness guy, right, and
he was the father of you know, he had the
first exercise TV show and and whatnot. But in the
(05:08):
nineteen fifties there was a little old thing called Jack
Lelane's Glamour Stretcher. I love that name. It does sound wonderful. Yeah.
It was the first elastic band used for resistance training.
And here we go with some gendered marketing. It was
marketed to women for quote a lovelier, more exciting figure.
(05:29):
I wonder if by exciting they mean hourglass. And I
mean that's also the interesting thing about fitness fads in particular,
as distinct from just straight up exercise, where it's always
been sort of a gender equal game in terms of
they've always been products hawked both at women, especially like
things like glamorizers and fat dissolvers, etcetera, and at men.
(05:53):
But men's obviously have been more focused on like building
hulking muscles, doing things like American Bodybuild or Charles Atlas
is thirteen lesson course on bodybuilding that is still going strong.
And why wouldn't you trust a man with the name
Atlas holds up the world. Uh in the nineteen seventies.
(06:14):
I love it. This is when the roller skating trend happens.
The short shorts and a fair faucet hair and the
little roller skate. I would not have been a very
fit in the nineteen seventies, for I am a terrible
roller skater. Obviously. There no I'm going to say that
is the only way too to exercise in nineteen seventies.
I can roller blade. I'm clearly a child of my
(06:35):
generation because I can roller blade, but I cannot roller skate.
I told you about the time I ended up under
the vending machine right when I was roller skating. I
tried to stop myself and I couldn't, so I just
full speed jumped off of the rank and onto the
carpeted area and my feet went up and I went
back and I shot under the vending machine. And this
(06:57):
family just like nobody offered to help. It just all
laughed at me. That sounds like something from America's fun videos.
And I would have voted for it. That's what Bob.
It's almost validating. And then in the as we also
mentioned in our gym podcast, we have the emergence of aerobics,
the coining of the term aerobics, and all of a
sudden everyone was putting on their high cut leotards and
(07:20):
sweat into the now oldies. Well, I mean that that's
an okay trend. I mean if we're talking about as
far as fads go, like there are things out there that,
as we'll talk about, have been yanked off the market.
People have been sued, people have been injured. But aerobics
and even roller skating, as silly as it is, like
at least they get your heart rate up, that's true. Um.
(07:40):
And nowadays, while we were poking fun earlier things like
glamour stretchers and butt shapers, the stuff is still weird.
We still like, you know, people are still coming up
with bizarre fitness tools and also of course technology is
now playing a huge role their video games apps. Do
we need to mention we fit? Um? I was actually
(08:05):
I did? I did we bowling one time and was
so were That's not don't we your wrist? It was
my shoulder? Oh no, maybe you should then take a
zoomba class I have. It is exhausting, yeah, is it?
Do you just dance? You dance? I took a class
from a woman who can only be described as a
(08:27):
pirate because she had really big hair and a gold
tooth and wore red lipstick, and she had like a
she wore tight gym clothes but then had like some
kind of a little sorry tied around her waist and
she I'm moving for Christen's benefit, you guys, can I'm
picturing Charro teaching a zoomba class. Yeah, I was special.
Um well, I would also like to see that woman
(08:48):
wielding a shake weight. Perhaps let me take a moment too.
Who invented the shake weight? Somebody who knew that he
or she could sucker a lot of people? Yeah, but
I think you know what, Honestly, I don't know that
anyone's ever bought a shake weight in a serious effort
to improve their muscles. Yeah. It was either a misguided
(09:08):
exercise fiend or a comedian who invented the shake weight.
I'm not sure. If you don't know what shake weight is,
I recommend that you google it right now. Don't wait
called today. Um. Then there's also the body blade, Karl,
can you describe it a body blade? It's like this
big pole thing or like a blade looking ski item.
(09:29):
Kind of thing, and you you hold it above your
head and you shake it, and so the oscillating requires
you to use your massive amount of strength to stop it.
