You know, I never thought of myself in such light; I guess I never really thought about the changes I was making--even as I saw them unfold daily before my eyes. Honestly, I see myself more as a "rule breaker." More so as someone that says, "Why can't we do it this way," or "Who cares how it's always been done?" I've had well over 30 distinct occupations in my short life, and I think it's these, at times, quite varied experiences that reduce my "tunnel vision" and keep me alert to alternative methods to approach situations/tasks/problems. Perhaps the most poignant occupation-example is my employment in the car customizing world. Most often customizing a car, was a just that, a lot of tweaking, molding, cutting and forming to make each individual component work with each automobile. It's odd now that, as I look back, I've always been a changemaker; whether it's through welding scrap steel or through encouraging incremental health-promotion changes.
Ever since I can remember, my favorite place to be is in a library or an old book store. I hasten to add, that, perhaps unfortunately, it's not for solely intellectual reasons such as digesting enormous amounts of printed words, but rather, it's the atmosphere; it's knowing that I'm surrounded by decades of stuffy, yet important, material. I remember missing far too many undergraduate classes because I was walking through the seemingly endless isles of books and journals. At my university one of the libraries had an attic full of rarely used books, and I took delight to spending hours tucked away in a corner--sometimes reading, sometimes staring out the window, but always, always, dreaming, thinking and connecting the dots on whatever problem I was currently running through my head. I wish my college transcripts reflected all this "deep thinking" but alas, it does not. I guess I take away my connection with libraries as a stepping stone for my outlook on life: There's a lot of dusty books on the shelf, but it's the people on the ground that really make the difference.
Unequivocally I want health-promotion, especially preventative behaviors, at the front and center of health care. I want medical doctors to ask, as their leading questions, about exercise, diet, mental activities and the like. The public health consequences of an aging society in the coming years are unprecedented and largely unprepared for as currently more than one-third of U.S. deaths are preventable. Smoking, poor diet and physical inactivity, all risk factors for the leading U.S. diseases, heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, were the primary cause of nearly 35% of deaths in 2000; common behavioral changes, as promoted in our HSE program, would prevent much of these deaths.
I also want us all (health educators and the like) to move away from requiring gold standard measures as success-outcomes. Taking 5-thousand steps per day might be the optimal goal for most individuals but asking a sedentary individual to even consider that goal is a recipe for failure. Instead, let's not even mention that goal and work on more proximal, and thus obtainable goals like walking around the house during commercials of their favorite TV show. Next week maybe add another show or maybe just work towards maintaining that goal for another week. Each individual is different and responds to challenges accordingly. Some might reach the 5k step goal in a month some might take a year; the important thing here is taking that first step, so let's not ask them to then take 4,999 more right away, ok?
Dana K. Bagwell has conducted research in the field of cognitive psychology and aging, with particular emphasis on behavioral community interventions, for over a decade. This experience has resulted in authorship or co-authorship of numerous scientific manuscripts, conference presentations and lay articles. Toward the end of his tenure at the University of Florida, Dana managed and taught the memory training classes for the Everyday Memory Clinic which received the American Society on Aging’s 2007MindAlert award-winning service program for seniors. Soon after, he relocated to the nation’s capital, where he worked at Johns Hopkins University on research projects that examined brain changes resulting from increased mental and physical activities. Presently, he lives in historic Niagara Falls, N.Y. where he owns and operates the Memory Health and Fitness Institute. Although heavily steeped in academic research, Bagwell’s most important and most fulfilling task is explaining scientific findings to lay audiences through teaching and public presentations.
