Columns

SMITH | Sick

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Sickness is one of the many afflictions that may strike a student and it doesn’t get a lot of sympathy. My first year, I caught the flu and developed a fever so bad it landed me in an ambulance on the way to Cayuga Med. All I remember was being grateful it happened on a Saturday, and that I was back in class the following Monday. This lack of sympathy stems from the fact that almost every student is in some stage of sickness right now, be it the “I think I’m starting to get sick” phase or the “I think I might finally be better now” phase. Mental health is a whole other can of worms. 

Cornell Health

LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Cornell Health Needs a Gynecologist

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We are 136 current and former Cornell students.  We include members of the Pelvic Pain Association of Cornell, Disability+, Graduate Women in Science, QGrads, Women’s Health Initiative, Planned Parenthood Generation Action at Cornell, PERIOD@Cornell, Women’s Law Coalition, and the Women of Color Collective, among others.  We include students who suffer from pelvic pain and allies of people with pelvic pain.  We are writing this letter to urge Cornell to provide funding for Cornell Health to hire an MD gynecologist. Specifically, we need a gynecologist with experience diagnosing and treating chronic vulvovaginal and pelvic pain conditions such as vulvodynia, endometriosis, PCOS, and pelvic floor dysfunction. 

Columns

BARAN | All Men Should Get Vasectomies At Birth

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Intuitively, everyone would benefit from the widespread acceptance of men undergoing vasectomies before sexual maturity. Both sexes would be freer to focus on developing stable lives before even thinking about pregnancies or babies. When a couple does decide the time is right, all they would have to do is ring up a urologist. 

Columns

EPSTEIN |Get Your Daily Sun

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While often associated with the transition from fall to winter, seasonal depression, also known as seasonal affective disorder or SAD, can occur at any point of seasonal change with a significant amount those affected showing symptoms during the transition from winter to spring.

Columns

CHANG | Finding Food in the Desert

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Finding healthful food while living off-campus is the second most difficult task to do as a Cornellian — only passing “Introduction to Wines” is harder. We need creative solutions from the University and the municipal government to help encourage healthier eating habits in Ithaca’s food desert. It might surprise you that much of Ithaca is actually part of a food desert, according to the USDA’s definition. In an urban area — I know, it might be a bit rich to call Ithaca urban, although it’s also not exactly rural — a food desert requires the absence of a full-service grocery store in a one-mile radius. Much of the northwest and southern areas of the 14850 zip code area fit this definition.

Dining

A Foodie’s Trip to the Doctor

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What do your teeth, brain, mood and gut all have in common? Unsurprisingly, it turns out one answer is almost everything. They are, after all, interconnected and essential aspects of your body and life. The other, often overlooked answer, however, is food. The COVID pandemic put into perspective how little control we have over certain parts of our health, but quarantine was sobering, proving we don’t have to be “an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows” us.  In fact, the decisions we make about our food give us resounding leverage over our health.

chocolate

ROVINE | Chocolate Chip Cookies for the Wellness Trend Obsessed

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The more passionate about health & wellness you are, the more familiar you might be with the delicate balancing act of chasing self-improvement and finding pure self-acceptance. I love eating in a way that makes me feel good from a holistic perspective and I know that minimizing grains, dairy and processed sugar helps with that. I also love chocolate. I love these cookies. They’re as “indulgent” and delicious as any.

Dining

A Spicy Take on Chronic Pain

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One of my earliest memories is of being five or six and having my father, a spicy food fanatic, make me eat one of the dried chilis that comes in kung pao chicken. That was the day I learned that the best antidote to a mouth on fire is not water or even milk, but mouthfuls of plain, steamed white rice. It was also the beginning of my own descent into what my mother felt was madness. From then on, my dad and I were like a cult, only instead of a god we worshipped capsaicin. We went to fancy hot sauce stores on vacation.