Let’s start with the good stuff. The new regulations call for double the amount of servings of fruit and vegetables, the use of non-fat and low-fat milk, an emphasis on whole grain and an attempt to curb the amount of sodium our kids are consuming. Until now there had been zero regulations where sodium was concerned. The average high school lunch contains almost 1,600 milligrams of sodium, she said, more than half the recommended daily sodium intake for a high school-age student.

Unfortunately there are still some parts of the proposal the USDA failed to get authorized….

For starters both pizza and French fries are still considered ‘vegetables.’ Something the socialist commie America haters in the USDA wanted done away with but lost thanks to some heavy lobbying from the food industries.

On the bright side, while pizza remains a ‘vegetable’ (don’t ask) it has to always be accompanied by a side of real vegetables as well. So there’s a bit of a silver lining.

Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington called these the “best ever” rules for school lunch America has seen. Which says a lot and yet so little for the state of our kids diets, doesn’t it?

(Source: LA Times)

It turns out that when mice get drunk they pretty much act the same way we do. They fall over, stumble and occasionally break down sobbing in the middle of sex. The mice in the study were given enough alcohol to make them drunk but by giving them the drug they were able to limit the effects of the alcohol and keep them from even getting a bit tipsy.

Their study focused on what’s called glial cells in the brain and could explain why alcohol effects different people in different manners.
The glial cells in the brain make up 90% of our gray matter and play a significant role in our immune systems, helping us stave off infections like meningitis. In the experiment, shutting off this immune response produced a remarkable effect – it kept the mice from getting drunk. But correct me if I’m wrong they also just made them supremely susceptible to you know, infections… like meningitis.

But hey, you can totally drink that last shot and not be as tipsy! So it’s all a matter of weighing your options.

(Source: Telegraph)

A team of international public health experts urged making healthy food cheaper and less-than-healthy food more expensive through tax measures. Their argument is that if the global obesity crisis continues to spiral out of control nations will be forced to face substantial burdens to their health care costs as well as economies.

A large portion of the blame is placed on what’s known as an “obesogenic” environment in which it is nearly impossible for someone to maintain a healthy weight and diet thanks to the way food is being marketed and produced.

Next month the United Nations General Assembly will hold the first high-level meeting focusing on noncommunicable disease prevention and control. The report, released to coincide with this monumental meeting of the minds, does note that an important factor in determining the future obesity rates is the individual decision making skills of Americans to choose better food when eating.

(Source: Washington Post)

When products are labeled common wellness-support labels like “zero-gram trans fat” or “organic” or “whole”, it tends to create a notion that it is healthy so let us buy it. Although it seems to be perfectly fine, it kind of creates a mindset that it is good to consume a great amount of it, especially for people who are used to large quantities of food.

In support to this statement, using “low-calories” or “low fat” may not always be the case. According to an article : “Organic Labels May Trick Dieters Into Eating More”, talking about organics may trigger consumers minds about being less so it is okay to consume more, and that is bad conditioning.

For people conscious on their diet, it is still best to mind the quality of food and the nutrition it brings, as to while organic foods maybe the best option, it is still in the quantity of food consume and nutritional value we all should base our diets.

Think about “organics” and other innovations a new way to enjoy the ordinary food into a more nutritious one, and not an excuse to eat more of it. It just means we get more nutrients as compared to foods with “empty” nutritional value. In the wellness-awareness revolution, knowledge and research will give you most out of every innovation in pursuit of good health.

For example, an article titled ; “Quitting Smoking Before Pregnancy Could Save Babies’ Lives”, says that quitting smoking before even conceiving can bring so many good effects in relative to smoking while pregnant.

Responsible parents are loving parents, and studies do prove that avoiding habits like smoking and drinking can give a higher chance of a healthy baby.

To quote the study: “Looking at the data, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that smoking during pregnancy resulted in 5 percent to 8 percent of all premature births and 13 percent to 19 percent of full-term babies with a low birth weight.”

“Researchers also found that 5 percent to 7 percent of deaths among the premature infants — and 23 percent to 34 percent of deaths caused by SIDS — could have been prevented if the mother had not smoked.”

Here are some tips for soon-to-be mommies:

• have a regular check-up with your doctor, and follow his/her orders religiously.
• if you do not have the habit of eating healthy, now is the time to choose healthy options for the baby to have optimum nutritional absorption.
• eliminate all bad habits you might have like smoking mentioned in the reference article above
• light exercise like walking can help a less-painful delivery compared to inactive mommies.
• have a happy pregnancy; a stressful mommy-to-be is not a good sign for the baby.

Better take extra precautions in taking care of your soon to be baby. Husbands should be there to help his wife all the way for the baby to see a happy family when time comes.

