It’s criminal that the US sent Somalian refuges to live in Minnesota. Those are some seriously brown people in the land of no vitamin D. Pretty big population in Seattle as well, which is worse due to cloud cover.
Not just cloud cover. Most areas in the PNW, the sun is so low in the sky between October and March that you can't synthesize vitamin D through the skin at all during those months, even on a bright sunny day.
Even during the summer up here, you really only get a window of roughly 10am to 3pm where enough UV-B rays can penetrate the atmosphere, in July. It's estimated that >80% of the PNW population are deficient (compared with 40% nationwide in the US).
That same podcast I mentioned pointed out that if a white person nude sunbathed in the winter in full sun, you’d get 2nd degree burns long before you made enough vitamin d.
The body stores it though. So how much of a deficit you’re running for how long matters.
It's only criminal if they aren't provided with the education/information they need to live healthy lives (which is possible with the right diet/supplements).
Dark skinned people do not produce enough vitamin D in northern latitudes because of melanin. If you’re black and in Minnesota you probably need supplementation.
Minnesota? Minnesota isn't particularly dark. Minneapolis is apparently on the same latitude as Venice, Italy, and I don't think of Venice as particularly dark or gloomy (to be fair, they probably have better weather).
But yeah. Low vitamin D levels are common even with lily white people in Northern Europe, and at least here in Norway everyone with dark skin knows that they need vitamin D supplements. Traditionally, public health recommendation (for everyone) was to take cod liver oil regularly for every month with an R in it.
I’m painfully aware of that being dark skinned myself. That doesn’t mean that Minnesota is inhospitable though (or that it would be criminal to send me there). It just means that they’d need to know that they need vitamin D supplements and perhaps regular blood screens. Idk if that happens though.
There are towns in Canada that have heated hallways that go between buildings so you can’t get completely snowed in during the winter. Maybe they should build those. Or the underground walkways they have in a couple of the cities.
I'm an Asian who was born and raised in a tropical weather region of my country. I'm now living in the PNW region of the US and it's always miserable from November-April. Vitamin D helps but it's not the same.
Seattle taught me a lot about procrastination. If you look outside and it’s sunny, and you promised yourself you’d go out today, drop whatever you’re doing and put on a jacket. Because by the time you finish it might be cloudy again. Seize the hour. There are no days to seize.
Not just cloud cover. Most areas in the PNW, the sun is so low in the sky between October and March that you can't synthesize vitamin D through the skin at all during those months, even on a bright sunny day.
Even during the summer up here, you really only get a window of roughly 10am to 3pm where enough UV-B rays can penetrate the atmosphere, in July. It's estimated that >80% of the PNW population are deficient (compared with 40% nationwide in the US).