It's such a trend with all these the belts that
caused the shaking that's supposed to shake the fat away,
the shake weight, the body blade. There's a strange thing
in the human brain that thinks that we can just shake,
(09:50):
just shake calories. It's not true. Apparently we can also
hoop them away. Weighted hula hooping is all the rage apparently. Yeah,
this actually the has um some merit. In two thousand eight,
fun fact for avid hula hoopers out there, that was
the fiftieth anniversary of the hula hoop. But if you
don't want to risk the embarrassment of being caught hula
(10:12):
hooping in your backyard, there is a we fit version
of it, and they're even gym classes with weighted hula
hoops and a trainer in. Spokesman Jim White for the
American Dietetic Association says that the hula hoop actually can
give you a decent workout. But if you're a beginner,
I love this advice, stick with a normal hoop so
(10:34):
you don't pull a muscle, and he ELPs says that
that women are far likelier to be able to hoop. Well, Jim, Jim, Jim,
Jim Jim. I feel like that's a little bit of
a gendered assumption. I've seen guys hoop. I don't think
I am the worst hooper. I'm not the best hooper.
I have been a professional hooper, though, who traveled with
jam bands, and not only did she make an impressive
(10:57):
living off of hooping with l ed lit hula hoops,
she also had some funny stories to tell, as you
can imagine. I'm sure, but that's not wiping away the
skeptical look on my fast. Well, raise your eyebrow a
little bit more, Caroline Irvan, because we're gonna talk about
stripper sizing, are we. Yeah. I feel like this also
could merit its own podcast, because not only at first
(11:21):
it was just like, oh, pole dancing could be taught
as an exercise class, and I get that that takes
some upper body strength to hoist yourself up a pole.
Sim yeah, and spin. I haven't tried, but I have
also very little upper body strength, so I can imagine
it would be difficult, says the person who's never successfully
crossed the monkey bars. But now there are lap dance
(11:45):
classes you can take. There are stiletto workouts. I recently
posted that on our tumbler page stuff Mo'm never told
you dot tumbler dot com if you'd like to check
it out, like the newest you know, and of course
it's always in New York, always knew you. Work is
put on stilettos, woken out, perfect accent. Warning stripper heels
(12:07):
could lead to injury. And that's a warning. I think
that's good for everyone. Now on the opposite end of
the spectrum, though, stripping from stripper heels barefoot running, yeah,
what about that? Well, people need to be careful with that.
This is either literally like going running barefoot or buying
those what do they call like, they're called like finger
shoes or something weird. I call them toe shoes because
(12:27):
toe shoes or ballet right, But no, no, those are
point shoes. Lord, okay, poe shoes. Clearly you are not
a button head, Carol Lot, but those shoes are what
non ballerinas called point shoes. Okay, I'm closing the can
of worms now. Um. Yeah, Basically they argue that we
should run barefoot or in these shoes because our ancestors
(12:50):
did not have fancy running shoes like Nikes, so that
we should all go back to a time of barefoot running.
But a lot of doctors, in physical therapists and everybody
worn that you shouldn't just jump into this because you're
probably if you're like most people, used to walking in
shoes of some types. So they do warrant to be
(13:11):
careful with such high energy or high impact exercises like running.
If you're going to do a barefoot yeah, especially barefoot
running on on those hard surfaces. Sounds like a recipe
just go to the Caribbean, find a beach and go running.
I like that fitness fab Now speaking of shoes though,
shoes are the reason why we initially did this podcast
(13:35):
because a few listeners wrote in asking about toning sneakers
in particular, and we're like, oh, yeah, toning sneakers, let's
do that, and then it kind of exploded into a well, wait,
we have all these other fitness questionable fitness things going on.
And if you're not familiar with toning sneakers, they sort
of resemble moon boot They they're tennis shoes that are
(13:59):
marked it did um to enhance your burn more calories,
improve your buttocks tone and calf tone just by going
about your daily business. You don't have to walk more
or run the thickness of the and I guess the
angle of the tread on these these toning sneakers supposedly
(14:25):
just to do the work for you, which any time
it comes to fitness and something says that it will
just do the work for you, Come on, people, Well, uh,
you know who else is interested in these toning shoes?
Kim Kardashian. Well, yes, but there's someone else, Kristen. So
these shoes are marketed to women. Correct, yes, but I
(14:48):
have seen men in them. My dad asked me. Good
Old Chad asked me if I thought that toning sneakers worked,
I and a lot of people do. I've heard some people,
you know, say that they that they do in fact work.
