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HEALTH REPORT
Work that Body
Dorothy Boyd, Winner, Health Reporting, at the 1st DAME
MAKE a typing error while writing b-o-d -y and you could end up with "Boyd." You can be pardoned for that, for Mrs. Dorothy Boyd has been writing on health and keep-fit for seven years.
In that time she has been completely devoted to human muscles, bones, skin and healthy living of Nigerians-and has kept a stream of advice flowing. A pep talk on fitness from her: "Fortunately, our body improves with use. Using your body, training it, will help you do what you want to do better. It will also improve your appearance and make you feel better." Gospel. And Mrs. Boyd's body is a good example. She is in her mid- thirties, has four children and there isn't a wrinkle on her face. With her trim body you could pass her for a 25- year-old. Mrs. Boyd started writing The Happy Keep-fit Column in Vanguard newspaper in 1985. The column was stopped recently. She explains how she got interested in health and keep-fit: "I became very conscious of my health and body way back in my university days. I was very careful about what I ate and I made a routine of light exercise to keep trim. " In the late '70s while an undergraduate at the University of Lagos, she was one of the models who accompanied Franca Afegbua to win an international hair dressing award in England. "I did a lot of modelling then" and as a model, you worry more about your shape, your skin, than a mother worries about her new baby.
A 1982 business administration graduate of University of Lagos, Mrs. Boyd adds that she started thinking seriously about health and keep-fit in 1985 when" after two births people kept asking me how I kept my figure. That really gingered me." It was at that point that she started Weight Watchers, a keep-fit gymnasium at Falomo, Lagos, with the help of her husband, Dr. William Boyd, whom she married in 1983. He is into sports medicine besides his general practice.
At the same time, Mrs. Boyd started writing her column for Vanguard. In one of her stories, "Save Your Skin From Stress!" (April 12,1991), she asks: "Have you ever wondered why when something is bothering you, your skin always gives you away with blotchy patches, pimples, dry rash or some other annoying skin ailments? Just when you need reassurance that at least you are looking okay, your skin just goes on strike. Why?"
Keep-fit, Mrs. Boyd says, "is a growing area. We do a lot of research, buy a lot of books and subscribe to magazines." These reflect on her works. In "Getting Fit: Swimming," (Vanguard, Nov. 22,1992) she writes: "water is an ideal exercise for medium, overweight people. Its buoyancy supports those surplus kilos making the effort of exercise much easier." Getting Fit: Swimming" endeared her to the Diamond Awards Sub-committee on Health/Keep-fit Reporting. The committee noted that: " A good part of the article was on the value of physical fitness. It gave useful information on cardio-vascular exercise and included a programme to guide the beginner and the advanced."
Mrs. Boyd was born in England in the late '50s. (Remember how fussy a woman is about her age?) She attended St. Anne's School, Ibadan and the Federal School of Arts and Science, Lagos, before the University of Lagos. About her writing, she says that, she was encouraged to write by Toye Akiode and O1ris Okojie then editors of Vanguard. "When I am in the mood, a piece takes me about one day. When I am not, it takes me weeks," she laughs.
About the prize money for the Health/Keep fit Reporting Award sponsored by Ivory Health Club, she chuckles. "I have never won any prize money before, just certificates. Maybe I will donate it to my church (Church of Assumption, Falomo) building fund." She laughs again.
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