Is obesity contagious? What about smoking and drug use? Is it possible to unconsciously pick up the bad habits and health problems of your friends? First introduced in 2007, this idea has sparked a debate among researchers and doctors that is still heating up.

A controversial study led by researchers from Harvard and the University of California, San Diego, concluded that behaviors such as overeating and cigarette smoking could be contagious within close social networks. The researchers came to this conclusion by analyzing data from the Framingham Heart Study, a long-running, detailed survey that examined over 12,000 participants. The Framingham Study included information about body weight and drug use habits, and also indicated which subjects were friends or family members. Thanks to this unique feature, researchers were able to take a look at rates of obesity and other health risks among friend groups.

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I’m pretty sure I don’t have OCD, but sometimes I really convince myself that I do.  And by “sometimes” I mean “every time I watch Obsessed on A&E.” Although my habits don’t come nearly as close to those of the people on that show who have to touch the fridge 46 times before they can get some milk, I do have some quirks that make me go hmm…

I know a lot of people have weird things with numbers, but my thing with numbers is just wacky.  For example, when I’m on the treadmill planning on going for a run, I make sure I walk for exactly half a mile before.  The treadmill must say exactly .50 before I can start running.  .49 is not okay, and, to be honest, I’m not sure what I would do if it went to .51 and I wasn’t running yet, but I guess I don’t have to worry about that because I won’t let that happen.

Now, is that just routine or a blatant obsession? Read More »

Perusing College Candy’s fancy new cyber-digs this morning, I stumbled on this article, that I somehow missed the first time around. This article and its attendant comments cracked me up, and got me thinking about, of all things, a certain TV show you may have heard of. Ever seen the Sex and the City episode where Carrie admits that when she’s alone, she likes to stand at the kitchen counter eating crackers with jelly on them and reading Vogue, or something like that? And labeled it “secret single behavior’?

I am no devotee of SATC, but I thought that phrase was pretty genius, and started to think about the things I do when I’m totally, gloriously alone.

Now that we’re in the phase of life where living with roommates and/or significant others is par for the course, I find myself missing the weirdest things from time to time. Singing is a big one for me. Singing along to entire musical soundtracks or pop albums or whatever suits my fancy – and I mean headphones-in, top-of-my-lungs singing – while I re-organize my closet for the zillionth time and leave the rest of my room a mess.

Oooooh, or eating a plateful of random, unrelated finger/snack foods for dinner, like cheese with crackers and olives and slices of avocado and frozen spring rolls and Oreo cookies and probably an enormous bottle of coke zero (or wine, depending on the day). Eaten while sitting on the floor and watching Veronica Mars on DVD.  The list goes on. Read More »

[Our writer, Kelly, has made it her goal to quit smoking and share her experiences with you. We have been following her for two weeks now. Here is her latest progress.]

Well, I’ve been trying to refrain from smoking at all, but – geez – it is tough. Last week wasn’t too bad – I smoked maybe one or two a day and had a day or two where I didn’t smoke a cig at all. Even better, I didn’t even crave one – score!

But, then, I went to a Halloween party last weekend where I buckled and smoked about ten cigarettes in one night. I know, bad girl, Kelly; but honestly, with all the liquor, I just let myself go with the smoking…again. There’s something about needing a smoke with my vodka soda, or my glass of red wine that I just can’t seem to shake. Am I the only one?

After my lovely smoking binge of Friday, I tried to calm down the rest of the weekend. And I did. I smoked only one or two cigarettes a day for the rest of the weekend.

On my way to work on Monday, though, I almost put my car in park and asked the guy in traffic behind me, who was smoking a cig, if I could bum one. Then I realized how crazy and pathetic I would have looked, so I stopped myself. I didn’t have a cigarette that morning, and I didn’t have one for the rest of the day. I made a conscious decision to either go big – and do it as close to cold turkey as I can until I can finally withdraw myself from the cravings – or not do it at all. And not doing it at all is not an option. Read More »

Well, we all – even the smokers like myself – know smoking is a bad habit. I have been smoking on and off since I was 14 and, not to date myself, with almost 10 years of smoking under my belt, I have decided it is time to try and kick the bad ‘ole habit once and for all.

Because quitting is really effing hard, I am going to share my journey with and you, CollegeCandies. I hope this inspires you to join me…and inspires me to stick with it. Smoking kills thousands and thousands of people each year and I don’t want to be part of the statistics.

So, week one, here is the progress to date:

After smoking a pack every two days, a few weeks ago I decided not to buy packs anymore. Translation: I’d only mooch my cigarettes, which I hate doing. I figured this would cut my daily intake drastically. And it did, for a few days. Then, one weekend after having a few too many cocktails (my prime time to smoke), I caved and bought a pack… and proceeded to smoke the entire pack in one evening.

Not so good for me considering I’m an avid runner who huffs and puffs on my daily run like I’m a 400 lb. man. Read More »

Women’s social issues have been treated in programs geared towards teens for ages. Remember when DJ Tanner went on a crash diet so she could look good in a bathing suit, and then passed out on a stairclimber?

On Saved by the Bell, Elizabeth Berkley gained pre-Showgirls notoriety, for the famous Jessie Spano Caffeine Pill Breakdown (I’m so excited! I’m so scared!). Of course, Full House and SBTB were heart-warming sitcoms, where everyone learns their lesson in the end, and move away from their self-destructive behavior, never to mention anorexia, bullimia, or drug abuse ever again.

The breakout Canadian teen sensation, Degrassi, which airs in the US on The N network, covers a variety of teen issues, without the cavity-inducing sugary sweetness of the stuff we grew up on. Among the kids who dabble in drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, and bi-polar disorder, Degrassi introduced the world to Ellie Nash, who is a cutter.

I’m too old for Degrassi, but I don’t care. I’m pretty much obsessed with it. The best part about the show is that it doesn’t sweep the issues under the rug at the end of each 22-minute episode. And because the writers have the balls to “Go There.” I mean, come on: we all know the caffeine-pill incident was a stand-in for a harder drug, like speed or something, but hard drugs don’t exist at Bayside High.

I remember when the cutting craze swept my middle school. I have no idea who started it, or why it caught on, but at my school, cutting was the iPhone of the late 90′s. Read More »