你該從誰開始？你該坐誰？為了幫助您設置夢幻橄欖球陣容並避免首發不在陣容中的進攻球員，我們將在 NFL 球隊發布官方不活躍名單時在此發布與夢幻橄欖球相關的更新和分析。本專欄中引用的任何排名均來自我們的 ESPN Fantasy 員工排名。

官方週日非活動應在預定開球時間前約 90 分鐘開始：早場比賽上午 11:30 左右，下午晚些時候比賽下午 2:30 左右。

經常刷新以獲取最新資訊。

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東部時間下午 1 點比賽

湯米·特雷布爾（Tommy Tremble），TE，汽車： 腿筋—— 有疑問
影響：Ja’Tavion Sanders 在第一周幾乎沒有作為 Tremble 的替補。

拉希姆·布萊克希爾（Raheem Blackshear），跑衛，CAR： 個人的 – 有疑問
影響：他在球隊的RB深度圖上排名第四，這並不是幻想因素。

David Njoku，TE，CLE： 腳踝 – 出去
影響：喬丹·阿金斯將在第二週為布朗隊首發，也許時間會更長，因為恩喬庫「每週都會」。

傑克·弗格森，TE，DAL： 膝蓋—— 疑
影響：預計 Luke Schoonmaker 將獲得 TE 的大部分目標…

小約翰‧史蒂芬斯 (John Stephens Jr.)，TE，DAL： 腿筋—— 出去
影響：…Brevyn Spann-Ford 是唯一其他健康的 TE 選擇。

詹姆森·威廉斯，WR，DET： 腳踝 – 有疑問
影響：整週的訓練有限，但看起來他應該足夠健康才能參加比賽。

以賽亞威廉斯，WR，DET： 腹部—— 出去
影響：卡利夫雷蒙德（Kalif Raymond）牢牢鎖定，不比球隊的第三號WR選項差。

喬丹樂福，四分衛，英國： 膝蓋—— 疑
影響：據報道，樂福的身體狀況尚未允許上場，馬利克威利斯幾乎肯定會成為平淡無奇的先發球員。

MarShawn Lloyd，RB，英國： 腿筋—— 有疑問
影響：他缺席了第一周。

傑登‧里德 (Jayden Reed)，WR，英國： 小牛—— 有疑問
影響：即使他能夠上場，四分衛的情況也會帶給你幻想。

喬許唐斯（Josh Downs），WR，IND： 腳踝 – 有疑問
影響：這將是一場比賽時間的電話會議。如果他坐下來，阿多奈·米切爾和亞歷克·皮爾斯都會獲得價值提升。

約書亞·帕爾默（Joshua Palmer），WR，LAC： 膝蓋—— 有疑問
影響：如果帕爾默無法上場，布倫登·賴斯可能會採取一些行動。目前的跡象表明帕爾默正在嘗試。

哈桑·哈斯金斯，RB，LAC： 腳趾—— 有疑問
影響：哈斯金斯對 JK Dobbins/Gus Edwards 分時度假的影響不大。

喬丹·艾迪生（Jordan Addison），外接手，最小： 腳踝 – 出去
影響力：傑倫·奈勒應該會成為僅次於賈斯汀·傑斐遜的第二大WR目標。

JaMycal Hasty，RB，NE： 膝蓋—— 有疑問
影響：安東尼奧吉布森本週沒有出現在傷病報告中。他應該是拼寫拉蒙德·史蒂文森的人。

格雷厄姆·加諾 (Graham Gano)，K，紐約： 腹股溝—— 預計可以玩
影響：加諾是較晚才加入傷病報告的，但沒有指定，這意味著他有望參加比賽。不過，如果你有其他選擇……

肯尼斯·沃克三世 (Kenneth Walker III)，RB，東南亞： 斜—— 疑
影響力：扎克·夏博內特（Zach Charbonnet）首發，肯尼·麥金托什（Kenny McIntosh）替補。

法老布朗，TE，SEA： 腳 – 出去
影響：諾亞·范特（腳趾）將在本周升級後首發。

克里斯蒂安·麥卡弗里，跑衛，小前鋒： 小牛—— 輸出/紅外線
影響：麥卡弗里將坐牢至少四個星期。喬丹·梅森成為必須先發的選擇。

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東部時間下午 4 點比賽

澤維爾·韋弗（Xavier Weaver），WR，ARI： 斜—— 有疑問
影響：唯一值得注意的是，這意味著WR可以少一個與新秀馬文·哈里森（Marvin Harrison Jr.）競爭外貌的選擇。

發球檯希金斯，WR，CIN： 腿筋—— 疑
影響力：安德烈·伊西瓦斯 (Andrei Iosivas) 獲得了第二次機會，成為辛西西亞的二號外接手。

Devaughn Vele，WR，DEN： 排骨—— 出去
影響力：小馬文·米姆斯 (Marvin Mims Jr.) 或特洛伊·富蘭克林 (Troy Franklin) 都有機會達到 WR 3 號的水平。

好萊塢布朗，WR，KC： 肩膀 – 輸出/紅外線
影響：預計布朗本季根本不會參加比賽。澤維爾沃西現在有更好的機會重複第一周的成功首秀。也許朱朱史密斯-舒斯特會以自己的方式重新融入其中。

戴維斯艾倫，TE，LAR： 後退 – 出去
影響：本週 Colby Parkinson 應該會壟斷 TE 目標。

拉塞爾威爾遜，QB，PIT： 小牛—— 有疑問
影響：威爾森有機會穿上衣服——但只是作為二號四分衛，讓賈斯汀·菲爾茲還有一周的時間嘗試獲得這份工作。

羅曼威爾森（Roman Wilson），WR，PIT： 腳踝 – 有疑問
影響：本·斯科羅內克（Ben Skowronek）從訓練隊中提拔出來，因此這位新秀的首次亮相看起來不太好。

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週日晚上的比賽

基南艾倫（Keenan Allen），WR，CHI： 鞋跟—— 有疑問
影響：SNF 遊戲的遊戲時間召喚？非常危險。 DJ Moore 是芝加哥唯一健康的 WR 首發球員。

羅馬 Odunze，WR，CHI： 膝蓋—— 有疑問
影響：也可能是最後一刻的決定。如果你突然陷入困境，可以轉向泰勒·斯科特或德安德烈·卡特放棄豁免。

達蒙·皮爾斯（Dameon Pierce），跑衛，HOU： 腿筋—— 有疑問
影響：卡姆·阿克斯（Cam Akers）是第一周表現良好的球員，如果皮爾斯不能穿衣服（並參加比賽），他很可能會穿好衣服（並參加比賽）。

Apple 真的會做出改變，為我年邁的母親節省超過 1,500 美元嗎？這就是該公司新宣布的計劃的承諾，即為AirPods Pro 添加真正的助聽器功能- 以及為什麼，儘管對iPhone 16 及其精美的相機控制按鈕充滿敬意，但對我來說，這是周一主題演講中最有前途的部分。

這個消息對我來說來得正是時候。我 80 歲的母親終於承認，我們可以說，她的聽力很差。她只是讓我幫她在街上的 Miracle Ear 診所預約（「他們正在進行秋季促銷！」）。但在走這條路之前，我決定做一些研究。

令人沮喪的助聽器世界

我知道，自 2022 年美國政府開放場外競爭以來，助聽器市場正在蓬勃發展。北，有時會達到2,000 美元。雖然這確實很多，但瘋狂的是，與臨床助聽器相比，它非常便宜。這些通常起價為 1,000 美元，最高可達 5,000 美元或更高。是的，真的。

