Today’s Sunday Morning featured a lengthy report about men’s health. I’ll try to decode the theme of it, since it is a little difficult to find. Apparently, there is some concern that men see doctors less frequently then women, ignore dangerous symptoms more often than women, and don’t talk about health problems as much as women. And that it is generally women who urge men to go see doctors. No, wait, that wasn’t a difficult theme to discern at all, considering that the viewer is bashed on the head with it over and over throughout the segment. Oh, and the correspondant uses the segment as an opportunity to plug her book — three times.

Putting all this aside, the issues are appear to be real. It does seem, however, that culture is slowly shifting and men’s health is finally getting talked about again. The segment notes a few “celebrity” examples: Mike Wallace talking about his depression, Colin Powell talking about prostate cancer. And it also notes more health services targeted at young males. Perhaps the insurance companies should be getting in on the act (or perhaps they already are). Encouraging young and middle-aged people — both men and women — to get regular checkups, and making it as cheap as possible to do so, will save them money.