Don’t believe the packaging. Check nutrition labels when grocery shopping.
Low-fat won’t help you shed fat
Remember the Burl Ives song about the old lady who swallowed the fly? By the end of the song, she’d swallowed a cow to catch the goat to catch the dog to catch the cat to catch the bird to catch the spider (it wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her) to catch the fly. But, it concludes, “I don’t know why she swallowed the fly ...”
Well, if you’re swallowing foods marketed as “low-fat,” “low-sugar” or “low-sodium” to help improve your nutrition or lose weight, you might just be swallowing a spider to catch a fly, too! And you should ask yourself, “Why am I eating that?”
A new study looked at more than 80 million foods and beverages purchased among 40,000 U.S. households over five years, and found that “in many cases, foods containing low-sugar, low-fat or low-salt claims had a worse nutritional profile than those without claims.” For example, lowfat chocolate milk has more sugar than plain milk, and more fat and sugar than many other beverages. Even more confusing, a brownie can be labeled “low-fat” if it has 3 grams of fat per 40-gram serving, but low-fat cheesecake has 3 grams of fat per 125-gram serving. The brownie has a relatively higher fat content.
The lesson here: You have to read the nutrition labels, not just packaging claims. Remember, if a company has to make a low-content version in the first place, chances are the original wasn’t healthy and the new one isn’t much better.
Video games play into sexism
On an episode of “The Office,” Todd Packer, the company’s traveling salesman, tells a joke: “So a guy goes home, tells his wife, ‘Honey, pack your bags. I just won the lottery!’ She goes, ‘Oh my God! That’s incredible! Where are we going?’ His response: ‘I don’t know where you’re going. Just be outta here by five!’ ” All the guys in the office laugh, while a female colleague, Phyllis, looks on, incredulous.
Unfortunately, sexism crops up in the real world, too, from universities to newsrooms (like Fox). We don’t know completely what makes one person more sexist than another, but a new study in Frontiers in Psychology points to one possible way it’s nurtured in kids: video games.
Researchers surveyed 13,000 young people ages 11 to 19, asking how often they played video games and how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the statement “A woman is made mainly for making and raising children.”
Turns out, the more a child played video games the more likely he — or she — was to have sexist attitudes. And an Ohio State study found that the more a young man identifies with violent video-game characters, the less empathetic he is toward female victims of violence.
So how can you help your video-game-obsessed child avoid developing such attitudes? First, filter out the games where females are victims or oversexualized. Then make video-game playing an occasional treat rather than a regular after-school activity. You’ll increase the chances your young men will respect women and your young women will respect themselves.
Help for toenail fungus
Q: I have terrible toenail fungus. What’s the best treatment?
Frank R., Mentor, Ohio
A: Nail fungus is very common and happens most often to toenails. The symptoms include thickened, brittle or crumbly, discolored and misshapen nails. Sometimes the nail can separate from the nail bed. When the same fungus attacks your skin on the bottom of your feet and between your toes it’s called athlete’s foot.
Summertime lets you wear sandals, which helps keep foot skin and toenails dry, so it’s a prime time to tackle the problem.
First step: Have your doc take a sample scraping from under an affected toenail to send to the lab. Although fungus is the most common cause, such nail problems can also be triggered by yeast or mold. Knowing the culprit will let you target the treatment more effectively.
Toe the line: Oral antifungal medications such as terbinafine and itraconazole can KO the infection, but you have to take them for six to 12 weeks, and it takes four or more months for a fully healthy nail to grow back. On top of that, the meds aren’t as effective for folks over 65; and they have side effects that make them off limits for anyone breastfeeding or with heart failure, liver disease or taking certain other meds — 306 different over-thecounter and prescription drugs are known to have negative interactions ranging from severe to minor.
Alternatives: An antifungal nail cream or nail polish (ciclopirox) may help, but the polish needs daily application for up to a year. In the whynot-try-it department, a small study found topical application of Vicks VapoRub for 48 weeks was beneficial: 83 percent of participants saw positive results, and almost 28 percent were able to be called “cured.”