Pandemic Making You Flabby? Turn Off The TV And Exercise, Experts Urge

San Francisco Chronicle: The Other Pandemic Health Threat: Bay Area Experts Say It's Time To Get Up And Exercise
After nearly a year of staying close to home, people are feeling not only the mental toll of the pandemic, but the physical toll too. Without frantic school drop-offs, morning commutes, or pickup games of basketball after work to keep our bodies moving, many of us are leading increasingly sedentary lives. “We see a lot of eye strain, headaches and spine problems,” said Dr. Wayne Smith, chief of the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Kaiser Permanente’s San Jose Medical Center. While working from home has afforded more time for healthy habits like sleep and exercise for some, others are struggling to get out from behind their laptops. (Vaziri, 2/23)

The New York Times: How Meaningful Is Prediabetes For Older Adults? 
A few years ago, routine lab tests showed that Susan Glickman Weinberg, then a 65-year-old clinical social worker in Los Angeles, had a hemoglobin A1C reading of 5.8 percent, barely above normal. “This is considered prediabetes,” her internist told her. A1C measures how much sugar has been circulating in the bloodstream over time. If her results reached 6 percent — still below the number that defines diabetes, which is 6.5 — her doctor said he would recommend the widely prescribed drug metformin. (Span, 2/23)

Bay Area News Group: Stanford Study Shows Why Zoom Fatigue Is Real
COVID-19 pandemic has moved our lives into a virtual space. Why is that so exhausting? The tiredness doesn’t feel earned. We’re not flying an airplane, teaching toddlers or rescuing people trapped in burning buildings. Still, by the end of the day, the feeling is so universal that it has its own name: Zoom Fatigue. Stanford University professor Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, has some answers. In research published Tuesday in the journal Technology, Mind and Behavior, he describes the psychological impact of spending hours every day on Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, FaceTime, or other video-calling interfaces. It’s the first peer-reviewed article to analyze zoom fatigue from a psychological perspective. (Krieger, 2/23)

In other public health news —

The Washington Post: No Officers Indicted In Death Of Daniel Prude, A Black Man Pinned And Hooded During Mental Crisis
Police officers will not face charges in the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man pinned to the ground last year while handcuffed, hooded and in the throes of a mental health crisis. Announcing Tuesday that a grand jury declined to indict, New York Attorney General Letitia James said she was disappointed in the outcome of the case that thrust Rochester, N.Y., into the national spotlight last fall, after Prude’s family released graphic footage of his arrest following a months-long legal battle to make key records public. (Knowles and Iati, 2/23)

Roll Call: ‘Do It Now. Ask For Help Now’: Rep. Madeleine Dean And Her Son Reflect On His Addiction 
Before her son came back from treatment, Madeleine Dean went downstairs and covered every bottle in the house with Saran Wrap. When he saw it, he had to laugh. Alcohol wasn’t his drug of choice, and he had already raided those bottles many times in high school, replacing the liquor with water. (Saksa, 2/24)

ABC News: How 1 Common Household Item Has Been A Lifeline To Undocumented Immigrants Amid The Pandemic 
Every day, millions of people in the U.S. wake up to a harsh reality that was amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic: food insecurity. In a year that was filled with high record unemployment numbers and long lines at food banks, a grassroots movement was born to help serve people who were struggling with hunger. Across the country, “community fridges” have been popping up on sidewalks in neighborhoods that have been deeply impacted by the coronavirus. (Florencio, 2/23)

Bloomberg: As Women Drop Out Of Labor Market, Moms Call For More Aid
As women have left the U.S. workforce in droves, in what some economists have deemed the first female recession, calls for structural changes to support them are growing louder. Since the pandemic took hold, more than 2 million women have dropped out of the workforce. The crisis has exposed the burdens on working women but also provided an opportunity for substantive change, according to Reshma Saujani, founder and chief executive officer of Girls Who Code. “The infrastructure of childcare is broken,” Saujani said Tuesday at the Aspen Institute’s RE$ET Conference with Bloomberg Economics. “Nobody can afford it and it’s not seen as something that we simply need in our society -- and that has to change.” (Fanzeres, 2/23)

USA Today: LGBTQ Poll: How Many People Identify As LGBTQ In US? 5.6%, Per Gallup
A record number of U.S. adults – 5.6% – identify as LGBTQ, an increase propelled by a younger generation staking out its presence in the world, a poll released Wednesday shows. The survey by Gallup marks more than a 1 percentage point jump from the last poll in 2017 in which 4.5% of adults identified as LGBTQ. The estimated 18 million adults who identify as LGBTQ represent a continued upward trajectory since Gallup started tracking identification in 2012, Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones said. “It reflects what we are seeing in society and the way society is changing,” he said. (Miller, 2/24)

In celebrity news —

CNBC: Tiger Woods Is ‘Awake, Responsive And Recovering’ After Car Crash And Emergency Surgery
A luxury SUV driven by Tiger Woods crashed and rolled over Tuesday morning in southern California, leaving the golf superstar with serious injuries, authorities and his agent said. Woods is “awake, responsive, and recovering in his hospital room” after undergoing emergency surgery, according to a statement posted on his Twitter account. Dr. Anish Mahajan, chief medical officer and interim CEO at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, said Woods “suffered significant orthopaedic injuries” to his lower right leg. A rod was inserted to stabilize his tibia and femur bones, while a “combination of screws and pins” were used to stabilize injuries to the bones of the foot and ankle, the statement posted on Woods’ Twitter account said.