Richard Gunderman, Indiana University

With over 40 armed conflicts now taking place around the world, the costs of warfare are immense and continue to mount with each passing day.

Russia’s war on Ukraine is estimated to have resulted in more than 600,000 Russian casualties, with estimates of total dead and injured on both sides as high as 1 million. The war between Israel and Hamas has resulted in about 140,000 Palestinian and 10,000 Israeli casualties, and there have been at least 50,000 casualties in the ongoing Sudanese Civil War. Closer to home, the newly married son of a colleague of mine suffered grievous injuries and lost all four limbs in an explosion while serving in the Middle East.

The loss of life and limb, violations of human rights, destruction of personal property and damage to infrastructure such as power stations, hospitals and roads render such costs essentially incalculable, at least in monetary terms.

Yet war also opens up opportunities to care for the injured, displaced and forgotten. As someone who studies and writes about the intersection of medicine and the humanities, I often find myself returning to the American poet Walt Whitman.

To appreciate the act of offering support and comfort for the victims of war, there are few better sources of inspiration than Whitman, who spent more than three years volunteering his time and energies during the U.S. Civil War.

Compelled to help

Walt Whitman is considered one of the greatest poets in American history. Born the second of nine children in straitened circumstances in New York in 1819, he left school at age 11 to help support his family, working in a variety of jobs, including typesetting, teaching and newspaper publishing.

In 1855, he self-published his greatest work of poetry, “Leaves of Grass,” written in free verse and opening with the poem later known as “Song of Myself.” The work’s fans included Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote to Whitman, in a letter praising the poet, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.”

Yet fame and fortune were slow to wend their way to Whitman, and he continued to work in the newspaper trade. With the onset of the Civil War, Whitman’s brother enlisted, and when Whitman saw his brother named among wounded soldiers, he traveled to Virginia to find him.

He eventually discovered that his brother had suffered only a minor wound. Yet during the search, Whitman encountered scores of wounded soldiers and piles of amputated limbs, which moved him to help in some way.

He secured a job in Washington, D.C., as an army paymaster’s clerk and began volunteering in the city’s military hospitals, making, by his estimate, over 600 visits, sometimes overnight, to as many as 100,000 soldiers.

Dispenser of treats, transcriber of letters

Why would perhaps America’s greatest poet voluntarily devote the better part of over three years of his life to visiting places replete with mutilation, agony and sorrow?

Lacking formal training in medicine or nursing, Whitman nonetheless felt that he had something important to offer.

“I found it was in the simple matter of personal presence, and emanating ordinary cheer and magnetism, that I succeeded and helped more than by medical nursing, or delicacies, or gifts of money, or anything else,” he wrote in “Memoranda During the War.”

Whitman managed to bring more tangible gifts as well: “Blackberries, peaches, lemons and sugar, wines, all kinds of preserves, pickles, brandy, milk, shirts and all articles of underclothing, tobacco, tea, and handkerchiefs.”

He procured these items using his own meager funds and by soliciting donations, providing others their own opportunities to give.

Consider a specific case, that of a young soldier from Massachusetts suffering from respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments.

Of him, Whitman wrote, “His heart was broken. He felt the struggle to keep up any longer to be useless. God, the world, humanity, all had abandoned him. It would feel so good to shut his eyes forever on the cruel things around him and toward him.”

Yet Whitman took his place beside him, gave him some money so that he could buy milk, and wrote a letter for him to his sister. “Trifling as it was, he was overcome and began to cry. He has told me since that this little visit, at that hour, just saved him – a day more, and it would have been perhaps too late.”

Along with all the other gifts in his haversack, Whitman “always gave paper, envelopes, and stamps” so soldiers could write to loved ones back home. Many times, he wrote their letters himself, in his own hand, often signing below their name, “Written by Walt Whitman, a friend.”

Of the letters, he noted:

“Many sick and wounded soldiers have not written home to parents, brothers, sisters, and even wives, for one reason or another, for a long time. Some are poor writers, some cannot get paper and envelopes; many have an aversion to writing because they dread to worry the folks at home – the facts about them are so sad to tell. I always encourage the men to write, and promptly write for them.”

It is remarkable to think of one of the greatest artists of the English language sitting by the bedside of so many sick and wounded soldiers, helping them compose letters to family and friends far away, sometimes simply transcribing what they said, and other times capturing what they wanted to say or what needed to be said.

He was tending not only to the soldiers before him, but also to loved ones sick with worry, hundreds of miles away.

Becoming conduits of compassion

Whitman’s dedicated service offers deep and enduring lessons for people around the world today.

For one thing, the toll of war cannot simply be counted up in numbers of lives lost or billions of dollars of damage incurred.

Behind every number is a human story. Every wounded or dead soldier is someone’s son or daughter, sister or brother, husband or wife, or mother or father. Every civilian casualty is someone’s friend, neighbor and fellow citizen.

Whitman didn’t use his poetic powers just to help share the stories of wounded soldiers with their loved ones back home. He also mined his experiences by their bedside to compose literary masterpieces such as “The Wound-Dresser” and “Come Up from the Fields Father.”