Maybe though maybe more that I was about to say that, Yeah,
maybe it's kind of a thing of what you have
these toning sneakers. You assume they're going to work more,
(15:10):
so you're gonna put them on, You're gonna walk around
a little bit more. Yeah, Well, Reebok and Sketchers actually
got in a lot of trouble. Sketchers in particular, I
think was just trying to sell Kim Kardashians. But yeah,
a lot of the and we're not trying to be crashed,
but a lot of Again with the gendered marketing of
(15:30):
fitness products, the Sketchers was an interesting case study because
Kim Kardashian reality show star Um was their spokesperson for it,
but it was more like a spokes but because since
the Sketchers were marketed to really um tone the calves
and and the rear, all of the the I have
(15:54):
no idea what shoes look like because all of the
advertisements just honed in on her on her mind. Yeah. Well,
Sketchers ended up having to pay forty million dollars to
set settle false ad claims in May. The money went
to provide refunds to consumers, and David Vladdock, who's the
director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection,
(16:17):
said that the settlement is believed to be the FTC's
largest ever involving consumer refunds, and the settlement was bigger
than Rebox basically because Sketchers had more market share and
those those shoes are not cheap. The Sketcher shoes ran
a hundred dollars a pair, Yeah, and a flip flops
went for sixty dollars. So it's it's they kind of
(16:39):
knew it seems like what they were doing. So the
Federal Trade Commission is on the lookout at least for
these phony fitness fads. Yeah, well you talked about like,
you know, these these shoes are supposed to tone you well, rebox.
So Reebok in September faced the same the same music.
(17:01):
They ended up having to pay twenty five million in
customer refront refunds to subtle charges of deceptive advertising for
their easy Tone shoes. The FDC complaint alleged that Reebok
falsely claimed that using the shoes had proven to lead
to twenty eight percent more strength and tone in your butt,
eleven percent more strength than tone in your hamstrings, and
(17:22):
eleven percent more strength in the calf muscles than using
regular walking shoes. So yeah, I'm I don't know how
they could come up with these numbers unless people really
were actually just getting out and walking more regardless, Yeah,
and um with sketchers though, to me, the thing that
I found to be the most disheartening was not so
(17:42):
much false advertising, um, towards adults, but their marketing of
these shape up shoes to the tween set. I found
this post over at Sociological Images, and they had a
screen grab from the animated commercial that shows a young girl,
probably thirteen years old. She's wearing her her tone ups,
(18:05):
and she's walking past boys dressed in a hot dog costume,
a cupcake costume, and something that looks kind of like
either doughnut or a cake pop. I'm not entirely sure.
It's a black and white picture. I would like to
date a donut. I would like a cake pop right now. Um.
And it was such troubling advertising because okay, no, it's
(18:28):
it's not bad at all to say, hey, you know,
exercise is good for you, get off the couch and exercise,
young person. But it was equating exercising with shunning food.
It's like, not only will you put on the issues
and walk your way to fitness, you will also walk
your way to never eating junk food. Again. That's not
(18:49):
I don't know, it's messing. No, No, that's it's a lot.
I can't even talk. Let's not let's not confuse our twains. No, no,
talk about some some major league false advertising. And the
FDC is not just coming down though on toning shoes. No. No,
the ab Circle Pro, the Body Flex System, all these
(19:14):
kinds of things are cracking down on false fitness claims. Yeah,
the ab Circle Pro pitch woman said that it helped
her lose eighty pounds and then launch a career as
a fitness model. And here's what she said. She said,
you can either do thirty minutes of abs and cardio
or just three minutes a day. The choice is yours.
And I feel like that's what sucks all these people
(19:34):
into these fitness fads that are ridiculous or unsafe or
just playing weird. Is the promise of you ate all
that turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas, now just like put
these shoes on, or put this vibrating belt on for
a little while and wipe it all away. Well, sure,
because this ties in so much to our episode on
New Year's Resolutions and thinking about the science of willpower,
(19:56):
Because I think the way that these kinds of fitness
fads get us is our flawed way of conceptualizing long
term goals. Because we look in the mirror, we see
where we are, and in our minds, IE, our goal
is to be something chiseled and perfect, and that's perfect
in quotes and some idealized image. And so of course
(20:20):
all of these things offer you the quick route to that,
because otherwise, you know, if we don't take it in
baby steps, it can be incredibly hard to meet fitness goals. Yeah,
but we spend so much money on these things every year,
not just not just the gadgets and the gizmos, but
also supplements and you know, diet foods and things that
(20:41):
promise to make us a better version of ourselves. That
manufacturers are just going to keep making them thankfully though.
And we've talked about the FCC. They are here to
protect us and take up issue with advertisers false claims.
