As you may know, February is the month of Eating Disorder Awareness Week.

So, while the media continues to target body conscious young females, it’s important to keep in mind that eating disorders are an illness which have severe physical and emotional side effects. In our attempt to raise awareness we’re looking at the facts surrounding the illness that affects so many girls and women globally.

• It is estimated that 1 in 5 women struggle with an eating disorder of some kind, whether it is anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder, or somewhere in between.
• 10% of female college students suffer with eating disorders or disordered eating, of which, over half struggle with bulimia nervosa.
• 10-15% of people with anorexia or bulimia are males. And those are just the ones that have actually admitted they struggle with an eating disorder, as it has a reputation to be a disease that only effects women. In fact, there are thousands of males that struggle in secrecy every day.
• 80% of 13 year old girls have attempted to lose weight.
• A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of people with anorexia die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover.
• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness.

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Everyone wants a set of killer abs. If you have a svelte midsection and you automatically feel healthier and sexier. But are you clocking in hours at the gym and hundreds of crunches a week with no results? There’s a new fad diet out there that’s sending everyone atwitter.

The editors of Prevention magazine have come up with a diet plan that aims to send your excess gut to the gutter…or so it seems.

“The Flat Belly Diet” boasts a flat tummy in 32 days. The flagship website gives you everything you need to get started (read: sh*t you have to buy) including cookbooks (with cupcakes on the cover), exercise DVDs (for the “optional” exercise component), and online subscription program to track your progress. Best of all, what kind of diet would it be without a catchphrase (so you KNOW it works): “A MUFA at every meal!”

What’s a MUFA, you ask? Short for monounsaturated fatty acid, MUFA foods include almonds, peanut butter, olive oil and dark chocolate. The Flat Belly Diet encourages you to eat a serving of one of these foods at every meal. That’s right, glob some peanut butter on your crackers for lunch, and grab some dark chocolate cookies to nosh on with dinner. Does anyone else think this sounds a bit too good to be true?

Just from evaluating the website and the basic diet facts, I don’t feel so confident that the Flat Belly Diet could yield real results. Optional exercise? Chocolate with dinner? It sounds like a recipe for Too-Tight-Jeans-Syndrome, if you know what I mean. Not to mention that the “after” photos of alleged Flat Belly Dieters look like they simply donned a pair of Spanx (see above).

Ladies, what do you think?

[image courtesy of flatbellydiet.prevention.com]

Most likely, if you are a female in college, you have experienced a UTI (urinary tract infection) at some point in your four years. I remember the first time I experienced one was during a double shift while waitressing.

Running to the bathroom every five minutes while trying to wait on customers is not an easy task. For those who have not had one before, you are very lucky.

Until you have had one, you cannot truly understand the discomfort and annoyance that comes along with one.

Well, after that horrific experience, I take preventive measures to make sure that one never plagues me again. Luckily, Glamour magazine recently published an article titled the “UTI Fixes No One Ever Tells You About.”

The tips go beyond the commonly known things like peeing after sex, drinking cranberry juice, and wiping front to back (gross, I know, sorry) to show that there is actually more that you can do. Read More »