A city's quest to become healthier.

In Albert Lea Minnesota, a hardware store owner Leo Aekins who was a survivor of a heart attack is the figure head in his city for everyone to get healthier. He was a man who loved meat, cheese and ice cream his whole life but has now switched to becoming a vegan and lost 25 pounds in 10 months in hope to improve his lifestyle. This was all part of the "Vitality project" which was headed by AARP to help their members live longer healthier lives. They used this city as a pilot program to help gain years to the lives of the elderly in this town.

To kick off this project they encouraged everyone in the town to get more exercise, eat less food's high in cholesterol and start snacking on fruits more often. Restaurants in this town put new healthier alternatives on their menu's and they finished a 5 year bike path project in one year to help it's 18,000 residents make is easier to workout and get healthy.

The key to the success of this program was getting everyone in the town involved in the project. But this whole project was not just about weight loss and getting healthy, but also about fostering family relationships and a sense of healthy living habits.

Is Facebook an invite for unwanted friends?

It is not rare these days for every student on a college campus to have a facebook. If you just sit in the library and look at the computers, you wouldn't be surprised to see at least one or two people on their facebook page or looking at someone else's instead of doing there work. Actually your more than likely to see one. I know i find myself checking myin once or twice a day and there are people that even have updates sent to their cell phone when they have an update on their wall or pictures tagged to them. And you can even upload photos from you phone to facebook seconds after you take it. But is all of this technology and invitation for violence and predators.
Many people will update their status everyday or even more than once a day to let everyone know exactlyyyy what their doing. Not only that but they also will put all of their personal information on there like phone numbers, addresses, school, birthdate, etc. It has become such a large part of teenagers lives nowadays that everything they do is published in their profile. Mainly they're doing this for their friends, but who else could be looking at it you don't know. It is not hard for someone to scavenge all of your info. from your profile and find out ways to get in touch with you. And this includes dangerous criminals or sexual predators that could live nearby your school.
So why invite this trouble if you can prevent it from the start. Many of these types of people will just randomly search through names they could fine in school newspapers, or postings of school team members. So what can you do to keep yourself safe? Here's a list of tips that may help prevent an unwanted guest:

1. Safe guard you profile by changing your security levels. Make sure that if someone isn't a "friend" of yours on facebook; they can't access your profile and get your info. Limit what they can see and give them the bare minimum, that way new friends can still search for you and its not ruining your facebook social life.
2. Block pictures that you want others to see. Thus not letting them profile you and see what your hobbies or habits are.
3. Don't update your status on every little detail throughout the day.
4. Limit the personal info. you put on your profile. (i.e. phone numbers, room numbers, home address.
5. Allow only certain people you know you can trust to see your whole profile

With the rise of crimes in society, technology has opened more doors for suspects to find their victims. So by following some of these simple rules, you might save yourself from having an unwanted friend who constantly bothers you with wall posts or even worse.

What to drink when you exercise??

Who hear doesn't love Gatorade?! Who here doesn't love an ice cold Monster or Amp energy drink? And of course who doesn't love good old faithful water. Now two of the three of these are obviously proven to be good for you and the other is pretty much meant to give you a quick boost but really has no health or hydrating effects.....and probably does worse for you....and yes I'm talking about the good old energy drink you can buy at subway on your way to the gym. But are they good...Hell yea! Do I love um......YES! But ladies and gentleman...they're not going to help you like water or Gatorade. Your better of drinking a cup of coffee for your caffeine fix because it at least doesn't have the carbonation an energy drink does and won't make you gassy and bloated.(Which is something you don't want to be at the gym... for many reasons)

So now that I've completely crushed you appetite for an energy drink before the gym I'll try and make you feel better. We all have heard tons of different things about when and when not to have Gatorade. Before your workout during or even after. But after reading an article in the NY times based on the conclusion's form the Army's Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Mass., it might not eve matter.

The fact is if your eating right, maintaining a balanced diet, and drinking plenty of water throughout the day, you shouldn't;t have any problem whether you drink water or Gatorade. But there's a catch. They said that Gatorade would be good if you were participating in strenuous activities we'll say lasting over an hour and we sweating a fair amount. In moderate weather, they concluded that an average person will sweat out about a quart of water. Which we all know when your sweating its not just water your body is losing but also other minerals and salt. Now Gatorade would be effective for strenuous activities lasting over an hour where your body is being pushed and sweating at the same time to replenish lost vitamins and minerals and give you a short sugar burst.

