WcP.LifeCoach's blog

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Bottled water sold in markets and convenience stores may be no more free of pollutants than the water that pours from the kitchen tap at a fraction of the cost, said an environmental group that tested samples. Ten top-selling brands of bottled water contained a total of 38 pollutants including fertilizer, industrial chemicals, bacteria and the residue of drugs such as Tylenol, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group based in Washington, D.C. The bottled water showed an average of eight pollutants in each sample.

Americans drank more than twice as much bottled water in 2007 as they did in 1997, guzzling 8.8 billion gallons at a cost of $10.3 billion in 2007, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., a research and consulting firm based in New York. Although commercials often show pristine mountain springs, the reality is that bottled water often comes from city water supplies, said Renee Sharp, an Environmental Working Group senior scientist. "If you're going to pay 1,500 times more for bottled water than for tap you'd expect that you'd be getting a cleaner, better product," said Sharp. "And that's not necessarily true."

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CT scans can be better medicine for doctors than for patients - they provide detailed views of internal organs, but the price is increased doses of radiation. A chest CT scan is equivalent to about 100 X-rays.

When Maureen Scanlan had a painful kidney stone episode four years ago, she was pleased that her doctor ordered an annual regimen of CT scans to monitor her condition. The scans involved hundreds of razor-thin X-rays of her innards stitched together by a computer into stunningly detailed 3-D images showing the size and location of the stone, down to the millimeter. What she didn't realize was that the perfection of the images was a result of a radiation dose equivalent to more than a dozen standard abdominal X-rays -- all for a condition that though painful is relatively mundane.

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Facts -

Our planet is choking on plastic and plastic bags are a huge part of the problem. Shoppers worldwide are using 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags per year. This translates to about a million bags every minute across the globe, or 150 bags a year for every person on earth. You can make a difference by pledging to be plastic bag free. Sign this pledge at Leonardo Dicaprio : Eco-Site and learn about how plastic is affecting our planet and how you can make a difference.

Plastic Bags

Shoppers worldwide are using 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags per year. This translates to about a million bags every minute across the globe, or 150 bags a year for every person on earth. And the number is rising.

Plastic bags are made of polyethylene - more commonly known as polythene - they are hazardous to manufacture and are said to take up to 1,000 years to decompose.

Every year, Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic bags.

The energy needed to manufacture and transport disposable bags eats up more resources and creates global warming emissions.  read more »

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The Los Angeles City Council has approved a law that bans fast-food restaurants from opening in South LA. People who live in this area have the largest obesity problems. Approximately one in 3 children from South LA is obese, compared to one in five in the rest of the city. Nearly one-third of residents in the city's south are obese, compared with 19% for the overall Los Angeles area and 14% in the wealthier west side area.

The main thing responsible for this condition is poverty, as well as the fact that 73 percent of the restaurants in the southern part of the city are fast-food ones and offer meals that are high in calories and cholesterol. "There's one set of food for one part of the city, another set of food for another part of the city, and it's very stratified that way," Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a community leader in south Los Angeles, told the Washington Post this month.

The new law will ban the opening of any fast-food restaurants for a year, but there is the possibility that this period will be increased to two years. According to the new law, “any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders and food served in disposable wrapping or containers" is considered to be a fast-food restaurant.

As expected, the new law was received with criticism by fast-food companies, who argued that many of them offer healthy food too, and that it is the consumer's decision to buy junk food. According to them, banning fast-food restaurants is an unfair decision. However, studies have shown that increasing the number of places where people can buy healthy food in a certain area reduces or at least stabilizes the number of people that suffer from obesity in that area as well.

Fast-food chains such as McDonalds have become ubiquitous in America's poor urban areas thanks in large part to their inexpensive meals, raising questions in Los Angeles about whether the new ban would hit low-income residents in the pocketbook. But the city carved out an exemption for lower-priced chains that make their food fresh to order without using a drive-through window, such as Subway. The new law that was approved by the LA City Council also encourages groceries and restaurants that offer healthy food to open for business in South LA.

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Photos courtesy of EontarioNow, AP Photo / Nick Ut, and vivirlatino.com

Original Source: eFluxMedia and Guardian, UK

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Just when you thought there was going to be one less thing to believe in – namely the invincibility of Tiger Woods with a lead in a major golf championship – along he comes to amaze once again.

He slid and bounced about a 15-footer into the side door on the 72nd and final hole to tie the tournament and force the playoff and it was a putt, a moment, that represented the highest kind of drama this sport has to offer. It was amazing stuff, really, and he has done it before and he surely will do it again and no one should ever be surprised when he performs miracles. But he keeps doing it and who isn’t constantly amazed, if only by the sheer volume?

