Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A. J. Jacobs

Author:A. J. Jacobs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Nutrition, Humor, Medical, Marriage & Family, General, Topic, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Health & Fitness, Healthy Living, Exercise
ISBN: 9781416599081
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2012-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The Lungs

The Quest to Breathe Better

ON A SATURDAY, we take our kids to the Bodies exhibit at the South Street Seaport. This popular museum show displays actual cadavers in various positions. Some are cut into slices like a deli pastrami. Some are stripped of skin and frozen in heroic stances, such as tossing a football or conducting a symphony.

The exhibit is a little more graphic than I anticipated. Maybe a little much for my four-year-old twins. Maybe a little much for me. In the bone section, one glass case holds a tiny pelvic bone from what looks to be a six-month-old child.

The woman next to me peers into the glass case, spots the remains, and says, with all earnestness, “Ohhhh. That’s so cute.” To me, not cute. Harrowing. It reminds me of Casper the Friendly Ghost, the strangest comic book in history. The creators just gloss right over the horrid backstory. Are we just supposed to forget that a child had to die to produce this chipper poltergeist?

Luckily, my sons aren’t too fazed. They are most interested by a huge plastic container filled waist-high with packs of discarded cigarettes. They love the colors and designs on the boxes.

A sign next to the container warns: EVERY TIME YOU SMOKE A PACK OF CIGARETTES, YOU LOSE THREE HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES OFF YOUR LIFE. Passersby are encouraged to drop their packs in the slot and regain those hours.

“Why do people smoke?” Jasper asks as we walk to the next room.

“Well, you know how Zane liked his pacifier?” Julie says. “It’s the same thing with grown-ups and cigarettes. It feels good. It gives you something to do with the mouth. Also, they’re supposed to be relaxing.”

What is she saying? Maybe she should add that cigarettes have a cool, refreshing flavor, like you’re breathing Rocky Mountain air.

I shoot her a look. “You don’t have to sell it quite that hard.”

“Yeah, that didn’t come out right,” she says.

For someone who hates smoking as much as Julie does, she sure knows how to talk it up. If we find Parliaments in our boys’ Incredible Hulk backpacks, I’ll know whom to blame.

I’ve been focusing on my lungs this month. Without those eleven-pound organs—and their 1,500 miles of airways and 500 million tiny air sacs—I wouldn’t be around to worry about any other body parts.

I’ve been reading a lot about smoking. I almost wish I’d been a smoker. That way, I could have made a huge improvement by quitting during Project Health. But sadly, I smoked my only cigarette at age fifteen. I spent the next ten minutes getting sick while clutching a sidewalk trash can with both hands.

So cigarettes made me ill in the short run. Which saved me from getting ill in the long run. Cigarettes are still the leading preventable cause of death in America, killing about 440,000 people a year. The unfortunate part is, if they weren’t so horribly bad for you, cigarettes could be very handy in stopping the obesity epidemic. Nicotine is one of the only proven appetite suppressants.

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