David Zinczenko: Eat This Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution
You don't know how to shop for food if you haven't read this book. I'm telling you the truth. Get it and read it.
David Zinczenko: Eat This Not That: Thousands of Simple Food Swaps That Can Save You 10, 20, 30 Pounds-or More!
I love this book. If you ever eat out, you'll love it too. Indispensable and surprising. From the editors of Men's Health, so it's rock-solid reliable. (****)
American Academy of Pediatrics: Immunizations & Infectious Diseases: An Informed Parent's Guide
Making the vaccination decision for your kids? This book is authoritative, easy to read, and compassionate.
Marion Nestle: What to Eat
Looking for food facts plus lots of common sense? Here it is between two covers.
Michael Pollan: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Good advice here.
Lisa R. Young: The Portion Teller: Smartsize Your Way to Permanent Weight Loss
Carl's Jr's double cheeseburger contains a full pound of meat and 1,400 calories...American crossants are twice as big as those made in France...a single street-vendor pretzel consists of 6 servings...In her new book, Lisa Young, a nutrition consultant and faculty member at New York University, reveals many more disturbing facts about contemporary food portions and more important, explains how to "smartsize" the food you eat. This is a terrific book, whether you're trying to lose weight or want to avoid getting heavy.
Peter D. Kramer: Against Depression
Not an easy read, but a worthwhile one. This is the main point: We should drop our romantic illusions about depression and look at it for what it is: a disease.
According to this report in The Economist, loneliness may harm your health. I bet you can't guess why, though. Here's a hint, it has something to do with the way that lonely people defend against viruses, as opposed to bacteria. Wild stuff. I urge you to read this really short report about the work by Dr. Steven Cole of UCLA.
Wild stuff!
This is fascinating and it's another story in which research seems to have confirmed the wisdom of the ages. Investigators at Brigham Young University looked at the relationship between our social connections and survival in a so-called meta analysis (pooled data from 148 previous studies with an average duration of more than 7 years) that involved more than 300,000 people. The original study appeared in the open-access online journal PLoS Medicine and is reported by e! Science News and other outlets. According to the investigators and as reported by e! Science News, lack of social interactivity/connectedness was roughly equivalent to the following:
>>Smoking 15 cigarettes a day
>>Being an alcoholic
>>More harmful than not exercising
>>Twice as dangerous to your health as being obese.
Wow. Furthermore, social interactivity increased the odds of survival in the subjects by 50%. Meta analyses have limitations, but I think the trend is clear. Some of the news reports about this study have bemoaned the fact that many of us see more friends online than in person. I would rather have lunch or a drink with a friend, of course, and we all spend too much time on our butts in front of computers. But I wonder about online social networks, especially ones that are made up primarily of people we do know personally. Why wouldn't those connections also be beneficial, especially when it makes it possible to keep in touch with people that you can't see regularly anymore because of geography, work/family commitments, etc.? A difficult study to do, but a useful one.
In the meantime, throw a party.