As violence permeates the globe, it’s easy to look away, or become numb to headlines and images of death and despair. But confronting this suffering head on – through an act as simple as extending a hand, a voice or an ear – is an act of courage in and of itself.

True, it may not stop or win a war. Yet this sort of attention is a form of generosity and a conduit to healing – a way, as Whitman put it in a letter to his brother, “to have our feelings so thoroughly and permanently absorbed, to the very roots, by these huge swarms of dear, wounded, sick, and dying boys.”

Richard Gunderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Zachary Gillen, Mississippi State University

“Aren’t they a little young for that?”

This is a question I used to hear regularly from parents when I’d recommend strength training for the kids I worked with, whose ages ranged from 6 to 18 years old, in youth sports. During my four years as a strength and conditioning coach, I often received questions from parents about the pros and cons of strength training – that is, training that involves weight-bearing exercises – for children.

Some of the most common questions: Is strength training safe for children and adolescents? At what age is it appropriate for them to begin strength training? What are the benefits of strength training for this age group? Is strength training beneficial even for kids who are not involved in organized sports?

Simply put, it is safe and appropriate for kids of all ages to perform strength training.

I am an exercise physiologist, certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified performance and sport scientist. My research focuses on how muscle develops from childhood to adolescence, with the goal of understanding how young people can get the most benefit out of exercise training programs, particularly strength training programs.

My experience and research has shown that strength training can help to improve sports performance for youth, and that there are significant health benefits for youth participating in strength training beyond sports performance.

Safety first

The question I receive most often, for good reason, is whether strength training is safe for youth. In a study examining injury rates in numerous sports, researchers found that, when done correctly, strength training had a lower risk of injury than nearly all other sports. This is not only true for adults but also for children.

That being said, it is important to consider a young person’s emotional maturity before handing them a dumbbell. During my career, I have designed and implemented strength training programs for kids of all ages, even as young as 6 years old. But not every child in that age range is ready for strength training. For their own safety, participants need to be emotionally mature enough to listen to and follow instructions so that they don’t hurt themselves. For some kids, that’s as early as age 6, while others may not be ready until they are a few years older.

Because correct technique is key to doing these exercises safely, it is important that strength training programs for children be designed and implemented under the guidance of a qualified trainer or coach. This means someone with valid credentials and who has received higher education in exercise science.

It’s also important to seek out professionals who use scientific evidence to back up their training programs and philosophies.

The benefits of strength training

Research has shown that stronger muscles in kids reduce the likelihood of injuries during various types of activities.

One study we conducted found that lower muscle strength and size could lead to lower performance during different activities kids typically engage in, such as running and jumping. Not only this, but kids with lower strength tend to have worse neuromuscular efficiency, which means that they are not as proficient at activating their muscles. This translates to using more energy and feeling more worn out when they’re physically active.

While it’s easy to see how strength training is important for youth who play sports, there are also incredible health benefits for kids who may not be into organized sports. Studies have shown the positive effect that strength training can have on healthy bone development in kids, leading to a lower likelihood of fractures. Research has also shown that strength training in kids can have a positive influence on psychological well-being and academic performance.

Strength training can also affect overall health and well-being as it relates to childhood obesity.

Obesity rates in children and adolescents have been rising for decades. Previous research has suggested that youth who are categorized as obese tend to have lower muscle strength than those considered normal weight. Not only this, but other research has found that youth who are obese may have a greater likelihood of sarcopenic obesity, defined as obesity with low muscle mass and function, which can have significant, negative health ramifications.

Resistance training interventions in youth with obesity have shown to have positive impacts on metabolic health, body composition, psychological health and overall quality of life.

Creating an age-appropriate program

An effective strength training program starts with setting age-appropriate expectations.

Children and adolescents are not miniature adults, and not all young people will adapt to a strength training program the same way. For instance, research shows that during puberty, there are unique differences in how muscle develops in boys versus girls.

Specifically, girls may have more neuroplasticity, which is defined as the brain’s ability to recognize new movements and patterns. This means that they may adapt to more complex movements faster than boys, while boys will see more significant changes when their muscle mass starts increasing with puberty. This doesn’t necessarily mean that girls and boys need vastly different strength training programs. It simply means not all kids will have the same rate of progression for certain exercises.

Taking that into consideration, an age-appropriate program should focus on technique over results. How much weight a child can lift is far less important than teaching them good movement patterns. For example, if a child is having difficulty performing normal pushups, a qualified professional could modify the exercise so they start with wall pushups or incline pushups. This will help that child build good movement patterns and be better for their strength in the long run.

Building off this focus on technique, a good strength training program for youth should progress from simple movements to more complex movements and lighter weights to heavier weights, taking into consideration that not all youth will adapt at the same rate.

Focusing on the long term

Obviously, most kids won’t grow up to be professional athletes, but every child can develop athleticism. A good strength training program for kids will set them on a trajectory to a healthy lifestyle from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.