有些醫療保險可能會推遲費用，但 Medicare 不會。雖然退伍軍人可以透過退伍軍人管理局獲得助聽器，但我記得我父親的經歷意味著他的助聽器是在初次聽力檢查幾個月後才到達的。

關鍵在於：許多老年人似乎討厭他們的助聽器，這是有充分理由的：它們通常使用起來很乏味且不直觀，有時只有一個微小的按鈕來控制音量。想要關閉它們嗎？首先打開電池蓋。 （許多助聽器仍然使用一次性微電池。）恰當的例子：我的母親幾年前得到了一副昂貴的助聽器，但發現佩戴和維護它們的挑戰並不值得它們提供的馬馬虎虎的音頻改進。它們仍然可以通電，但它們似乎不再有效地工作——而且已經過保固期，這是我們目前搜尋助聽器的原因。

來自 OTC 市場的競爭在這方面有所幫助，因為世界各地的 Jabras 和 Sennheisers 推動傳統助聽器提供者變得更加精通技術。有些人放棄了耳後式電池組，而選擇耳塞式的簡單設計。隨著老年人習慣使用手機和平板電腦，用於通話的藍牙連接和用於聲音調節的應用程式終於變得更加普遍。

但是，當你能以極低的價格買到正品時，為什麼還要去購買本質上是 AirPods 仿冒品的產品呢？ （令人驚訝的是，在這個一切都走訂閱路線的時代，沒有任何形式的經常性月費。）

等待軟體更新—並管理期望

那麼，助聽器功能什麼時候可以實現呢？看似幾週之後的事情現在可能更近了。 FDA 監管批准（在美國）已經敲定，在最初宣布後幾天就到達了。剩下的就是必要的軟體升級。您需要將 AirPods Pro 與執行 iOS 18 或適用於 iPad 或 Mac 的等效 2024 作業系統更新的相容裝置配對。在 iPhone 方面，這幾乎是 2018 年之後銷售的所有型號（iPhone XS/XR 及更高版本）。雖然這些最初的軟體更新已於 9 月 16 日發布，但目前尚不清楚助聽器功能是否會在那時或稍後的某個時間發布——也許與 10 月發布的第一個 Apple Intelligence 一起發布。 （蘋果網站只是簡單地寫著「今年秋天推出」。）

同時，我開始向母親追加銷售。我向她展示了蘋果影片示範的相關部分，並讓她試用了我的 AirPods Pro，只是為了衡量貼合度和舒適度。最初的反應並不熱烈。雖然她喜歡它們“不會像 AirPods 2 那樣從我的耳朵裡掉下來”，但她還是因為耳塞刺入耳道而感到厭煩。無數其他耳機愛好者也同意這一點，這就是為什麼新 AirPods 4 的設計更加開放。但蘋果並沒有暗示這些耳機很快就會配備助聽器功能——如果有的話。

老實說：這並不是靈丹妙藥。蘋果特別表示，該功能「適用於被認為患有輕度至中度聽力損失的人」。如果我的母親此時已經開始需要專業級的助聽器，無論是非處方或其他方式，我都不會感到驚訝。因此，我們最終可能會選擇其中一款 Jabra Enhance 型號，它提供 100 天無憂退貨政策。

但現在我們有了 AirPods Pro 作為可測試的替代品。展望未來，助聽器市場上的任何人都可以透過 AirPods Pro 及其配套的免費音訊測試開始他們的旅程。如果您喜歡結果，那麼您就完成了 – 或者您至少有一個權宜之計。如果沒有，您可以將它們與價格較高的非處方藥或臨床選擇在舒適度、電池壽命、易用性以及——當然——它們的實際助聽器各自的功效方面進行比較和對比。事實上，蘋果以 200 美元左右的價格參與助聽器對話，這感覺就像是一場勝利。

太陽的 紫斑 是一種導致皮膚上出現瘀傷但沒有任何傷害或創傷的疾病。 這些瘀傷是無害的，不會造成傷害，因為它們不是由受傷引起的。如果發生這種情況，您可能會注意到手背和前臂上有瘀傷。

日光性紫斑經常影響老年人，因為日光性紫斑通常是由於長期暴露於太陽紫外線 (UV) 造成的。

瘀傷是日光性紫斑症的主要症狀，儘管您也可能會注意到瘀傷周圍區域的皮膚發生一些變化。

瘀青

許多患有日光性紫斑的人只有一種症狀：皮膚上似乎隨機出現瘀傷。通常，瘀傷是外傷或受傷的跡象。例如，當您跌倒時，您可能會破壞皮膚下的一些血管，並且由於血液無處可去，因此它會聚集在那裡，直到您的身體最終重新吸收它。

然而，患有日光性紫斑的人在正常的日常活動或通常不會導致瘀傷的輕傷後通常會出現瘀傷。 日光性紫斑瘀青通常出現在接觸陽光最多的身體部位，例如手、手臂和臉部。

大多數瘀傷直徑為 1-4 公分 (cm)、平坦、呈紅色或紫色，然後在幾週內逐漸消退。

皮膚變化

由於日光性紫斑通常是隨著年齡的增長和陽光照射而發生的，因此瘀傷周圍的皮膚可能會出現損傷和衰弱的跡象。如果您患有日光性紫斑，您的皮膚也可能看起來薄、下垂或有皺紋，呈淡黃色，或有其他衰老和陽光照射的跡象，例如太陽黑子。

老化和長期陽光照射是日光性紫斑最常見的原因。隨著時間的推移，這兩個因素都會削弱血管壁，使其容易破裂。 血液聚集在破裂的血管周圍，就像受傷或外傷後一樣，導致皮膚下瘀傷。然而，其他一些因素也會削弱血管並導致日光性紫斑，例如：

風險因素

除了原因外，沒有其他導致日光性紫斑的危險因子。換句話說，老化、陽光照射和使用某些物質是增加罹病風險的唯一因素。然而，當您有多種風險因素時，您患日光性紫斑的風險會更高。例如，老年人長時間暴露在陽光下會加劇日光性紫斑，而經常服用非類固醇抗發炎藥或飲酒的老年人也更容易患日光性紫斑。

如果您擔心皮膚上突然或隨機瘀傷，去看醫療保健提供者很重要。他們可以評估您的瘀傷，以準確診斷您的病情。您可以期望您的提供者在您預約期間詢問您的病史並進行身體檢查。這通常足以做出診斷。

在極少數情況下，如果您的服務提供者擔心瘀傷，他們可能會將您轉介給皮膚科醫生（專門研究皮膚、頭髮和指甲狀況的醫生）進行皮膚活檢。切片檢查會採集皮膚組織樣本，有助於更仔細觀察皮膚的最上兩層（表皮和真皮），並評估皮膚的厚度或薄度。活檢還可以排除造成瘀傷的任何其他潛在原因。

您不需要對日光性紫斑症進行任何治療，因為它是一種良性（無害）病症，不會引起任何併發症。瘀傷會在三週內自行癒合，儘管它們可能會在您的一生中不時復發。

有些人尋求治療來加速癒合過程，因為他們不喜歡瘀傷的外觀。然而，沒有太多證據顯示外用藥物有多大益處。類視黃醇在減少瘀傷方面已顯示出一定的功效，但所進行的研究規模較小，而且對於使用視黃酸治療瘀傷，結果並不是絕對積極的。

