Kartoshka

I was born in the USSR. No, don't worry, I'm not going to start singing.

The USSR was built upon the principles of socialist rule and maintained by a purely totalitarian dictatorship model. But, I'll not venture in that direction either.

I'm going to talk about one small aspect of the culture that my parents were raised in, and that I briefly inhabited before being whisked away (via quite an historic path of its own) to the United States. This aspect refers to physical conditioning and the 'Kartoshka'. For all of its shortcomings (see above), the Soviet government was quite adamant that its citizens be strong enough to carry out any labor that would be required of it. Physical conditioning was not relegated to an 'after-school' activity or specific athletic pursuits, it was an integral part of childhood and young adult education. There was present a very strong cultural agenda that physical health was directly correlated with national health.

This, unfortunately, is a concept completely and totally lost in the US, where the ability to sit still for very long periods of time while doing mentally taxing work are valued above all else. And the children, by age six they are forced into desks, and molded by them. Some, if they are termed 'athletic', may be allowed a chance to play an organized sport, but this is almost entirely dependent on socioeconomic status.

In the USSR, after finishing high school and before entering university, ALL graduates had to go and work in a soviet-sanctioned farm. This 'labor' was termed the 'Kartoshka', or 'potato' in English. There are pictures of my mother working alongside her girlfriends in a field to pick crops. Imagine such a practice today. Blasphemy. But we need...something! Scientists are now looking for genes that predispose individuals to obesity, heart disease, and cancer. Here's what I have to say: time spent in desks, chairs, couches, and 'behind the wheel' is a FAR MORE POWERFUL variable than ANY genetic variability that you may have. Do not let the doctors scare you. Granted, there are certain genetic disorders, such as early-onset heart disease and cancers that have a clear genetic component. But even those are not sure hits. One may still harbor the mutations and live a long and healthy life.

I am sick and tired as our cultural naivete allows us the medical system to educate us about our mutated genes and inflamed joints. You know what? I bet if we could send all these genes, joints, hearts, and minds on a 'Kartoshka' once in a while, we'd do the world a much greater good than picking apart the molecular pathways of obesity and so on. Of-course we need both. But we're not getting that, by a long shot. In addition, as a genetic researcher, I will 'come out' and say that genes aint even close to the final word. Genes are wrapped and rewrapped and organized and re-organized on a millisecond basis. If you are interested in this, read about epigenetics, it is a fascinating field and I have hope that it may someday stop the bad gene = bad person dogma. But not soon enough, not soon enough.
As Egoscue reminds us, we are beautifully malleable creatures. And I personally do not want to look like a desk. That, for sure, is not in my genes.

Oh, and my Mom. She's almost 50, runs 6-7 days a week for an hour, holds down a full time professional job, and has more than enough energy to raise her younger son, parlay wisdom on her oldest daughter (yours truly), and cook a mean mushroom barley soup.

It is my personal and professional conjecture that the Kartoshka may have had something to do with that.