"Man-flu" is real to a fifth of British women

[snopes]

One in five British women believe that the debilitating "man-flu" disease which temporarily leaves sufferers prostrate on the sofa watching televised sports is real, according to a new study.

The survey, which questioned 2,000 British adults about health and wellbeing, showed that misconceptions and old wives' tales, including the myth that eating carrots improves night vision, prevail among the population when it comes to beliefs about common illnesses.

http://news.yahoo.com/man-flu-real-f...152451471.html

[llewtrah]

Man-flu is real in the sense that partners have to work around & nurse a sufferer of man-flu (though in the cases I encountered, he was watching DVDs, not sport). In that respect, I think man-flu is an ailment suffered by women rather than men!

[E. Q. Taft]

I find that on those occasions when I'm feeling pretty ill, I do watch a lot of television (sometimes without a lot of concern for what's on). It fills that gap between sleeping and the amount of more active participation/concentration needed to read or futz around on the computer.

(One particularly bizarre memory for me comes from a time when I was having severe back trouble and was on painkillers and other medication, blearily watching a rerun of The Six Million Dolalr Man called "A Bionic Christmas Carol." .....wow. Just wow. Steve Austin in a Santa Suit, playing the Ghost of Christmas Present, basically.....I think whoever wrote it was on better drugs than I was.)

[dewey]

"More than a third of people said that sugar makes children hyper, and 37 percent said they believed we lose most of our body heat through our heads -- the most popular misconception of the survey.

While the face, head and chest are more sensitive to temperature change than the rest of the body, covering one part of the body has as much effect as covering any other, researchers said."



Marilyn vos Savant gave an explanation of why it is important to cover up your head in cold weather. It is not so much that heat escapes faster from the head as it is that the body works extra hard to protect the brain. So it will divert resources from less important parts of the body to keep the brain warm. I didn't explain it as well as her but if it good enough for the smartest woman in the world it is good enough for me.

dew"brain-freeze"ey

[Barbara]

Man Flu web site

[BrokenBiscuit]

I seethe when people talk about their past or present flu if I know it's nothing of the sort. I think it annoys me out of proportion to provocation because I do quite often get colds that leave me feeling vague and out of it with a temperature, but I don't feel I have much alternative but to go to work anyway. Then later I have to listen to people talk about how they couldn't possibly have got out of bed while they're tucking into pints of Haagan Das. Amd at some point comes the inevitable "have you ever had the flu?" "No." "Oh, you're so lucky!"

But to be fair, I don't notice a difference between men and women in how they handle colds. A hell of a lot of individual variance though.

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by BrokenBiscuit

Then later I have to listen to people talk about how they couldn't possibly have got out of bed while they're tucking into pints of Haagan Das.

The times I've had the real flu (not just a heavy cold) I couldn't even reach the Haagan Das. It was a case of feeling I was dying alternating with feeling so ill I wished I was already dead. A lot of sick notes at work get filled in "3-day flu" because it sounds so much more serious than "heavy cold".

[Hans Off]

Originally Posted by dewey

Marilyn vos Savant gave an explanation of why it is important to cover up your head in cold weather. It is not so much that heat escapes faster from the head as it is that the body works extra hard to protect the brain. So it will divert resources from less important parts of the body to keep the brain warm. I didn't explain it as well as her but if it good enough for the smartest woman in the world it is good enough for me.

dew"brain-freeze"ey

She might be clever, but that's still clap-trap!

[Twankydillo]

Man-flu IS real. It's caused by going out while it's raining men and not thinking to wear warm socks before dancing with the ill dress down-pouring gentlemen.