某些外用護膚品（如神經醯胺、菸鹼醯胺和山金車凝膠）可能有助於改善皮膚的整體健康狀況，從而減少瘀傷或加快恢復時間。然而，對這些產品治療日光性紫斑的研究很少，因此需要更多的研究。

如果您擔心瘀傷的外觀，專家通常建議用衣服或化妝品遮蓋瘀傷。您的醫療保健提供者或皮膚科醫生也可以推薦某些針對您皮膚整體健康狀況的個人化護膚品。

也許無法完全預防日光性紫斑，但隨著年齡的增長，降低罹患日光性紫斑的風險的最佳方法是終生保護皮膚免受紫外線的傷害。請考慮以下防曬技巧：

• 使用 SPF 50 或更高的廣譜防曬霜
• 用輕便透氣的衣服覆蓋你的手臂和腿
• 使用寬邊帽子或太陽眼鏡保護頭皮和眼睛

您可以好好照顧您的皮膚，使其足夠堅固以應對輕微的創傷。除了保護皮膚免受陽光照射外，還要保持皮膚濕潤、保持水分、戒菸或避免吸煙，並嘗試控制壓力。 您可能還需要改用更溫和、低過敏性的肥皂和護膚品，使用加濕器來減少空氣乾燥，並在皮膚有受傷風險時（例如在園藝時）戴上手套。

如果阿斯匹靈或血液稀釋劑等藥物導致日光性紫斑，請諮詢您的醫療保健提供者。在某些情況下，他們可能會為您改用另一種藥物或提供替代療法來降低皮膚變化的風險。

由於日光性紫斑通常是由於老化和陽光照射而發生，因此這些風險因素也會增加您罹患其他皮膚病的機會，例如：

• 肝斑： 也稱為 雀斑、肝斑是老化的常見跡象。這些色素沉澱區域通常看起來像大雀斑，並且出現在與日光性紫斑相同的位置，例如手背、前臂和臉部。
• 光化性角化症: 這些微紅斑塊非常常見，是由紫外線照射引起的。它們通常出現在臉部、頭皮、手和耳朵上。與肝斑不同，光化性角化症是癌前病變，因此定期去看皮膚科醫師進行皮膚癌篩檢非常重要。

日光性紫斑是一種無害的病症，不會引起疼痛。雖然日光性紫斑表示您的皮膚經常暴露在陽光下或正在經歷與年齡相關的變化，但瘀傷並不是皮膚癌或其他皮膚病的症狀。這種情況也不會以任何方式影響您的預期壽命。

然而，日光性紫斑的出現表明您的皮膚正在衰弱，因此您可能需要採取措施來增強皮膚的完整性。您可以透過滋養護膚方案和防曬來做到這一點。

It’s midafternoon, and Shabana Siddiqui has just hopped into an Uber.

Siddiqui, who is from Afghanistan, moved to the United States with her husband in 2022, and for the past couple of years, she’s worked in Maine with a project helping other Afghan refugee families with children.

On this day, Siddiqui is visiting a family she’s been working with for a few months. The parents moved to the U.S. in January with their two youngest sons, ages 19 and 12.

The family spent more than two years living in fear under the Taliban. “When the government collapsed and the Taliban took over, they were really scared for their lives,” explains Siddiqui.

But since their arrival in Lewiston, the 12-year-old boy has struggled with symptoms of anxiety and post-traumatic stress, says Siddiqui.

“One day he was at school and he got pushed by a bully,” she says. “It triggered him so much that he started crying and he even had a panic attack. And he called his mom and he was like, ‘Mom, can you come pick me up? I cannot breathe.’”

Research shows that when people fleeing violence and persecution resettle in a new country as refugees, the toll of the trauma they’ve been through can haunt them for a long time. Children are especially vulnerable. The toxic mix of past traumas and the stresses of resettlement puts such kids at a significantly higher risk of long term mental health challenges, researchers say.

“We know from years of research that children exposed to violence, separation and loss due to armed conflict and forced migration have elevated risks for problems with depression, anxiety, traumatic stress reactions,” says Theresa Betancourt, director of the research program on children and adversity at Boston College.

Studies have shown that rates of depression among refugee and asylum-seeking children range from 10% to 33%. and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rates range from 19% to 53%. Anxiety disorders are also prevalent with rates ranging from 9% to 32%.

A double burden for parents

Parents or primary caregivers can buffer against these long-term mental health consequences, but refugee parents are often struggling with their own mental health and hesitant to seek care, says Betancourt.

“Parents may feel stigma in mentioning their own struggles with problems like depression or anxiety,” she says. “And they may be concerned about discussing their child’s emotional behavioral problems, too.”

That’s why Betancourt and her colleagues launched an effort to support refugee parents and children in the United States, as a way to prevent long term mental health and behavioral problems. It’s an effort run jointly by Boston College and the local non-profit Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

“We’re really trying to work with the family a lot earlier with a prevention focus and a mental health promotion focus,” says Betancourt.

Their approach employs people like Siddiqui who share the same language, culture and lived experience with newly arrived families. Siddiqui and her colleagues receive training to provide evidence-based emotional, social and practical support to parents and children. The organizers have used it successfully in resettled Somali Bantu and Bhutanese communities in Maine. Now, they have adapted that solution for recently resettled Afghan families in Maine and Michigan.

The shadow of past traumas

The Uber drops off Siddiqui on a wide, tree-lined street in Lewiston with big houses on either side. She walks up to a house and knocks on the front door. A lanky boy with big eyes and thick, black hair opens the door and greets Siddiqui in Dari, their shared language.

This is Mujib Ur Rahman, the 12-year-old Siddiqui told me about. His parents — Khadija and Mohammad Rahmani — are waiting upstairs, outside their first floor apartment. They greet her with smiles and an effusive welcome in Dari.

“You go there as a friend and you build [a] rapport, so they can easily share everything with you,” Siddiqui says.

The Rahmanis welcome Siddiqui into their rental apartment. Khadija brings out a large silver platter filled with dried apricots and almonds, and two thermoses full of cardamom tea, before settling into the sofa next to Mujib and Shabana. Her husband, Mohammad, sits across from them on a chair.

The family is from Afghanistan’s third largest city, Herat, where Mohammad owned a small grocery store. They still have a house in Herat with a big garden where they grew vegetables and fruit.

Mujib remembers spending most of his summer evenings doing the thing he loved most.

“After I came home from school, I would play with kites on the roof of my house,” he says.

He particularly enjoyed kite fighting with his neighbors. It’s a beloved tradition in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan and India, where people try to cut others’ kite strings with their own and set others’ kites free. (Although it’s a bit controversial because the strings are sometimes coated with glass and other additives to sharpen them; the Taliban has banned the practice.)

“When they saw me flying kites, they would take down their kites,” says Mujib, beaming as he brags about his kite-fighting skills. “There was one who rivaled my skill and I could never free his kite. We were in competition.”

But life as Mujib knew it came to a halt in 2021, when the Taliban took control of the country.

“They did a lot of scary things right in front of people’s eyes,” he says, his voice getting softer, more hesitant as he remembers that time. ”For example, hitting and stabbing people with knives, arresting them. I thought they would come to my home and arrest me and beat me, too.”

His mom, Khadija, had been a well-known nurse and women’s rights advocate in their community. Part of her job was to identify and advocate for girls and women who were forced into marriage or were victims of domestic violence. This work made her a target for the Taliban.

So Khadija and Mohammad moved to a relative’s house along with their two younger sons, Mujib and the then 17-year-old Munib. The family stayed in hiding for two years.

