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51% #1637: Bending Toward Change And Community

Ahri Golden
Courtesy of Ahri Golden
Ahri Golden

On this week’s 51%, a woman tells her story about being thrown off track and embracing the change and community she gains; a sports studies professor discusses Major League Baseball’s first female general manager and older women beware the chair — a new study shows the harmful effect of sitting for long periods of time.

Artist and Producer Ahri Golden returns to 51% with an audio portrait of Leah, a woman who embraces her life force, change and community. It’s part of Golden’s “Bending in 2020” series. 

Ahri Golden is an artist and producer. You can find out more about her work at www.ahrigolden.com and follow her on Instagram @ahrigolden 

In November, a woman who started her Major League Baseball career as an intern became the majors’ highest-ranking woman in baseball operations when she was hired as general manager of the Miami Marlins. According to the Marlins, Kim Ng is believed to be the first female GM in the four major North American professional sports leagues. Dr. Amy Bass, professor of Sports Studies at Manhattanville College in Westchester County, New York, talks about this first.

Dr. Amy Bass is an author and Professor of Sport Studies at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, focusing on sport, culture and politics. She is chair of the Division of Social Science & Communication. Her most recent book came out in 2018 — “One Goal: A Coach, a Team, and the Game That Brought a Divided Town Together.” She’s also an Emmy Award winner for her work with NBC-TV at the London Olympics in 2012.

And now KALW’s Sandip Roy presents what he calls “Six Degrees of Kamala Harris."

Even with regular physical activity, older women (ages 50-79) who spend more waking hours in sedentary behaviors, such as sitting or lying down, have an increased risk of heart failure serious enough to require hospitalization. This is according to new research published recently in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal.

The lead author of the study says that for heart failure prevention, we need to promote taking frequent breaks from prolonged sitting or lying down, in addition to trying to achieve guideline levels of physical activity, such as those recommended by the American Heart Association. Dr. Michael LaMonte, says very few studies have been published on sedentary time and heart failure risk, and even fewer have focused on older women in whom both sedentary behavior and heart failure are quite common. Researchers examined the records of almost 81,000 postmenopausal women (average age of 63 years) from the Women’s Health Initiative (Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study).

None of the participants had been diagnosed with heart failure when the study began. During an average of 9 years of follow-up, 1,402 women were hospitalized due to heart failure. Compared with women who reported spending fewer than 6.5 hours per day sitting or lying down, the risk of heart failure hospitalization was: 15 percent higher in women reporting 6.6-9.5 hours daily spent sitting or lying down; and 42 percent higher in women reporting more than 9.5 hours daily spent sitting or lying down. LaMonte says the message is simple: sit less and move more. 

That’s our show for this week. Thanks to Tina Renick for production assistance. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock. Our theme music is Glow in the Dark by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio. If you’d like to hear this show again, sign up for our podcast, or visit the 51% archives on our web site at wamc.org. And follow us on Twitter @51PercentRadio

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