Blokes' Health

Blokes' Health

Sadly it often takes the well publicised and very much public battle of celebrities with illness to bring the issues of Men's Health to the fore. We all want to live as long and as healthy as we can, with a good quality of life. In this book Dr Bernie Crimmins outlines the main health problems that can affect men and gives some simple advice on how to prevent, or detect early, those particular diseases which may lead to an early demise. The main aim of this book is to keep it short and simple, to giving the reader a stepping stone to take their health seriously and do it for themselves! Fantastically illustrated with cartoons by award winning cartoonist Paul Harvey.

Bernie Crimmins is a general practitioner with a special interest in men's health. Bernie has been a doctor for 30 years including club doctor to the Hawthorn Football club where he is a life member. Bernie's brother was Peter Crimmins, the champion Hawthorn rover and Captain who died of testicular cancer in 1976.

Blokes' Health
Wilkinson Publishing
Author: Bernie Crimmins
Price: $9.95

Interview with Bernie Crimmins

Question: What originally inspired you to write Blokes' Health?

Bernie Crimmins: I was doing some men's health lectures and I am mainly a male GP, I had the unfortunate fact that my late brother Peter Crimmins died at the ripe age of 28 from cancer, that was part of what got me into the men's health side of things. Then, I was a club doctor at Hawthorne for fifteen years, in the male predominant environment. I also was one of five boys and I have three boys of my own, it was a natural thing that I would get into men's health.

I was doing a few lectures in men's health at my old school were we run a men's health program and one of the guys I still play football with, who is a cartoonist, suggested that it would be good for a book, that was two years ago. I basically converted what I was lecturing into a fairly simple book. It was mainly to put things out there in a simple format for men because men aren't big readers and the book isn't very big at 100 pages. There are lots of pictures in the book and we made the font large because generally males and females over 40 start having trouble with their vision so we made the font big so they don't have to hunt around trying to find their glasses. The book is also fairly cheap at $9.95.


Question: How did you make the book appeal to men?

Bernie Crimmins: To make it a bit more interesting I added humour, men don't want to sit down and read black and white data they want a little bit of a laugh here and there. I put my own personal history and medical history into the book, to make it a bit more interesting, including a bit of footy. I have made it a fairly blokey book to attract men to read the book.

You can read the book very quickly, my wife read it in one hour and I describe it as a 'good toilet book' because you can sit on the toilet, read it and you don't need to have your glasses with you.

I think more of the buyers will be females probably buying it for their men.

Women are forever being reminded to go and get checkups because they have government funded recall systems for breast cancer and cervical cancer. There are no real government pressures for males and that means they need to set up their own appointments on a regular bases. On the health side of things, men go to the doctors 50% less than females, so they are less likely to go ahead and make bookings.

I'm not a big reader and I have to admit I am not a great writer but when I looked around for other books on this topic, there really wasn't much at all. I have been surprised by the response for Bloke's Health.


Question: What are some of the main health problems that mainly affect men that are discussed in the book?

Bernie Crimmins: The main problems affecting men and 50-55% of the main health problems affecting men are in four areas:
Cardiovascular
Cerebrovascular Disease; heart attacks and strokes
Smoking related illness
Prostate and bowel cancers

Over 50% of disease is covered by basically four things, you can reduce that to three by stopping smoking; you need to really keep an eye on the other three; in the book I outline what needs to be done to keep an eye on those sorts of things.