“We didn’t sleep all the time, we were scared,” says Khadija. “When there was any noise, we were thinking how to run from home. For example, if the Taliban came from this side, how could we jump over the wall and run?

Then, in 2023, the family received news that they could leave Afghanistan with her two youngest sons. Despite having to leave her mother, and two adult kids — her oldest son and a daughter — behind, Khadija feels grateful to be in the United States with Mohammad, Mujib and Munib.

“We thank God a thousand times that we can start our life anew here,” she says.

But the chronic stress of the past few years has followed them here. “My husband and I stay awake until 1:30, 2 or 3 o’clock at night,” says Khadija, “because I still have that trauma from the Taliban’s regime in my brain.”

And 12-year-old Mujib has struggled the most. He is easily triggered by sudden noises, she says. “He gets pale, and his breathing gets hard. He gets panicked and runs to get out. One time there was a knock on the door, and he started crying non-stop.”

“A lot of the responses that you see in a young boy like that, those are expectable when you’ve been through the sort of frightening, traumatic events that he’s been through,” says Betancourt.

Khadija’s training and professional experience working with victims of domestic and sexual violence have helped her understand trauma reactions and identify them in her son.

But most refugee parents might not know or understand similar reactions in their children, says Betancourt. They might not understand that if their child is acting out or having trouble following their parents’ directions, it may be related to their past trauma or current stress.

“And the child can feel quite alone in their experience,” she says, which increases the risk of symptoms of mental illnesses like depression and anxiety.

Stresses of starting a new life

Like many newly resettled refugee kids, Mujib has struggled at school.

“He’d say to me, ‘Mother, I don’t want to go to this school because everyone is bullying me, and I don’t like this school. I don’t understand their language,’” says Khadija.

The language barrier is a big source of stress for Khadija and her husband, Mohammad, too. She wants to get certified to work as a nurse here, but she needs fluency in English first. She and Mohammad have been desperately looking for jobs, but most positions require some language proficiency.

“We have to learn the language because we have a hard time not knowing the language,” says Khadija. 

They are taking driving lessons, even though it may be a long time before they can afford to buy a car. For now, they depend on other people in the Afghan community to give them rides for everything from grocery shopping to health appointments to visits with others in their community.

These are common sources of stress among newly resettled refugees, says Siddiqui.

It can take a long time for refugees to find a job even if they’re fluent in English, as Siddiqui was when she arrived.

“I applied for like three or four jobs at a time,” she recalls. Nothing came through for a while.

“That takes a really big toll on your mental health,” explains Siddiqui. “I was so anxious. I was diagnosed with anxiety, because my mind was running 100 miles per hour just to get a job.”

It also took months for Siddiqui and her husband to find an apartment they could rent because they had no credit history; they lived with relatives while they looked for a place of their own.

All this stress, she says, takes a toll on families.

“I can even tell you from my own experience, that the lack of getting a job, or unemployment, really strains your relationship,” says Siddiqui.

And strained relationships lead to family conflicts. There can sometimes be an elevated risk for violence within the home, says Betancourt, because parents are also struggling with their past traumas.

“We know this from military families, that when parents are exposed to significant violence in other settings, and they come back to rejoin their family environments,” says Betancourt, “we can see elevated problems with emotion regulation and sometimes more harsh disciplinary practices or harsh interactions between parents and children.”

She and her colleagues have also seen this in the refugee communities they have worked in.

Those harsh interactions can hurt a child’s emotional development and increase their risk of mental health problems later on, she says.

But when parents are doing well, they are better able to buffer their kids from the long term impacts of past trauma and stresses.

Help refugee kids by supporting their parents

“We really want to think about addressing those harsh interactions between parents and children and providing parents with the skills to navigate better, to regulate their own emotions, to not take those sort of violent actions towards their children,” says Betancourt.

Siddiqui and her colleagues who work with individual families, teach parents positive parenting skills, as well as ways to better manage their own stress through mindfulness strategies. Practicing gratitude, looking for moments of joy and various breathing techniques are some of the mindfulness tools that parents learn.

The peer educators also help parents navigate the everyday problems of starting afresh in a new and unfamiliar place.

Betancourt and her team found that families who participated reported fewer family arguments and a reduction in symptoms of depression and traumatic stress in their kids.

Khadija Rahmani tells me how Shabana Siddiqui has supported her, for example, when she was feeling disheartened about learning English.  

“She motivated me, saying ‘It’s not hard. At least you are educated and you can read and write, and it will help you to learn English.’”

Siddiqui also helped Khadija find a job at a FedEx packaging facility where other Afghan women work, too. The position did not require knowledge of English..

And the tools of communication and emotional support that Khadija has learned from Siddiqui have helped her support Mujib.

She tries to boost Mujib’s confidence so he feels better about going to school.

“To motivate him, I say ‘No one is better than you. No one is more handsome than you,’ ” Khadija says, smiling. Studies show that this kind of warm, supportive relationship with a parent is protective for kids who have experienced trauma.

Mujib still struggles with homesickness. “The first thing that I miss most is our garden, the rest of my family, my land, my home and my dog,” says Mujib.

And he misses flying kites so much he sometimes cries about it.

But Siddiqui herself has had a huge impact on Mujib, his mother says.

“Shabana sat with him, told him good stories, and talked about safety and security. She said ‘This place is safe and you don’t need to stress.’”

Siddiqui also encouraged him to engage more at school — a big source of anxiety for him.

Mujib says he looks forward to visits from Siddiqui and talks to her a lot about his life.

“We talk about learning English,” says Mujib. “We talk about my school. We talk about everything.”

It’s helping him start to move past the shadow of old traumas and toward building a hopeful future in this country.

And in recent months his attitude toward school has become more positive. “I like learning English, I like playing soccer, I also like the gym,” Mujib says. “I like all sorts of things.”

Photography by Raquel C. Zaldívar. Visuals editing by Ben de la Cruz. Editing by Diane Webber and Marc Silver.
Fauzia Tamanna contributed translations for this story and, along with Rahman Aziz, did voiceovers for the audio version.

About three years ago, Soumya Rangarajan struggled day after day with exhaustion, headaches, and heart palpitations. As a front-line hospital doctor during the COVID-19 pandemic, she first attributed her symptoms to the demands of an unprecedented health care crisis.

But a social media post got Rangarajan thinking about the possibility that she might actually be the victim of something more mundane: an iron deficiency. She requested a blood test from her doctor, and the results determined she had anemia, a condition caused by lower-than-normal levels of iron in the blood.

It was the first step toward relief, recalled Rangarajan, who is a geriatrician at the University of Michigan. Her symptoms, she added, had made it so she “had difficulty getting through a full week at work.”

Although estimates vary, some research suggests that about a third of women of reproductive age in the United States may not get enough iron, which helps support various functions in the body. But despite the high risks, iron deficiency isn’t routinely screened for during annual health examinations.

“Women are only tested if they present to a health care provider and are having symptoms,” said Angela Weyand, a pediatric hematologist at the University of Michigan Medical School.

And while the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does recommend routinely screening pregnant people for anemia — a medical condition that can be caused by iron deficiency and results in the body having too few healthy red blood cells — providers likely miss many patients who are iron deficient but not anemic, Weyand said, since it requires other testing.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which makes recommendations about clinical preventive services, recently reviewed studies on iron deficiency screening and supplementation practices for asymptomatic pregnant people. On Aug. 20, it concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend routine screenings, since the existing data was unclear about whether screening for an iron deficiency absent symptoms made a significant difference.

