Daily Diet: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

While gathering the family at the dinner table seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years, due to working parents, children’s activities, and TV addictions, it is still a wise choice to make time to sit down, tune out the media, and concentrate on your family and what you put on your plate. Actually, not only what you put on your plate, but how much you choose to put there.

A typical family dinner entails 3 serving dishes: protein, starch, vegetable; some may add a bread basket, others a salad bowl. But by placing those serving dishes on the table, you run the risk of taking more food than you or your waistline need. In fact, if you leave those serving bowls in the kitchen, you are likely to eat 20 percent less food than if they make their way around the table.


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By Susan Brady

Choose Your Crowd!

Socializing is an inherent human need for survival. The kind of benefits you derive from other people's company is vital in keeping your mental health up and running smoothly. Despite the fact there are natural born loners, it never happens that any one of us could totally obliterate the presence of other people in one's life. At some point, you would eventually find yourself interacting and mingling with people.

However, as important and inevitable as their presence is, exposing yourself to certain personalities could actually poison your life rather than help you grow. Such people are those identified to possess toxic personalities capable of driving any one they come in contact with round the bend. All these personalities are united in their contagious negativity. Hence, prolonged exposure to them puts you at risk of turning into one of them!

For your sanity's sake, exercise your inherent privilege to choose your crowd wisely. Thus, you control your exposure to these kind of people and ensure your peace of mind. You don't have to be rude. All you have to do is keep your distance and restrict their presence only in areas or aspects where you can't help but have them around.

written by: Maris Modesto

Could Health Overhaul Incentives Also Hurt Some?

The new health care law promises to extend coverage to millions of Americans and to cut costs by cultivating healthy habits and preventive care. But could its emphasis on wellness undermine one of its central achievements: putting an end to the practice of charging sick people more for health insurance?

Workplace wellness programs are becoming more and more popular as businesses try to rein in runaway health costs. At American Express, for instance, employees are offered a $100 reward just for coming in for a health assessment; the company also provides an array of free support services, including health coaching, maintenance drugs and preventive care.

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By Roni Caryn Rabin

Newborn Heart Defects Linked To Maternal Obesity

US researchers found that the more obese a mother is when she becomes pregnant, the greater her risk of giving birth to a baby with a congenital heart defect.

You can read about the study, by investigators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the New York state Department of Health, in the 7 April online issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In the US, nearly one third of pregnant women are obese (with around one fifth already obese from the start of their pregnancy), and previous studies show that the condition leads to many congenital complications, including neural tube defects, serious malformations of the spinal column.

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