And I thought this was on um Lisa Johnson's fitness
blog Lisa Johnson fitness dot com. She she has some
(21:02):
things to keep in mind when reading those fitness claims,
and I think one of them ties in very well
to the toning shoes and the ABS Circle pro in
particular that the models that they hire to be the
spokespeople probably didn't get where they are physically by using
the product that they're hawking. They probably actually went for
a run, or Kim Kardashian was simply blessed with certain
(21:26):
genetics that went straight to her butt And I can't
I will never be able to tone my button enough, yeah,
to make it look like that. I know. I think
it involves lunges or something. No, I thinks to get
that that lovely butt. Um. She also recommends to keeping
(21:48):
in mind that look, people, results will vary. Don't trust
anything that says lose five pounds in a week, loose
ten pounds in a week, because if you are losing
that much weight, something is desperately wrong. Yeah, it's not.
It's not a healthy way to go. Um. But one thing, Caroline,
that you looked a little bit deeper into that maybe
(22:09):
I don't know, maybe this could be a little bit
of a quick, quick route to slimness. That a word, slimness.
It's late in the day, limicity. Slimicity Electronic muscle stimulators,
which apparently have been around in some form or another
for a really long time. According to the British Journal
(22:29):
of a Rheumatology. Yeah, electricity has been used in the
treatment of arthritis, in particular since the time of Socrates,
using torpedo fish. Those are apparently very special fish. Um.
By the eighteenth century, this has really been in vogue forever.
So by the eighteenth century, electrotherapy was used to treat
(22:50):
various illnesses in se Specifically, Luigi Galvani figured out that
the leg muscles of a frog twitch when an elector
current goes through them, and so people are like, wait
a second, muscles, electricity, are we onto something? So go
to Reverend John Wesley. He actually speculated, and this is interesting,
(23:12):
and I don't know what he means, but he speculated
that electric fire deluded the minute vessels and capillary passages
and separated the clogging particles of stagnating fluids. Hallelujah. It
sounds like it gets your gets your heart pumping and
your blood moving. That's a weird way to say it
get you. Maybe I should be a reverend. Um. Well,
(23:34):
the interesting thing is is that today there are still
electrical muscle stimulators because Luigi Galvani was around the money
and thinking that you can send an electric current to
stimulate the leg muscles. Because when our muscles stimulate, that
is a form of an electric current that is in
our body naturally, but electric muscle stimulators today are FDA
(23:56):
regulated and intended for use in physical therapy and rehabild rotation. Yeah. No,
e m S devices, Electronic muscle stimulating devices have been
cleared by the FDA for weight loss or fitness purposes.
They will not people, They will not give you a
six pack. Yeah. Even though in the nineteenth century the
(24:16):
kind of electronic muscle stimulants became a fashionable treatment, it
became discredited by the mid nineteenth century, So you know,
we'll have to move on to that. But what about
jiggling belts? But we still found the and these are
the kind of like the glamour stretcher things that we're
talking we talked about earlier. Um, and I'm jiggling in
my seat, so I have one. When I when I
googled them, I totally expected to find just pictures of
(24:39):
you know, like ye old timey jiggling belts from the
thirties and forties. Oh no, Kristin, they still exist, still exist. Yeah,
one site that sells them, and I'm not even going
to say the site because why would I claims that
they can develop muscles and improve circulation using vibration therapy.
Oh and this is fascinating too in terms of the
(25:00):
popularity of jiggling belts and the glamour stretcher and why
it would have been marketed specifically. Two women said they
didn't have to move around and get all sweaty, yeah,
because that's not feminine exactly, say all they had to
do with stand there, so it was an acceptable form
of an attempt at weight loss. Yeah. One blogger said
(25:21):
that she used to go with her mother when her
mother went to it was some brand name Jim went
to the gym to get on the jiggling belt, and
so she just sat there and watched all these women
get jiggled around as they smacked their gum and their
mouths and said it was not a not a pretty sight.
But these machines were actually pulled from the market after
being all the rage in the sixties because apparently hundreds
(25:44):
of people developed serious oregan complications from it getting shaken
up like a can of coke. I have a feeling
that the rule about you you're supposed to wait what
like an hour after eating meal get in the water,
would definitely apply when it comes to the jiggling and
maybe it's more of a first thing in the morning exercise,
So what do we have to look forward to in
(26:08):
because his fads aren't going anywhere, we still buy into him.