But many clinicians disagree. And the ambiguous nature of iron deficiency signs — which can include lethargy, irritability, and pale skin — coupled with the lack of specific recommendations for nonpregnant women, means the condition can be easily overlooked, Weyand said. Doctors might simply suggest to tired women that they should get more sleep, for example.

For Margaret Ragni, who recently retired as a hematologist, it was fairly common for female patients to come in with symptoms that pointed to low levels of iron in the body.

“Iron deficiency is associated with a really poor quality of life,” said Ragni, also an emeritus professor of clinical translation research at the University of Pittsburgh. Annual screenings could go a long way toward offering relief: “These poor women really could feel so much better.”

Health effects of low iron and anemia

Iron is a vital component of a protein in red blood cells, hemoglobin, which helps carry oxygen to every part of the body. The mineral is also essential for a number of various other cellular functions, including energy production and maintenance of healthy skin, hair, and nails.

The body can store some iron temporarily in the form of a protein called ferritin, but if the levels dip too low for too long, so does the hemoglobin in red blood cells, resulting in anemia. But even before anemia, low iron levels can cause health problems.

In addition to physical symptoms such as lightheadedness and shortness of breath, women with iron deficiency can struggle with anxiety, depression, and restless leg syndrome, Weyand said. Iron deficiency has also been linked to heart failure, hearing loss, and pica — a craving for substances like ice, dirt, or clay.

“People can have hair loss and nail changes,” she said. “They can have decreased cognitive abilities, which is hard to tease out.”

Many physicians “think of iron deficiency in terms of anemia, but that’s the last manifestation of iron deficiency,” Weyand said. “And we know iron is important for a lot of other things.”

Pregnancy increases need for iron

The need for iron especially increases during pregnancy, when people are even more vulnerable to anemia, said Michael Georgieff, a pediatrics professor and co-director of the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain at the University of Minnesota.

But even when a growing fetus demands more iron intake, women may not always be screened for iron deficiency. Georgieff recalled that three years ago, he accompanied his pregnant daughter to see her obstetrician and was surprised to learn that her blood wouldn’t be tested for iron deficiency. When he asked why, he was told that only people who reported symptoms were screened.

“Pregnancy itself is essentially an iron-deficient state,” he said. “In other words, the iron requirements of the mom go up dramatically during pregnancy. And if you don’t screen and supplement, it’s very hard to keep up with her iron status.”

Moreover, when pregnant women develop anemia, they likely will have difficult pregnancies, Georgieff said. “The consequences are more premature births, more low birth weight babies. And those babies are not loaded with enough iron for their needs once they are out.”

During pregnancy, the fetus depends on the maternal iron it gets through the placenta, a temporary organ that also provides nourishment and oxygen. If mothers-to-be have low iron or anemia, it can affect newborn development. There’s evidence that if a woman is iron deficient when she conceives, or during the first trimester, it may pose a higher risk for the baby’s brain development.

Anemia during pregnancy has long been associated with greater risks of delivering premature babies and possible health conditions for mothers, including preeclampsia.

But research suggests that even though the condition can have an impact, it is still unclear whether iron therapy can adequately reduce risks. And while many experts agree on the need to treat iron-deficiency anemia, there is no consensus for treatment of iron depletion not associated with anemia.

Ragni said she made it a point to screen patients for depleted iron to catch it before anemia develops. But, she said, recommendations from institutions such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force could prompt more U.S. providers to screen.

“For women of reproductive age, whether they’re pregnant or not, it’s really critical to test,” Ragni said. “There should be a standard test for these women.”

Debate over measuring iron deficiency

A major reason for iron deficiency among nonpregnant women is menstrual bleeding, which is why they’re at comparatively higher risk to men. “Women who have excess blood loss are really at an even higher risk,” said Ragni.

The World Health Organization has estimated that, worldwide, about 30% of women between 15 and 49 years old were anemic in 2019, with iron deficiency estimated to be responsible for about half of cases.

And some research suggests that vulnerability to iron deficiency can start at a young age. A 2023 study that Weyand co-authored found that the overall prevalence of iron deficiency among women and girls aged 12 to 22 was more than 38%; the prevalence of anemia was about 6%. But that rate changes depending on how iron deficiency is defined.

To determine someone’s iron count, labs look at the concentration of ferritin — the protein that stores iron — in their blood. A common threshold established by the World Health Organization says that anything under 15 micrograms of ferritin per liter of blood is iron deficient. When Weyand’s team used that threshold, they found that 17% of participants were iron deficient. But when they upped the threshold cutoff to 50 micrograms per liter, the number of iron-deficient participants climbed to nearly 78%.

Weyand and other researchers say the results reflect a need for a higher threshold for women of 50 micrograms per liter for ferritin, since some studies suggest that such a cutoff is often consistent with iron deficiency. But there’s a lack of consensus about which cutoff is most accurate to indicate iron deficiency; other research, for example, suggests 30 micrograms per liter is an effective cutoff to use.

Still, researchers like Weyand call for raising the thresholds to avoid false negative results that would keep people with iron deficiency from being diagnosed and treated. This would, she said “capture patients who otherwise have been ignored and dismissed or told their symptoms were due to some other issue.”

Treating low iron

Weyand became an advocate for people who struggle with iron deficiency after seeing many patients with heavy menstrual bleeding and iron depletion. Most had never been screened or received treatment.

While iron deficiency in nonpregnant women is primarily associated with menstruation, other risk factors include diets that don’t have enough iron, as well as gut disorders, like celiac disease, that cause poor iron absorption. There’s also evidence that women in low-income communities are at higher risk of iron deficiency because of a lack of access to health care and iron-rich foods like meat, dark leafy vegetables, salmon, and tofu.

Iron deficiency is an easily treatable condition with iron supplements, Weyand said, but “it’s difficult to treat if you don’t know it’s there.”

After her anemia diagnosis, Rangarajan said she started taking iron tablets daily, but cut back to three times a week for a few months. She found it hard to cope with the side effects, which included stomach cramps, nausea, and constipation.

Rangarajan, 39, eventually urged her primary care physician to switch her treatment to intravenous iron supplements. After waiting for several months for approval from her medical insurance, Rangarajan got her first infusions in March. The effect took hold within a week.

“The headaches were gone; I didn’t notice any palpitations anymore; my energy levels were up,” she said. “So I definitely noticed a significant difference.”

In fact, it was one of Weyand’s social media posts that prompted Rangarajan to get tested for iron deficiency. Weyand often advocates on her online platforms for attention to iron deficiency in people and hears from many working women about how diagnosis and treatment of iron deficiency had finally ended “horrible” symptoms that sometimes lasted for decades. “We are vastly undertreating iron deficiency currently,” she said.

After menopause, when women stop bleeding, they need much less iron. Requirements for the nutrient drop from a daily average iron intake of about 18 mg to around 8 mg.

“What’s hard is that the vast majority of these women aren’t diagnosed while they are menstruating, and so, going into menopause they probably are low,” Weyand said. “And depending on how low they are, it would dictate how long it would take them to replenish once they stop bleeding.”

Iron deficiency is rare in men — estimated to affect about 2% of U.S. men — but when it develops, similarly to menopausal women, it can signal an underlying condition such as an ulcer or cancer. As Weyand put it: “It’s more of a red flag in terms of figuring out why they’re iron deficient.”