One thing we have to say no to in a healthy lifestyle is anything in excess. Excess sleep deprivation, alcoholic intake and even food. It might not be hard for some, but to some it takes almost every inch of willpower, sometimes, in the end, or in days, you find yourself saying “yes” to what you have been avoiding.

Tip: Love moderation. Tell yourself that anything in excess is bad and that anything in moderation is good. For starters, it might be too hard to just replace anything you have been used to.

Willpower and self-discipline are different. Will power is when you muster all you mind energy into doing something to get a temporary boost in bending your own principles to your will.

Self-discipline however is something you do as a habit for long periods of time. Use willpower sparingly because it can lead to procrastination, lower self esteem and depression if you use it too often because it burns you out.

When do you use will power? When you face a temptation in according to a health plan or goal. You might want to sleep early but friends are inviting you for a night of alcohol and fun. This is when will power comes in. It is okay to say “no” to friends sometimes, especially if your plans and health is on the line.

Ask yourself if there is some will power in you that has enough drive to say no in bad habits and saying yes to good ones? If you value your health, family and finances, you will find that saying “no” for a better cause is okay.

What may be wrong? Encountering many people with this way of thinking have one thing in common; they think they have to spend countless hours just to get their blood going. How about work and family?

Your health and yourself is one of the things you should not take for granted. How will you work properly? How will spend more time with your family when you are having this habits that will bring you down in a not so distant future?

It does not have to take a lot to get started. In fact, 10 minutes starting something is better than doing nothing.

You can spend 10 minutes to:

• brisk walk or any form of short term exercise
• eat a healthy snack
• read a health-related article
• walk you dog as a form of exercise
• climb up the stairs to your office
• do some chores or any physical activity

Developing the healthy habit does not have to take too much of your time. 10 minutes, little by little, can come a long way compared to those who do not start at all.

A study in London according to Reuters showed that those people who have poor oral hygiene have increased risks in heart diseases. According to the study, unhealthy gums are likely to promote diabetes and other heart problems. The inflammation of organs in the body, which in this case is gums and teeth, relate to clogged up arteries.

But how would people in olden times take care of their teeth if there were no toothbrush and toothpaste ? They had a diet with a lot of vitamins and nutrients. This helped maintain their tooth enamel by limiting the sugar that usually rots present-day teeth.

History and the present have indeed shown the importance of oral care in our overall health.

Here are some tips to take care of our teeth and gums:

• Like the dentists’ always say, visit your dentist at least twice a year.
• Brush at least twice a day after meals.
• have a diet with diverse vitamins and nutrients.
• avoid smoking; we all know what it does to our teeth.

A healthier teeth and gums are indeed proportional to total wellness. Eat healthy, live healthy so that there will be nothing but all smiles ahead.

We get most of our vitamins and nutrients from the foods we eat. But some may not have access to healthy choices of food all the time that their only access is fast food or any convenient, easy-to-prepare food. Sometimes we may take for granted the importance of these vitamins for the proper functioning of our organs and systems in battling elements that can weaken our immune system.

How do we make sure that we get everything we need?

The convenience of the access of information has done wonders for all of use. Especially in the age of health awareness and prevention of complicated diseases, we can find answers all over the internet. To avoid confusion, the simple concept of a healthy diet is to have a balanced amount of nutrients, vitamins and minerals from different sources. Although it can’t be helped, multivitamins and other supplements have been made more affordable and accessible to people who cannot balance the diet due to circumstances and availability of food.

Want a healthier lifestyle? Have a vitamin-rich diet. Working out and exercising are just compliments to a healthy diet. The immune system needs all the help it can get to fight off diseases. We don’t want a diet that can make us thin but lacks most of the nutrients we need, it would attract bacteria and germs and our immune system can not do anything about it because early protection is better than cure.

This progressive world of almost pure work and no play has taken a toll on us. The demands of an ever changing world has limited the opportunity to sweat, take a walk and rather spend more time on a chair for most hours of the day.

Good thing that in the wellness awareness generation we are experiencing today, people make more effort to have physical activities to enhance the mind and the body, for some of its reasons.

Awareness is sometimes not enough, or maybe too late for some.

Some start exercising for sometimes the wrong reasons; to lose weight for a period of time or burn that pizza or buffet dinner last night. To maintain a healthy body, exercise or physical activities should be a regular part of daily activities, a habit more than a temporary thing.

It cannot be avoided sometimes to have a schedule so tight that time to go to the gym or have a sport. Added with a bad diet, even the best of workouts and intensities of sports cannot avoid diseases. But that is another topic in relation to a healthy lifestyle.

One should remember the importance of having the habit of exercise as part of their lifestyle; a healthier body gives a healthy mind and a healthy lifestyle gives happier and longer years ahead.