So pretty much here's the deal, if your eating the way you should be, drinking plenty of fluids and not signing up for a daily marathon, water should be just fine to replenish your body of what it needs. But if you do find yourself bringing a bottle of Gatorade to the gym, I'm pretty sure it's not going to hurt you and probably will be more refreshing than water. So do what I do sometimes, Bring both! But, you always need to remember, your body is made up of 60-70% water, not Gatorade, and definitely not energy drinks.

Is your family tree making itself smaller?

As we discussed the other day in class, there is a lot to gain from understanding your family tree. We primarily focused on the health problems that are in our immediate family and repercussions it can have on our future and that of our children's. But is it just as big of a problem for your physical health as it is to your mental health?

Mental illness affects about 58 million people over the age of 18 in the United States. About one in four adults suffer from disorders ranging from depression to obsessive-compulsive disorder to schizophrenia in a given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The genetic force behind these illnesses is strong — for an identical twin who has developed schizophrenia, his or her twin has a 50 percent chance to do so as well — but clearly not absolute.

The main problem with genetically passing on mental diseases is there is no way to test for it. With most single diseases the parents can be tested before conception and thus the passing of the disease can be avoided. But due to the complexity of the multiple genes involved and the environmental issues a child is brought up around.

With this ongoing problem some marriages are either failing due to the stress and dangers of reproducing because of the genes of a single partner, or couples are just not taking the risk to reproduce because they feel that they costs will be more than the benefits if their child was to develop a hereditary disease such as schizophrenia, or depression.

So what can you do? Doctors are trying to get the word out that many of these drastic decisions to not have children can easily be avoided with simple tests to show that the risk of having a child with one of these diseases was much higher than they thought it was. And if these parents do have tests done they will could be prepared for the worst rather than leaving it up to chance, thus making some couples more likely to have children knowing exactly what is ahead of them than having no idea at all.

But despite these warnings and dangers involved, there are many couples out there that are still having children no matter what and moving on with life as planned. Keeping an optimistic mind and hoping for the best or a miracle is a good driving force to help manage or tolerate ones flawed genetic history.

Any Music or the Right Music!

For the most part everybody likes to go out on a nice jog threw Stanley or run down Western ave. But if your a serious runner there may be an important thing you need to brush up on......your music!!
A sports psychologist at Britain’s Brunel University, Costas Karageorghis, has been doing research on the effects of music and running and why its better to have a faster paced song rather then Beethoven. According to Kargeorghis, there are four factors that contribute to a song's motivational qualities: rhythm response, musicality, cultural impact and association.
The first two are known as "internal" factors as they relate to the music's structure while the second two are "external" factors that reflect how we interpret the music. Rhythm response is tied to the beats per minute (bpm) of the song and how well it matches either the cadence or the heartbeat of the runnner. A song's structure such as its melody and harmony contribute to its musicality. The external factors consider our musical background and the preferences we have for a certain genre of music and what we have learned to associate with certain songs and artists.
He has also helped design a half marathon in London that tries to find the perfect music mix of live bands based on his research of human reaction to rhythm.

For more info. you can check out the website for the marathon: http://www.runtothebeat.co.uk/music/free-album-download

Pilots and cheeseburgers?

A recent study at the University of North Dakota concluded that pilots who ate a nice greasy burger rather than protein bars or a well balanced meal would be more successful in the air and be able to concentrate better. This was the surprising finding of a new military-funded study that sought to figure out what types of foods were best for pilots when missions restricted when or what they could eat. Researchers found that pilots who ate the fattiest foods such as butter or gravy had the quickest response times in mental tests and made fewer mistakes when flying in tricky cloud conditions.

Athletes and others with physically demanding jobs generally focus on a high-carbohydrate diet for improved performance. The study's researchers aren't saying people should now load up on biscuits and gravy, in fact researchers said it's hard to draw conclusions from their study because more tests are needed to figure out what's behind the results. Follow-up studies begin this spring.
Researchers said the study is not aimed at weight control and noted that because the pilots are young, they're able to absorb a high amount of fatty acids for brain development.

Military experts hope the research will eventually help improve pilots' performance. National Transportation Safety Board statistics show 80 percent of civil and military accidents are caused by human error.

The study used a flight simulator that required students to descend in cloudy weather when the runway wasn't visible and using only the plane's computers. The pilots then had to climb into a holding pattern. They also took tests that required memorizing and repeating numbers and comparing shapes.

Based on their test scores, pilots on the high-fat and high-carb diets performed substantially better than the high-protein eaters. The high-fat dieters did slightly better than the high-carb dieters. More study is needed to determine whether the findings will have a lasting effect.

So for now I guess that if your deciding to fly around in a plane, you might want to stop by the local McDonald's and geta burger or two just to be on the safe side.