A call for more screening and research

Iron deficiency is a significant health problem not just in the U.S., but worldwide. The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, which promotes women’s health globally, issued recommendations in 2023 to regularly screen all menstruating women and girls for iron deficiency — ideally, throughout their life.

Weyand said she hopes the recommendations and more research into the health benefits of iron deficiency screening will help increase awareness among U.S. health providers of the need to screen for iron deficiency. “We screen for lots of things that are less common than this,” she said.

Meanwhile, the findings that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force didn’t sit well with Georgieff, whose research at the University of Minnesota focuses on the effect of iron on fetal brain development. Health care providers are not generally screening for iron, he said, and the task force’s decision does nothing to promote change.

While the task force acknowledged that pregnant people are at high risk of developing iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia, it concluded that there’s a lack of evidence on the effectiveness of screening pregnant people who show no signs or symptoms.

The latest task force review included 17 studies on the impact of routine iron supplementation on pregnant people. They found that compared with placebo, prenatal iron supplementation resulted in no significant differences in maternal quality of life or conditions such as gestational diabetes, cesarean deliveries, or maternal hemorrhage.

None of the studies examined the benefits or harms of screening for iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia during pregnancy. The volunteer panel issued an I statement, which stands for “Insufficient Evidence to Make a Recommendation,” and is given when the evidence is either not available, or when it is poor or conflicting.

In 2015, the group also reached a similar conclusion after assessing existing evidence at that time regarding iron deficiency anemia in pregnant people.

More research is needed to effectively assess the potential health impact of iron screening and supplementation for asymptomatic pregnant people, said Esa Davis, a task force member and associate vice president for community health at the University of Maryland.

“We need studies that are done to show us the benefit or the harm of screening for both iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia,” she said, “and studies that show us the benefits and the harm of supplementing in this group as well.”

Weyand said she hopes ongoing research on iron deficiency in women will boost the chances that the task force and other groups will take up the issue of regular screening again — both for pregnant and non-pregnant people. “Hopefully, it will lead to meaningful change,” she said.

Having felt the debilitating effects of iron deficiency and anemia, Rangarajan said she knows firsthand how crucial screening can be for diagnosis and effective treatment.

“I feel like my energy is so much better. I feel like my performance at work has improved tremendously with IV iron because I don’t feel so fatigued even at a very busy stretch,” she said. “I feel like I have this strength that I had when I was in my 20s.”

This article was originally published on Undark. Find the original article here.

Lourdes Medrano is a journalist based in Southern Arizona and a senior contributor at Undark. Her reporting often focuses on matters relevant to both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, including environmental issues.

現在，兩位數學家證明霍金和他的同事錯了。麻省理工學院的 Christoph Kehle 以及史丹佛大學和加州大學柏克萊分校的 Ryan Unger 最近發表的兩篇論文中包含的這項新工作表明，我們已知的物理定律中沒有任何東西可以阻止形成極值黑洞。

普林斯頓大學數學家（也是凱勒和昂格爾的博士生導師）米哈里斯·達弗莫斯 (Mihalis Dafermos) 表示，他們的數學證明「漂亮、技術創新、物理上令人驚訝」。他補充說，這暗示著一個潛在的更豐富、更多樣化的宇宙，其中「天文物理學上可能存在極端黑洞」。

但這並不意味著他們是。卡納說：“僅僅因為存在具有良好特性的數學解決方案，並不一定意味著大自然會利用它。” 「但如果我們以某種方式找到一個，那真的會 [make] 我們會思考我們所缺少的東西。他指出，這樣的發現有可能引發「一些相當激進的問題」。

不可能法則

在凱勒和昂格爾證明之前，有充分的理由相信極值黑洞不可能存在。

1973 年，巴丁、卡特和霍金提出了四項關於黑洞行為的定律。它們類似於歷史悠久的熱力學四定律——一組神聖的原理，例如，宇宙隨著時間的推移變得更加無序，並且能量不能被創造或破壞。

在他們的論文中，物理學家證明了黑洞熱力學的前三個定律：第零定律、第一定律和第二定律。透過擴展，他們假設第三定律（就像它的標準熱力學對應物一樣）也是正確的，儘管他們還無法證明這一點。

該定律規定，黑洞的表面引力不能在有限的時間內降至零，換句話說，沒有辦法創造出極值黑洞。為了支持他們的主張，三人認為，任何允許黑洞的電荷或自旋達到極值極限的過程也可能導致其事件視界完全消失。人們普遍認為，沒有事件視界（稱為裸奇點）的黑洞不可能存在。此外，由於已知黑洞的溫度與其表面重力成正比，因此沒有表面重力的黑洞也沒有溫度。這樣的黑洞不會發射熱輻射——霍金後來提出黑洞必須這麼做。

1986 年，一位名叫維爾納·伊斯雷爾 (Werner Israel) 的物理學家發表了第三定律的證明，似乎解決了這個問題。假設你想用普通黑洞創造一個極值黑洞。您可以嘗試透過使其旋轉得更快或添加更多帶電粒子來做到這一點。以色列的證明似乎表明，這樣做無法迫使黑洞的表面重力在有限的時間內降至零。

正如凱勒和昂格爾最終發現的那樣，以色列的論點掩蓋了一個缺陷。

第三定律之死

凱勒和昂格爾並沒有打算尋找極值黑洞。他們完全是偶然偶然發現的。

他們正在研究帶電黑洞的形成。 「我們意識到我們可以做到」——製造一個黑洞——「對於所有荷質比，」凱勒說。其中包括電荷盡可能高的情況，這是極端黑洞的標誌。

達弗莫斯意識到，他以前的學生發現了巴丁、卡特和霍金第三定律的反例：他們證明了他們確實可以在有限的時間內將一個典型的黑洞變成一個極端黑洞。

凱勒和昂格爾從一個不旋轉且不帶電荷的黑洞開始，模擬瞭如果將其放置在稱為標量場的簡化環境中可能發生的情況，該環境假設均勻帶電粒子的背景。然後，他們用場脈衝衝擊黑洞，並為其添加電荷。

Climate change is affecting our food, and our food is affecting the climate. NPR is dedicating a week to stories and conversations about the search for solutions.

In 2006, when Malcolm Regisford was 10 years old, a Burger King commercial began playing on TVs across the country.

In it, a man in a restaurant looks at a small vegetarian dish, turns to face the camera, and bursts into song: “I am man, hear me roar!” The man flees the restaurant, denounces quiches and tofu — “chick food,” he sings — and quickly joins a throng of other singing men. They march through the streets with signs reading “I am man” and hamburgers held high. “The Texas double Whopper. Eat like a man, man,” a voice says.

Regisford saw this commercial often in between his cartoons. “Beef is marketed to men — steaks and hefty burgers — like, ‘that’s what a man’s supposed to eat,’” he says. Regisford continued to hear these messages when he became a Division 1 basketball player in college. “It’s thought that animal products yield a certain sense of strength,” he says. “Some form of masculinity.”

Men and boys see messages all the time that say eating beef is a thing men do, and statistics bear this out, says Diego Rose, nutrition program director at Tulane University. “Whenever we’ve looked at the question of gender, we’ve seen that,” Rose says. “Men eat greater amounts of beef than women.”

Now Rose and other researchers think this fact — that men eat more beef — could be important to a key climate solution puzzle.

Beef has a bigger overall planet-heating impact than any other food, scientists say. Demand for beef drives deforestation in places like the Amazon rainforest. Cattle release powerful greenhouse gas emissions that heat the planet. “If you want to reduce emissions, it’s all about the beef,” says Tim Searchinger, senior research scholar at Princeton University and technical director of the agriculture and forestry program at the World Resources Institute.