That was one thing, though, one bit of scholarship that
I dug around for for this podcast and I could
not find, which was some kind of analysis on like
the patterns of buying into these things, like the marketing,
the gendered stuff, and how I could I wasn't coming
(26:29):
up with anything. Yeah, there's not a lot of research
out there that we found. So listeners, if you happen
to be in that field of research, yeah, baby, hit
us up right, because there's there's a lot on you know,
exercise in general, because that ties into body politics and
you know, masculinity ideals and all of that, but specifically
with these like the mentality of how we for so
(26:52):
long have bought into these essentially like fitness quacks. I
I mean I really think I I would I with
theorize that it really goes back to I don't want
to exercise, but I want to look really hot naked,
So I'm going to try the turning shoes or the
body blade or the vibrating plate thing that you stand on.
(27:14):
I don't give that one. Like I saw one with
people doing crunches on it. And I tell you, Krystal,
I went to that website. If I can't tell what
your product does within five seconds of going to your website,
it's questionable. I'm buying it just to find out. So
for especially for the ladies. Uh. The American Academy of
(27:35):
Sports Medicine says that strength training and body weight training
are expected to be the top fitness trends, especially for women. Yeah.
They say that women are particularly attracted to the trend
since cultural ideas of femininity are gradually focusing on strength
over slimness, with fitness becoming a priority. So I want
(27:56):
to know, a year from now, two years from now,
are we going back to like the Lamazon Cindy Crawford
aesthetic where we're all like sweaty with headbands and we
look all like big and ripped, big and ripped as
opposed to like the Kate Moss waifiness strength versus slimness. Yeah,
I think that I think we're moving a little bit
away from away from wayfishness. I better buy some self tanner.
(28:21):
But I feel it's just I feel like it's a
pendulum though that for so long is just gonna keep
swinging back and forth. And the thing that we need
to do a podcast on, Caroline spoiler alert, the stuff
on men's body image, because all the body image anxiety
and phobia is that for so long was talked about
just in relation to younger women and of course older
(28:42):
women as well, but starting with younger women were now
seeing in big numbers among men as well, including things
like eating disorders. So things to look forward to on
our end in twenty thirteen. Um, and yeah, if you
you mentioned that if anyone is in fitness industry and
can offer us some insight into this, let us know.
(29:04):
Anyone who has bought into any fed don't be ashamed now,
we want to hear your story the shame free Zone
and send us your story. If anyone owns a shake weight,
I would I would like to know all these things,
or anyone like the blogger you mentioned who remembers going
with their parents or grandparents to use an old timey
fitness contraption that would be fun to hear about as well.
(29:26):
You can send us an email at mom Stuff at
Discovery dot com or also find us on Facebook as
well and messages there. And we've got a couple of
listener letters. Well, I've got an email here from Amanda
in response to our episode on estrogen, and particularly in
response to when we brought up these scares behind estrogen
(29:50):
replacement and menopause. She says, I know way too much
about this topic. As an undergrad, I worked in the
lab of Dr Jill Daniel at Tuling University and I
was tasked with doing vaginal fluid standing on a wrath
to determine their cycles. Yes, daily paps mirrors, but to
make the story longer, the reason behind our research was
to refute the NIH claims that estrogen was harmful. There
(30:13):
was a huge error in that n a H study.
The median age of the women given estrogen was something
like eighty years old, which is about thirty years after
menopause would have occurred. Well, thirty years later, your body
won't have a clue what to do with estrogen, and
it happens to be an incredibly toxic substance. Luckily, women
going through menopause are given estrogen as menopause is occurring.
(30:33):
Dr Daniel's lap has found that hormone replacement can stave
off sides of aging, memory and learning, even if for
just a short period. Of time just after ordering menopause. Anyway,
I've since moved on to a lab studying graph versus
host dis ease so to do a podcast on transplants,
and you'll probably get a very detailed letter on that
as well. Can you imagine if it doing rat peeps
(30:56):
us every day? How tiny are the speculums? Well, if
you have any idea of how to all those rat
speculums were actually, don't email us, But if you'd like
to talk about anything else, you can send us a
letter at mom Stuff at Discovery dot com. You can
always find us on Facebook, start a conversation there like us.
While you're at it, you can follow us on Twitter
(31:16):
at mom Stuff Podcast. Check out our tumbler at stuff
mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com. And of course,
if you would like to get a little bit smarter
this week, you know where to go. It's to our
website how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
(31:36):
dot com
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