"That man will crawl around if he has to play," Rocco Mediate said of Woods’s wounded knee, which dominated the TV talk and surely was making an impact on Woods, too, although he said the reason his tee shots, most of the day, kept sailing left was “just bad swings."

“He’s good enough he can beat us on one leg,’’ Stephen Ames had said about five hours earlier, when asked who would win. Ames then assumed the stork pose and swung away.

“He can stand up like this and still hit it – ding – 250 (yards) and beat us.’’

Well, maybe. Only Mediate can stop him now.

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Images Courtesy of AP Photo/Chris O'Meara and UPI Photo/Earl Cryer

Original Source: TheStar.com

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CAMBRIDGE - Acclaimed author J.K. Rowling, whose boy wizard captured the interest of countless readers with the "Harry Potter" series, urged Harvard graduates yesterday to use their imaginations to create a better world. In an earnest, personal speech, the British author reminded students that their talents and opportunities carry "unique status and unique responsibilities," and challenged them to use their gifts for the greater good.

"That is your privilege and your burden," she said. "If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice, if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless, if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better." "We do not need magic to change the world," she continued. "We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: We have the power to imagine better."

Recalling her work in her 20s at Amnesty International, where she heard the experiences of political prisoners under totalitarian regimes, the 42-year-old Rowling extolled the transformative "power of human empathy" to forge collective action. "Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation," she said. "In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared." "Those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters," she added.

Rowling, who was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree, also stressed what she called the "benefits of failure," recalling a dark period in her late 20s, that while painful was also liberating. "I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea," she said. "And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

Rowling began her remarks in light-hearted fashion, quipping that the invitation to speak was not only a great honor, but had helped her lose weight through the anxiety of preparation. "A win-win situation!" she said. "Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners, and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention."

Rowling was introduced by Harvard president Drew Faust, who welcomed "witches, wizards, and muggles of all ages" and, with a chuckle, said she recognized she was merely "the warm-up act." Some 7,000 students received diplomas yesterday morning in a ceremony marked by tradition and jubilant celebrations. Harvard Yard was thronged for the graduation, which featured a lengthy address in Latin and marshals dressed in coats and tails and black top hats.

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Photos courtesy of AP Photo/Lisa Poole and Boston Herald/Stuart Cahill

Original Source: Boston Globe

The entire text, video and audio of J.K. Rowling Harvard Commencement speech can be found online at The Leaky Cauldron.

50 ideas to save energy, save money, and get healthier and fit – all while on vacation: from Inn-to-Inn Horseback Riding in Ireland, to New Zealand Multisport Adventure, to Everglades Multiday Kayaking Tour -

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All told, active travel accounted for an estimated $60 billion in vacation spending in 2007. "It used to be that adventure travel was very physical and risky, like climbing Mount McKinley," says Shannon Stowell, president of the Adventure Travel Trade Association and coauthor of Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean, a guide for adventure-hungry boomers.

The choices vary widely in terms of physical demands and comfort. At travel site iExplore.com, for example, trips considered "easy" involve nothing more than normal walking while sightseeing. A "moderate" rating might require three to five hours of physical activity daily. To go on a challenging trip, you must be fit enough to hike or bike for up to seven hours over steep or rugged terrain at elevations that sometimes exceed 10,000 feet. Typically, tour operators tailor activities to suit the group, offering more than one route to a destination, for example, and support vans to transport anybody who needs to take a break. Some offer deluxe lodging and meals to delight foodies; others put up tents at remote campsites and cook over the fire.

You won't fully enjoy even the easiest trips without some physical exertion, so if you haven't already, develop a workout routine well before your departure date. "Otherwise, better to hang out on the beach," warns Stowell.

Here's a sampling of options:

• Hiking
• Biking
• Water Sports
• Multisport Vacations
• Horseback Trekking
• Snowy Escapes

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Photos Courtesy of Getty Images







Original Source: U.S. News and World Report

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Original Source: Reuters

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The same team of experts who found that obesity may be socially contagious said they found similar patterns among smokers, with people clearly influencing others in their social and family networks. In fact, the most isolated people are now those who remain the most addicted as their personal networks get pushed to the fringes, they wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School in Boston and Dr. James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, studied 12,067 people who have been taking part in the Framingham study -- a study of the health and habits of nearly an entire town in Massachusetts -- for the past 32 years. "We've found that when you analyze large social networks, entire pockets of people who might not know each other all quit smoking at once," Christakis said in a statement. "What appears to happen is that people quit in droves."