Getting people to eat less beef could quickly make a large dent in climate pollution. Rose’s research finds that subbing poultry for beef in a meal can cut a person’s daily dietary carbon footprint by about half. Food and climate researchers have long grappled with how to get people to shift diets toward less beef. And now they are thinking about the problem through the lens of gender. But there are challenges to shifting diets toward less beef, from misinformation about soy and protein, to powerful societal pressures and messaging for men to eat beef.

“Messaging to men about beef absolutely matters,” says Jan Dutkiewicz, professor of political science at the Pratt Institute. “If there’s a large portion of men out there who are being programmed to not just eat more meat, but to be completely resistant to any messages about meat reduction,” he says, “that’s a real problem.”

The idea that men should eat beef has a long history

When Regisford was playing Division 1 basketball at Colgate University, he injured his ankle. During his recovery, inspired by a family friend and mentor, he decided to cut meat from his diet for his health. Some men reduce meat consumption for health, climate or concerns for animal welfare, Rose says.

Regisford’s basketball teammates and coaching staff were skeptical. “I changed my diet halfway through my senior season, when I need to be at peak performance and in the best shape,” Regisford says.

His teammates asked him: Could he still get enough protein without meat? Could he still maintain his strength and athleticism?

The idea that men need meat for strength has a long history, says Joshua Specht, history professor at the University of Notre Dame. It’s rooted in beliefs about ancient human ancestors, he says: “Men being associated with actually doing the hunting, that connects us to our meat and meat consumption in a kind of primal way.”

While eating red meat is seen as primordial, modern Americans eat significantly more beef than ever before. The growth of railroads and refrigeration after the Civil War meant it was only in the late 1800s and early 1900s that beef went from a “special occasion food” to an “all the time food” for everyday consumers, Specht says.

The United States is a leading consumer of beef with only Argentina and Zimbabwe consuming more per capita. That’s according to 2022 data, the latest available, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Americans account for about 83 pounds of beef per year, per person. And while that number is lower than in recent decades, it’s still four times more beef than the global average.

Not all Americans eat beef equally, data shows. Last year, Rose and his colleagues published a study looking at U.S. government data of the diets of more than 10,000 Americans. They found that on a given day, 12% of Americans account for half of all beef consumption. That 12% was disproportionately men.

The beef and dairy industries have lots of impacts, including on animal welfare, worker safety, water consumption and pollution.

A spokesperson for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, an industry lobby group, wrote in an email that they “will continue to share research and data around the benefits of beef in general, as research continues to show the important role high-quality protein, like beef, plays in a balanced diet.”

“As we work together to build a healthier, more sustainable food supply … our focus should be on changes that are science-based, practical and highly impactful,” the spokesperson wrote.

Because of climate pollution from cattle, eating lots of beef has a notable impact on a person’s planet-heating emissions, says Amelia Willits-Smith, a food and sustainability researcher who worked with Rose on food and climate studies. She notes that while some American women also eat high amounts of beef, her research with Rose found that demographically, the No. 1 predictor of high-emission diets is “being male” and “there’s nothing that comes close.”

That’s why when encouraging more climate-friendly diets, paying attention to men makes sense, says Anna Grummon, assistant professor at the School of Medicine at Stanford University. “Because men eat more beef,” Grummon says, “it means you’re going to, as a society, get more bang for your buck from the men changing their behavior.”

But there are challenges for shifting diets toward less beef, from misinformation about soy and protein, to social stigmas connecting beef-eating with manliness. “Many men do reduce their meat consumption or are willing to,” says Joel Ginn, food and psychology researcher at Boston College, “but there are hurdles that they’ve had to overcome.”

The rise of the “meatfluencer”

For as long as Americans have been eating mass-produced beef, the industry has been using ideas of masculinity to sell it to men. In the mid- to late-1800s, canned beef companies sold it with images of soldiers, miners and cowboys — long a symbol of American men’s ties to beef. “They would depict visions of men who were out there in the world,” Specht says, “making their own destiny.”

Today, new generations of men learn about beef through the rise of “meatfluencers.” These online personalities and celebrities often push the idea that men should eat lots of red meat — sometimes mostly red meat — to live up to their potential. Some of them also sell meat and beef products, including supplements made from beef.

Some meatfluencers promote something called the carnivore diet. That typically involves eating mostly red meat, poultry, pork, seafood, dairy and eggs. The so-called lion diet involves eating mostly beef, lamb, deer, and other red meats.

Joe Rogan, a podcaster with 14.5 million followers and an audience that’s 81% male, said on his show last year that he has followed a carnivore diet. “The best I ever felt, like literally the best I ever felt all throughout the day was on the carnivore diet,” Rogan said on his podcast.

Some meat promoters make health claims about beef and red meat. “It’s difficult to heal and repair your body without animal protein, especially red meat,” says Eric Berg, a chiropractor, who notes on his website that he is not a medical doctor and is not providing medical diagnosis or treatment.

Berg has more than 12 million subscribers on YouTube.

Frank Hu, chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says there’s little evidence for that claim. Berg did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.

Though many meatfluencers promote supposed health benefits of red meat-heavy diets, diets high in red meat consumption and low in whole grains and vegetables are associated with increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, Hu says.

When promoting meat, some meatfluencers have spread false and misleading ideas about eating plants, particularly soy, including the idea that soy can feminize men. Rogan described this view on his podcast, saying: “Soy is one of the rare foods that’s actually attached to being a bitch.”

Hu says in general: “There is a tremendous amount of misinformation about soy.”

Soy — as well as some other plants, seeds and fruits — contains an estrogen-like substance called phytoestrogen. All people — including men — make varying levels of estrogen. But, Hu says, “the effects of phytoestrogen are much, much weaker than the estrogen hormone in human bodies.”

In part because of misinformation, some men are leery of consuming soy, Ginn says. “Soy boy” has become a popular slur online to denote weak men.

Media and meatfluencers are “reinforcing a message,” says Emily Contois, a professor of media studies at the University of Tulsa. “There’s a doubling down that men need meat.”

This cultural messaging can pose a problem for climate policy, she says, making it harder to make suggestions to reduce beef consumption. As for Regisford, he now sees some of this resistance from men toward changing their diets firsthand.

Regisford has now become a plant-based chef with a large social media following. Plant-based often refers to people who primarily don’t eat meat or dairy. Regisford now has about 390,000 followers on Instagram and a plant-based cookbook. According to his Instagram analytics, his audience is 80% women.

While Regisford knows many men who are receptive to reducing their meat consumption, including his father and brothers, he says he also encounters men who are “closed minded” about it. These men often bring up false ideas about soy or the notion that a person can’t feel full without meat in a meal. But Regisford says the greatest misinformation he encounters centers on one thing: “No. 1 thing,” he says, “the protein thing.”

Is protein from meat better for you?

When Jalen Hood-Schifino, point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers, cut back on meat in high school, he had many motivations, including his health, ethics and animal welfare. “I don’t think we should be killing animals and eating it,” Hood-Schifino says.

But when Hood-Schifino told male friends about his new diet, he started getting lots of questions about his protein levels. “Growing up, they always tell you, ‘You’re supposed to eat meat. It’s how you get protein,’” Hood-Schifino says. “Protein, protein, protein. Which I feel like is a big misconception.”

