Getting it off your chest

I'm not a big fan of cosmetic plastic surgery. It clearly has a role in modern medicine - for transexuals or people in accidents, for example - but you don't have to look at the lamentable state of health care around the world for very long to despair of the waste of resources involved in all this vanity butchery. Despite the recession Americans still managed to spend $10 billion on boob jobs, tummy tucks and the rest last year.

However, it is equally clear that appearance is increasingly important in the world. People lose their jobs because they don't look right and all but the very strongest can entirely resist the advertising industry's drive to ensure that we're all disappointed with our bodies. More and more men are turning to plastic surgery with the most popular operation being the breast reduction. If you're considering this you need to reflect on it very seriously indeed and that's why we've posted all the FAQs on malehealth: Don't be a tit when it comes to breast reduction.

Good Sex writer suggests a Christmas gift

'If you want a male health book to recommend to your readers for Christmas … this slim, jolly and readable text is probably the best male health handbook on the market.' Thanks to Dr David Delvin for reviewing my User's Guide To The Male Body is such glowing terms.

Winner at this year's Medical Journalists' Association Book Award, David is a specialist in Family Planning and Sexual Medicine and author of 32 books on family health and sexology including the Good Sex Guide and Backache. (I imagine you can buy the two as a pair on Amazon.) So he knows what he's talking about on many subjects of particular importance to men. Indeed, the top story on Google when you search for 'Dr David Devlin' is Facts about penis size. And there's not many men who can say that!

(If on the slim chance you are interested in this topic there is a Penis Size FAQs article on malehealth.)

Blackberry back? Working is STILL making us ill

I heard today that a friend, another journalist, had RSI - repetitive strain injury. I've had some problems with this myself. They severely affected my ability to work so I know how nasty - and painful - RSI can be. I found the page I wrote on malehealth on FAQs about work and health as I thought it might useful for him and was surprised to discover that although I put it together in 2003, it was still almost entirely relevant. Nothing has improved. In fact the way we now use new technologies at work is only likely to increase the risks of RSI or create new ones - stand by for iPhone finger, Blackberry back or Facebook faceache!

Some of the articles the FAQ links to are even older - last century in some cases. Amazing how contemporary they still are. No wonder in 2008, for Men's Health Week, malehealth ran an article showing that work was the main cause of ill health in developed world. With unemployment - a known killer - at its highest level in the EU in more than a decade and the UK coalition's cuts yet to kick in that's probably truer than it ever was.

Hey, what about Twitter twitter? (That's enough new forms of RSI! -Ed)