Research shows that beginning exercise in childhood tends to lead to continued exercise habits in adulthood. For this reason, the National Strength and Conditioning Association, a leading organization in the field of strength and conditioning and exercise science, has encouraged a focus on improving training habits in childhood that can then be maintained into adulthood for overall better health and well-being.

Starting young with an age-appropriate strength training program can help kids develop good movement patterns and incorporate exercise into their routine, which can have lasting benefits for their health into adulthood.

Zachary Gillen, Assistant Professor of Exercise Physiology, Mississippi State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nir Eisikovits, UMass Boston

Anyone following the rhetoric around artificial intelligence in recent years has heard one version or another of the claim that AI is inevitable. Common themes are that AI is already here, it is indispensable, and people who are bearish on it harm themselves.

In the business world, AI advocates tell companies and workers that they will fall behind if they fail to integrate generative AI into their operations. In the sciences, AI advocates promise that AI will aid in curing hitherto intractable diseases.

In higher education, AI promoters admonish teachers that students must learn how to use AI or risk becoming uncompetitive when the time comes to find a job.

And, in national security, AI’s champions say that either the nation invests heavily in AI weaponry, or it will be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Chinese and the Russians, who are already doing so.

The argument across these different domains is essentially the same: The time for AI skepticism has come and gone. The technology will shape the future, whether you like it or not. You have the choice to learn how to use it or be left out of that future. Anyone trying to stand in the technology’s way is as hopeless as the manual weavers who resisted the mechanical looms in the early 19th century.

In the past few years, my colleagues and I at UMass Boston’s Applied Ethics Center have been studying the ethical questions raised by the widespread adoption of AI, and I believe the inevitability argument is misleading.

History and hindsight

In fact, this claim is the most recent version of a deterministic view of technological development. It’s the belief that innovations are unstoppable once people start working on them. In other words, some genies don’t go back in their bottles. The best you can do is harness them to your good purposes.

This deterministic approach to tech has a long history. It’s been applied to the influence of the printing press, as well as to the rise of automobiles and the infrastructure they require, among other developments.

But I believe that when it comes to AI, the technological determinism argument is both exaggerated and oversimplified.

AI in the field(s)

Consider the contention that businesses can’t afford to stay out of the AI game. In fact, the case has yet to be made that AI is delivering significant productivity gains to the firms that use it. A report in The Economist in July 2024 suggests that so far, the technology has had almost no economic impact.

AI’s role in higher education is also still very much an open question. Though universities have, in the past two years, invested heavily in AI-related initiatives, evidence suggests they may have jumped the gun.

The technology can serve as an interesting pedagogical tool. For example, creating a Plato chatbot that lets students have a text conversation with a bot posing as Plato is a cool gimmick.

But AI is already starting to displace some of the best tools teachers have for assessment and for developing critical thinking, such as writing assignments. The college essay is going the way of the dinosaurs as more teachers give up on the ability to tell whether their students are writing their papers themselves. What’s the cost-benefit argument for giving up on writing, an important and useful traditional skill?

In the sciences and in medicine, the use of AI seems promising. Its role in understanding the structure of proteins, for example, will likely be significant for curing diseases. The technology is also transforming medical imaging and has been helpful in accelerating the drug discovery process.

But the excitement can become exaggerated. AI-based predictions about which cases of COVID-19 would become severe have roundly failed, and doctors rely excessively on the technology’s diagnostic ability, often against their own better clinical judgment. And so, even in this area, where the potential is great, AI’s ultimate impact is unclear.

In national security, the argument for investing in AI development is compelling. Since the stakes can be high, the argument that if the Chinese and the Russians are developing AI-driven autonomous weapons, the United States can’t afford to fall behind, has real purchase.

But a complete surrender to this form of reasoning, though tempting, is likely to lead the U.S. to overlook the disproportionate impact of these systems on nations that are too poor to participate in the AI arms race. The major powers could deploy the technology in conflicts in these nations. And, just as significantly, this argument de-emphasizes the possibility of collaborating with adversaries on limiting military AI systems, favoring arms race over arms control.

One step at a time

Surveying the potential significance and risks of AI in these different domains merits some skepticism about the technology. I believe that AI should be adopted piecemeal and with a nuanced approach rather than subject to sweeping claims of inevitability. In developing this careful take, there are two things to keep in mind:

First, companies and entrepreneurs working on artificial intelligence have an obvious interest in the technology being perceived as inevitable and necessary, since they make a living from its adoption. It’s important to pay attention to who is making claims of inevitability, and why.

Second, it’s worth taking a lesson from recent history. Over the past 15 years, smartphones and the social media apps that run on them came to be seen as a fact of life – a technology as transformative as it is inevitable. Then data started emerging about the mental health harms they cause teens, especially young girls. School districts across the United States started to ban phones to protect the attention spans and mental health of their students. And some people have reverted to using flip phones as a quality of life change to avoid smartphones.

After a long experiment with the mental health of kids, facilitated by claims of technological determinism, Americans changed course. What seemed fixed turned out to be alterable. There is still time to avoid repeating the same mistake with artificial intelligence, which potentially could have larger consequences for society.

Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.