there's probably no reason why life needs to take its toll on my blog updating, but i guess that is what has happened. it's been a while. life certainly got in the way. i guess i just needed something particularly provocative to pull me out of myself and push me back into the blogosphere. well, i found it.
on september 21st jezebel ran an article [http://jezebel.com/5945355/super-hot-women-more-likely-to-have-super-painful-endometriosis] with the headline: super hot women more likely to have super painful endometriosis. i went right to it for a couple of reasons. first, i have endometriosis, so i'm particularly interested in 'research' on it. mostly though, that's a fairly bogus proposition for any study. it sounded more like something i would read in the onion. after checking to make sure i was accidently reading the onion, i checked out the article.
the blogger covering the story mixed the report with a healthy balance of incredulity, sarcasm, and the facts of the case. basically, some italian doctors got 300 women (a shockingly small number of participants for a study like this) together according to three groups. 1) 100 who identified as having retrovaginal endometriosis (this is a really bad type); 2) 200 who identified as having regular endometriosis; and 3) 100 who didn't have it. this next part is amazing and really makes me wonder what they wrote down on their ethics application. after getting these 300 women together, the doctors measured their bmi, breast size, and waist-to-hip ratio. yes, you read that correctly. in fact, go back and re-read it. then, just to make sure there weren't too many biases impacting the data, they had two doctors who didn't know the endometriosis status of the women rate their physical attractiveness on a scale of 1-5. but wait, there's more! wary of making false claims, the doctors added a questionnaire component to the study. they asked about sexual history. why? obviously because women who have sex before age 18 are hotter than women who don't. duh.
through this finely crafted study, the doctors found that women with retrovaginal endometriosis were more likely to have small bmi's and big breasts and were more likely to have intercourse before age 18. the doctors thought it might have something to do with estrogen, but only because high levels of estrogen have already been linked with endometriosis.
this study is terrifying. besides the fact that it is very poorly done, it is based on highly subjective ideas about what it means to be attractive. you know what, that's not even my biggest problem with this blatantly offensive research. as someone who deals with endometriosis, i have been consistently frustrated by the lack of substantive research in this area. researchers consistently understudy health issues associated with female bodies. it is both not surprising and immensely depressing to see that when a study in this topic was funded and completed, that study was so entirely bogus, so entirely offensive, and so entirely pointless. how in the world would it help anyone with endometriosis to know the likelihood that they would have lower bmi's and bigger breasts? this study provides absolutely nothing for people who are actually experiencing pain.