Animal and plant sources often have variations in the relative amounts of the different building blocks of protein, says Dariush Mozaffarian, professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. But he says the human body can get adequate protein from plants or animals, and plant and meat proteins work fairly similarly for building muscle.

“It is a common myth that you don’t get enough protein without eating meat,” Hu says. “Many plant-based foods are rich in protein and they can be combined to meet your nutrition needs — even for athletes who typically need to eat more protein and also for elderly who may want to have relatively high protein intake to maintain muscle mass.”

NBA player Hood-Schifino says he gets protein mostly from different types of beans and high protein vegetables, like spinach. Vegan bodybuilders highlight their protein-rich diets full of nuts, seeds, tofu and tempeh.

Hu notes that for some people, including those with heavy menstrual periods, eating little or no meat may mean they need to take iron supplements. Others who are reducing meat, particularly older people, may want to talk to their doctor about taking a vitamin B12 supplement. For most people, though, a healthy and balanced plant-based diet can provide enough iron, nutrients and protein for dietary needs, Hu says.

While plant protein sources are numerous — and, like beans, often inexpensive — the idea that a meal should have meat is widespread in the United States. In 2020, a nationally representative survey found 81% of Americans prefer a meal with animal products such as beef, chicken, fish or dairy.

For Impossible Foods, a plant-based food company, part of broadening its consumer base involves more marketing that meat isn’t the only way to get protein. “It’s our job to set the record straight,” says Peter McGuinness, chief executive of Impossible Foods. “Soy is an awesome protein source.”

But there are bigger messaging problems, he says, and it’s why the company has launched a rebrand.

Changing the messaging to inclusion

Earlier this year, Impossible Foods debuted a new commercial. Like the Burger King “I am Man” commercial that Regisford saw as a kid, the ad starts with a man looking straight at the camera.

He’s tall and muscular, with broad shoulders. “Like a dad from a 1970s barbecue,” says Gabriel Rosenberg, professor of gender studies at Duke University. “He’s got this great mustache.”

“Listen up, America,” the man in the ad says. “Meat has problems. And it’s gonna take us — meat-eaters — to solve them.”

The man slaps away a beef burger, swipes away meatballs, and hands out plant-based meat alternatives. He gets on a motorcycle, puts on a helmet, vrooms the engine, and bursts through a wall, driving off into the horizon.

“He’s this older figure of masculinity. He’s teaching you how to be a man. And then he’s explosively virile,” Rosenberg says. “It’s basically saying: ‘Men, you have permission to eat our product and still be manly.’”

When McGuinness joined the company as its chief executive a few years ago, he found the customers “skew slightly female.” He wants it to be more “inclusive,” which fundamentally means trying to attract more meat-eaters to the brand, he says, as opposed to just vegans and vegetarians.

McGuinness says there’s a reason the new ad didn’t mention climate change or animal rights. “You don’t lead with that. You don’t hide it, but that’s not your lead marketing horse,” he says.

Reducing beef consumption has become a “culture war” issue. This summer, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has falsely claimed that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wants to “outlaw red meat.” In a 2019 CNN town hall, Harris says that while she loves “cheeseburgers from time to time,” she wants the government to educate people on environmental impacts and encourage moderation.

McGuinness says the company is trying to stay nonpolitical. The company recently changed the color of its food packaging from green, often associated with environmentalists, to bright red. “All those meat cues,” McGuinness says. “We don’t want anything partisan, political, weird.”

McGuinness says he wants meat-eaters to feel like they can eat as much as they want — make it plant-based meat. “We want to solve the meat problem with more meat,” he says.

McGuinness says Impossible burgers were designed to look and taste like beef burgers to ease the transition for meat-eaters. “I had a long week and I’m trying to have a burger and a beer on a Friday night. Now you’re asking me to have a different burger and I don’t want to compromise my food,” he says. “You know, don’t mess with my effing burger.”

Frequent consumption of highly processed plant-based meats, if not part of a balanced diet, can also be unhealthy, says Becky Ramsing, senior program officer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

And the ad isn’t challenging conventional ideas of gender, Rosenberg says: “We’re going to eat like men. We’re going to stuff ourselves.”

Still, given beef’s impacts on climate pollution, media and psychology researchers tell NPR that ads like these matter, because they can help broaden social acceptance for plant-based foods.

Changing social norms, including through NBA players

When Regisford was growing up and starting to play basketball, he didn’t know of any NBA players who were vegan or vegetarian.

Now Hood-Schifino, 21, can list several fellow NBA players who are vegan or plant-based. That includes his Lakers teammate, forward Jarred Vanderbilt. And his mentor, NBA star point guard currently on the San Antonio Spurs, Chris Paul.

Paul, nicknamed “The Point God,” has been plant-based since 2019. His basketball camp in North Carolina provided vegan options for young players, including Hood-Schifino, who attended his camp as a teenager.

“He would have two sides: He would have regular food, then he would have his vegan chef cook the vegan meal,” Hood-Schifino says. “During that time in high school, I was still obviously kind of dibbling-dabbling, but I would always go to the vegan side to try that food.”

While Hood-Schifino’s shift away from eating animals was largely self-directed, he also credits Paul, who joined the NBA in 2005. “I would ask him questions about the vegan diet and he would always talk about how that helped his longevity in the NBA and how much energized he feels,” Hood-Schifino says. “It’s definitely dope to see that.”

For some men wanting to reduce meat intake, social pressures can be an obstacle. Seeing someone in your close personal circle, or celebrities like athletes, make a behavior change can be an important piece of the puzzle, says Daniel Rosenfeld, psychology and food researcher at UCLA. “The way to get some people to eat less meat is to get other people to eat less meat,” he says.

Rosenfeld says when he became a vegan in college, he got teased. “I had some male friends of mine make jokes about being vegan as a guy, that this was presumably a negative thing,” he says. “‘You’re not gonna get any muscle, you’re gonna become small and weak.’”

Hood-Schifino says when he became plant-based, he didn’t hear comments about weakness: “I never really heard ‘weak’ because, in a humble way, but if you ask anyone that I’m playing against, a lot of people are going to say when it comes to the basketball court, I’m one of the strongest players that you’re going to come across.”

Hood-Schifino says he hopes to be a role model to other young men someday, “to see that you can live a really good plant-based life, a healthy life, and feel the best.”

Lessons for “plant-based skeptics”

On a recent afternoon in Canoga Park, Calif., Regisford takes a pan, sizzling with oil, and adds soft, white lion’s mane mushrooms. He adds some salt and pepper, and then rosemary and vegan butter.

In his cookbook, he calls this his vegan “steak.” Regisford says for “plant-based skeptics,” it helps that the brown charred mushrooms look like beef. “We eat with our eyes first, so if we can get that look nailed down, then it helps everybody around,” he says.

Regisford says he understands that connections to foods like beef are deep and emotional, and that it can be hard to let go. When he became a plant-based chef, he made sure to capture flavors from the Southern U.S. and Trinidad and Tobago, where his parents are from. His lasagna recipe doesn’t have beef or cheese from cows, but it does have plantain.

Changing consumer messaging around plant-based foods is important, as is reducing social stigmas, but food researchers say it also comes down to accessibility, and making sure that these food options are affordable, easy to make and delicious.

Regisford says when he talks to his male social media followers about plant-based cooking and reducing meats like beef, he encourages them to let go of preconceived notions about what that means for their identity.

“All this other stuff that you think is attached to eating a certain way,” he tells them, “it’s not as important as you may think.”

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