Smoking is becoming increasingly less common in the United States. In 1965, 42 percent of the population smoked, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number has fallen to around 20 percent. When the Framingham study started, around 37 percent of adults smoked. Spouses had strong effects -- when someone quit, his or her spouse was 67 percent less likely to continue smoking. Quitters influenced their brothers or sisters -- siblings were 25 percent less likely to smoke if one of them quit, while the friend of someone who kicked the habit was 36 percent less likely to smoke. Even co-workers are influential -- in small firms, a quitter could decrease smoking among peers by 34 percent.

Richard Suzman, who directs behavioral studies at the National Institute of Aging, said the research could influence policy. "The results suggest new and probably more powerful approaches to changing health behaviors, such as smoking, by careful targeting of small peer groups as well as single individuals," he said.

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Images courtesy of Reuters and iStockPhoto

Original Source: Daily Mail

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British children are among the worst in a Europe-wide obesity league table, with around a third weighing more than they should. A couch potato lifestyle and a growing appetite for fast food is blamed for boys and girls weighing in near the top of a 27-country fat league.

Scottish girls take second place in the female rankings, with almost 33 per cent overweight. English girls are fourth, with 29.3 per cent too heavy for their height. The heaviest girls are in Portugal (34.3 per cent), while the slimmest are in Latvia and Lithuania (3.5 per cent overweight). Among the boys, Scotland was again second, with almost 35 per cent too heavy for their height. Only Spanish boys are heavier. English boys are in sixth place at 29 per cent - compared to the lean lads of Lithuania, where only 8 per cent are overweight. The figures, which were compiled by the IASO from government and scientific studies, come as British doctors warn they are treating children as young as two for obesity.

Obesity experts said the results could be partly explained by a couch potato lifestyle, in which TV dinners have replaced family meals and computer games are preferred to outdoor play. Dr Tim Lobstein, of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, said: "There is a big industry selling us more TV to watch, more computer games to play, more DVDs to sit and watch. There is a big industry promoting screen watching which is a sedentary behaviour and you just get fatter while you do it."

Dr Ian Campbell, medical director of the charity Weight Concern, said childhood obesity could only be tackled by parents, schools and government working together. Safe, accessible exercise facilities and nourishing and affordable meals should be a priority, he said.

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Original Source: BBC News

"Exposure to small particulates - tiny chemicals caused by burning fossil fuels - is known to increase the chances of heart disease and stroke. But the Harvard School of Public Health found it also affected development of deep vein thrombosis - blood clots in the legs - in a study of 2,000 people.

Researchers said the pollution made the blood more sticky and likely to clot. The team looked at people living in Italy - nearly 900 of whom developed DVT. Blood clots which form in the legs can travel to the lungs, where they can become lodged, triggering a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism."

Images courtesy of eNews 2.0 and Ontario Now

Original Source: Star Bulletin

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"As I was revolving these matters in my mind, while the war was still in progress, I was visited by a sudden feeling of the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. It seemed to me a return to barbarism, the issue being one which might easily been settled without bloodshed."

This quote from Julia Ward Howe is cited as the background for the initial Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870, born of her call to women to "take counsel with each other (so that) the great human family can live in peace."

Over the decades, the initial focus morphed through pacifism, workers' rights and finally fused itself on the role of the mother as the nurturer of new life, the bond of solidarity in the family and the one whose voice should always cry for peace and justice.

In 1908, Anna Jarvis took up the cause of her mother, Ann, who had organized women to campaign for sanitation and medical care for both sides during the Civil War. The daughter publicized Mother's Day with a celebration in Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, Grafton, W.Va., attended by more than 400 children with their mothers.

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Mostly Mother's Day celebrates the gift of life and its continuity, making it the annual event of reflection. We are born, we grow, we appreciate and we reflect. Most of all we harbor that spark of life which the next generation carry, torchlike, into a still troubled world where no mother wants her child to be fodder for war.

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Photos courtesy of AP

Happy Mother's Day to mothers and mothers-would-be everywhere!

"Mother is such a miraculous honor.
Give life to a child. Give birth to Tomorrow.
Nurture a seed into a tree, upright.
Nurture a wholesome soul into a future hero.

Honor of honors,
as an extraordinary mother."

Excerpt from a poem in the upcoming poetry book with art "Love's Footsteps ~ dedicated to a Bridge for Wisdom to Walk on" by .D. LuCxeed, www.loves-footsteps.com.
*music by Koen Paulissen

Young Jet Li - reigning champion for 5 consecutive years - at a wushu (martial arts) competition.

"Focus on your waist, not your weight.

If you've tried every calorie-restricting diet out there but still can't keep the weight off, there's a reason: Diets don't work.

Over time, the majority of dieters regain any weight they may have lost, according to researchers… Instead, your goal should be to eat nutritious foods that make you younger -- and make that a lifelong habit. The good news? Your waist may shrink as a fringe benefit.

..."

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