Have an embarrassing health question? Need exercise inspiration? Want to rant about too-skinny celebs? (Us too.) Join health editor Maureen Halushak as she talks about the body issues you need to know about.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m not eating meat this month (or at least, trying not to eat it). I’ve hit a few snags – most notably, Scottish sausage, which I was not familiar with until my friend Lisa had a bunch of girls over for a Scottish brunch spread, which included homemade buns that we filled with square slabs of sausage meat. It was, needless to say, delicious.
Afterwards, I felt a bit guilty for so easily succumbing to my meat lust, but there was also another factor at play: I didn’t want to make Lisa feel bad by refusing the main component of her meal. I’m curious as to how all of you vegetarians out there handle these types of situations – please leave a comment and let me know. I want to avoid not only meat this month, but also social gaffes.
In penance for my sausage sins, I’m trying extra hard to stay meatless until December. Last night, I made an amazing barley risotto from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking. The fibre-rich barley was slightly chewier than run-of-the-mill arborio, flavoured with citrus zest, yogourt, parmesan and arugula, then topped with walnuts and orange segments (a little out of the ordinary in a risotto, but suprisingly tasty). I can’t find the recipe online, but the technique and proportions of barley to broth and wine are very similar to this easy risotto recipe from Chatelaine (add the zest, a dollop of yogourt and handfuls of parmesan and arugula once the risotto is cooked). I served it with a super-simple warm mushroom salad – sauteed oyster and shiitake mushrooms on arugula, mixed with parmesan and a balsamic vinaigrette. Delicious, and nary a square sausage patty in sight.
Yesterday, the United Services Preventive Services Task Force released new guidelines recommending that women start regular breast screening at 50, not 40. They also recommend that women between the ages of 50 and 74 have mammograms every second year as opposed to annually, and that doctors stop teaching their patients to perform breast self-examinations (BSEs).
The reason behind these reversals? The task force says “there is moderate certainty” that the net benefit of bi-annual screening for women under the age of 50 is small and that false-positive test results – more common for women aged 40 to 49 – can cause unnecessary distress (no doubt). They also state that “adequate evidence suggests that teaching BSE does not reduce breast cancer mortality.”
So what does this mean for those of us south of the border? In a nutshell, not a lot. The new U.S. recommendations for mammograms mirror the current recommendations of the Canadian Cancer Society: Women older than 40 should receive clinical breast exams from a health care provider at least every two years; women aged 50 to 69 should have a mammogram every two years. And the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation notes that our own Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health concluded back in 2001 that there was not enough evidence to conclude that BSEs were an effective early screening tool. (That said, I’m a fan of the breast aware approach advocated by both the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society).
While our own breast screening recommendations may sound straightforward, mammography programs vary by province and women at greater risk for the disease need to talk to their doctors about whether they should start screening earlier. Look for more on this crucial health issue in the February 2010 issue of Chatelaine.
I’m a huge fan of Wii Sports – bowling, in particular. I’ll have you know I’m at the pro-ball level, the highest athletic honour I’ve ever been awarded. However, I’ve always been a little bit leery of Wii Fit, especially by the fact that you need to get weighed before every session. (Or can you turn off that option? If so, please tell me how!) Kids – and adults, for that matter – are weight-conscious enough without being forced to submit to regular Wii weigh-ins. But, a bright side: Reuters reports a new Japanese study has found that about one-third of the games included in the Wii Sports and Wii Fit packages are considered to be “moderate intensity” activities. In specific:
“The most effective exercise in the study was the single-arm stand featured in the Wii Fit, which came in at 5.6 METs — just shy of vigorous activity defined as 6.0 or greater. If that too closely resembles actual exercise for the calisthenically challenged, then the Wii Sports boxing game is the way to go with an energy expenditure of 4.5 METs.”
One MASSIVE caveat here: the study was funded by Nintendo. Does that mean you’re not burning calories by Wii-boxing up a storm? Of course not, but I wouldn’t toss the gym membership just yet. Especially if your favourite game is bowling.
Nov
13
I’ve been doing tons of research for a piece on sex and technology that will run in our February 2010 issue. (Ladies, if you have any – any – questions about how technology is changing the way we have relationships, now is the time to speak up!) And wow, have I uncovered a lot of interesting stuff , much of it thanks to the great blog Mysexprofessor.com, written by sexual health educator Debby Herbenick. In no particular order, here’s what I’ve learned at work this week:
*There’s a simulating dating game called LovePlus - in the same vein as The Sims, I think, and I only know about that one thanks to my all-time favourite Chuck Klosterman essay in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs - in which men care for a virtual girlfriend. And get this: some men actually develop real feelings for their fake ladyfriends.
*One of the best-selling sex toys of 2009, the We-Vibe, was developed by a husband-and-wife team from Ontario.
*The website I Just Made Love! lets you mark on a map the exact spot where you’ve just gotten busy. There are also icons for the various positions you may have employed.
*And, last but not least, did you know that you can control another person’s vibrator over the internet? Apparently this is especially popular for members of the military who are separated from their partners for long periods of time.
Who knew?
On September 21st, Penelope Trunk – who writes the popular Brazen Careerist blog - twittered the following:
“I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.“
Cue media uproar and the prerequisite CNN interview. Trunk recently tried to justify her tweet in a Guardian essay, explaining, among other things, that she already has a child with autism and the odds that she’d have another autistic child were high – as was, due to the fact that she’s 42, the risk of Down’s syndrome. She also says her tweet raised awareness about the fact that it’s incredibly hard to get an abortion in Wisconsin (among other things, she notes that insurance will only cover abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics, of which there are only three in the state) and also that miscarriage shouldn’t be a taboo topic.
I don’t quite know what to make of Trunk. On one hand, I agree that women shouldn’t feel like they can’t talk about their miscarriages – I’m constantly surprised about the number of women I know who have had one – and I believe that abortion should be easily accessible to all (if only the P.E.I. government would agree). But tweeting about it before she, as far as I can tell, even told her partner? That’s what shocked me the most.
