Lately I’ve been doing some work with video. You may have seen some of the videos I’ve done with Women to Women on bone health (and if you haven’t, take a look at them on YouTube.) The reason for all the lights-camera-action stuff is that more and more, I find that people are learning about health issues as much from on-line video as from books, articles, or web pages. And video has one big advantage that written words don’t — you can show people what you mean.

I recently worked with Kathleen Porter of Natural Posture Solutions on a video about kyphosis, also known as “dowager’s hump” (even though many men develop this condition too). I’ll talk more about the insights this process brought me about kyphosis in a different blog, but what makes it exciting to have this video discussion is that Kathleen and I have the ability to actually show our audience what we mean when we talk about good posture versus bad posture. We have the ability, also, to demonstrate the effects of maintaining a slouched posture long term, simply by moving our own bodies into the positions we want people to understand.

It seems clear to me that people who may not “get it” when I describe something in words, will understand instantly when they see it in video. This makes video an incredibly powerful method for educating people about bone health and why it’s important. I like that, because despite everything that’s been written over the years — not just by me, but also by scholars like Susan Ott, MD and Gillian Sanson — there are still so many people who haven’t gotten the word about how important strong bones are to overall health and longevity. And since I’ve made it my life’s work to get that word out, I’m hoping that these videos will expand the message to people who haven’t heard it yet.

The responses I get to my videos are encouraging, and while I’m not about to stop writing, I am going to be doing more work in video. I just did a major session during my recent trip to Maine that will ultimately lead to a video on exercising for osteoporosis — including demonstrations of different types of exercise that are beneficial, which I hope will please many of my readers who want more of this kind of information.

Now, I’m the first to admit that Jane Fonda probably has nothing to worry about from me when it comes to competing in the exercise video market! Even so, these videos have been a lot of fun to make, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the finished product from the exercise video shoot. So I hope you all enjoy the videos that I’ve already finished, and keep an eye out for more — because there will be more!