There are new reasons to control your weight both before and after you conceive — particularly if you’re heavy before you even try to have a baby.

Obesity promotes not only severe pregnancy complications in the mother, it also places the baby at high risk of health problems, including an increased chance of neonatal death.

That’s the sobering news from a group of Swedish researchers who say that not only is it important to control weight gain during pregnancy, but to also get your level of body fat under control before you attempt to conceive. Read the rest of this entry »

These easy remedies will eliminate all of life’s little annoyances – and improve your wealth, health and sanity

Take care of the small things – maintain your kit, clean your room, say you’re sorry – and life improves in big ways. Little fixes cut stress and build a reassuring sense of control.

“Once I have success with one goal,” says Dr Tim Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada, “it increases my happiness, wellbeing, satisfaction and self-confidence. And that motivates me to do more.” Read the rest of this entry »

A growing number of children in the United States are obese. How can parents keep their kids from becoming obese without triggering an eating disorder, particularly in young girls?

Walk the talk. Without question, the best way to prevent or treat obesity in children is for parents to set the example themselves—eating healthfully and increasing physical activity. Parents must focus on healthful behaviors, not weight or looks. Teach the 80/20 concept: Make healthful choices 80 percent of the time and treat yourself 20 percent of the time. While caloric reduction is mandatory, deprivation and rigid restrictions of food do not work as a healthful long-term strategy for children.

Whether it’s the “please drink responsibly” small print now found at the bottom of advertising hoardings for beer or vodka, or the Office for National Statistics revising its safe consumption levels, everyone seems to want us to sip a little more slowly.

But is there any way to wean people off products that are legal, easily accessible and widely considered to be essential to a decent social life?

In its new report on binge drinking, the market research firm Mintel suggests a series of possible ways to reduce alcohol consumption. Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released new recommendations of physical activity necessary to promote health benefits. With the new guidelines nobody is exempt, not kids, older adults, or adults with disabilities. Previous recommendations were for healthy adults to have 30 minutes daily of moderate activity.

It is now recommended that adults should do at least 2.5 hours a week of moderately intense physical activity such as brisk walking, or 1 hour and 15 minutes of vigorously intense jogging, swimming laps or other aerobic activities. A combination of the two types of exercise many bring about the same results, but the exercise must be in sessions that are at least 10 minutes long to raise the heart beat enough to provide benefits. Read the rest of this entry »

You wouldn’t go into a meeting without your lies and evasions in order, right? Toe the line at a marathon with just your left shoe on? Hell no, you say. But tell us: Why do you step out the door on the most important days of your life with any old swill in your stomach?

Guilty as charged, right? The thing is, a nutritional edge is such an easy advantage to claim. Your premeeting, pregame, pre-bacchanalia foods can bring mind and body in tune, and supply you with fuel that will sustain you through the last Power Point, the final fit with the caddie, the last snog in the corner. Read the rest of this entry »