2Health: How to take care of yourself.

Here’s some depressing recent medical news: Antidepressants don’t work. What’s even more depressing is that the pharmaceutical industry and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have deliberately deceived us into believing that they do work. As a physician, this is frightening to me. Depression is among the most common problems seen in primary-care medicine and soon will be the second leading cause of disability in this country.

A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine provides the evidence. It found that drug companies selectively publish studies on antidepressants. They have published nearly all the studies that show benefit, but almost none of the studies that show these drugs are ineffective.¹

That warps our view of antidepressants, leading us to think that they do work. And it has fueled the tremendous growth in the use of psychiatric medications, which are now the second leading class of drugs sold, after cholesterol-lowering drugs.

The problem is even worse than it sounds, because the positive studies hardly showed benefit in the first place. For example, 40 percent of people taking a placebo (sugar pill) got better, while only 60 percent taking the actual drug had improvement in their symptoms. Looking at it another way, 80 percent of people get better with just a placebo.

That leaves us with a big problem: millions of depressed people with no effective treatments being offered by most conventional practitioners. However, there are treatments available. Functional medicine provides a unique and effective way to treat depression and other psychological problems. Today I will review seven steps you can take to work through your depression without drugs. But before we get to that, let’s take a closer look at depression.

What’s in a Name?

“Depression” is simply a label we give to people who have a depressed mood most of the time, have lost interest or pleasure in most activities, are fatigued, can’t sleep, have no interest in sex, feel hopeless and helpless, can’t think clearly or can’t make decisions.

But that label tells us nothing about the cause of those symptoms. In fact, there are dozens of causes of depression, each one needing a different approach to treatment. Depression is not one-size-fits-all, but it is very common.

Women have a 10-25 percent risk and men a 5-12 percent risk of developing severe major depression in their lifetime.² One in ten Americans takes an antidepressant. The use of these drugs has tripled in the last decade, according to a report by the federal government. In 2006, spending on antidepressants soared by 130 percent.

But just because antidepressants are popular doesn’t mean they’re helpful. Unfortunately, as we now see from this report in The New England Journal of Medicine, they don’t work and have significant side effects. Most patients taking antidepressants either don’t respond or have only partial response. In fact, success is considered just a 50 percent improvement in half of depressive symptoms. And this minimal result is achieved in less than half the patients taking antidepressants.

That’s a pretty dismal record. It’s only made worse by the fact that 86 percent of people taking antidepressants have one or more side effects, including sexual dysfunction, fatigue, insomnia, loss of mental abilities, nausea and weight gain.

No wonder half the people who try antidepressants quit after four months.

Despite what we have been brainwashed to believe, depression is not a Prozac deficiency!

How We Have Been Deceived by the Antidepressant Hoax

Despite what we have been brainwashed to believe, depression is not a Prozac deficiency!

Drug companies are not forced to publish all the results of their studies. They only publish those they want to. The team of researchers that reported their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine took a critical look at all the studies done on antidepressants, both published and unpublished. They dug up some serious dirt …

The unpublished studies were not easy to find. The researchers had to search the FDA databases, call researchers and hunt down hidden data under the Freedom of Information Act. What they found was stunning.

After looking at 74 studies involving 12 drugs and over 12,000 people, they discovered that 37 of 38 trials with positive results were published, while only 14 of 36 negative studies were published. Those that showed negative results were, in the words of the researchers, “published in a way that conveyed a positive outcome.”

That means the results were twisted to imply the drugs worked when they didn’t.

This isn’t just a problem with antidepressants. It’s a problem with scientific research. Some drug companies even pay or threaten scientists to not publish negative results on their drugs. So much for “evidence-based” medicine! I recently had dinner with a step-uncle who runs a company that designs research for drug companies. He designs the study, hires the researcher from an esteemed institution, directs the study and writes up the study, and the scientist just signs his or her name after reviewing it.

Most of the time, we only have the evidence that the drug companies want us to have. Both doctors and patients are deceived into putting billions of dollars into drug companies’ pockets, while leaving millions with the same health problems but less money.

The scientific trust is broken. What can we do? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. But I do think functional medicine, on which my approach of UltraWellness is based, provides a more intelligent way of understanding the research. Rather than using drugs to suppress symptoms, functional medicine helps us find the true causes of problems, including depression.

I see this in so many of the patients I have treated over the years. Just as the same things that make us sick also make us fat, the same things that make us sick also make us depressed. Fix the causes of sickness and the depression takes care of itself.

Here are a few things you can do to start treating your depression today.

Seven Steps to Treat Depression without Drugs

1. Try an anti-inflammatory elimination diet that gets rid of common food allergens. As I mentioned above, food allergies and the resultant inflammation have been connected with depression and other mood disorders.
2. Check for hypothyroidism. This unrecognized epidemic is a leading cause of depression. Make sure to have thorough thyroid exam if you are depressed.
3. Take vitamin D. Deficiency in this essential vitamin can lead to depression. Supplement with at least 2,000 to 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day.
4. Take omega-3 fats. Your brain is made of up this fat, and deficiency can lead to a host of problems. Supplement with 1,000 to 2,000 mg of purified fish oil a day. Consider a vegan source of omega-3 (such as this one).
5. Take adequate B12 (1,000 micrograms, or mcg, a day), B6 (25 mg) and folic acid (800 mcg). These vitamins are critical for metabolizing homocysteine, which can play a part in depression.
6. Get checked for mercury. Heavy metal toxicity has been correlated with depression and other mood and neurological problems.
7. Exercise vigorously five times a week for 30 minutes. This increases levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a natural antidepressant in your brain.

Overcoming depression is an important step toward lifelong vibrant health. These are just of few of the easiest and most effective things you can do to treat depression. For more information on how to optimize your health, see http://drhyman.com/.

Now I’d like to hear from you … Have you been diagnosed with depression? How have antidepressants worked for you? Do you plan to try any of the approaches mentioned here? Please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

References

1. Turner EH et al. 2007. Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy. N Engl J Med. 358: 252-260.

2.Eaton WW, Kalaydjian A, Scharfstein DO, Mezuk B, Ding Y. 2007. Prevalence and incidence of depressive disorder: the Baltimore ECA follow-up, 1981-2004. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 116(3):182-188.

Photo credit: walknboston

It’s time for a little week in review, hair snob-style. It’s time to determine which lady-of-the-public eye flaunted your favorite locks. From Rihanna’s explosive girls (I’m just glad she’s got rid of the red menace!) to Bar Refaeli’s California beach babe-style waves at the Dior Couture show to Emmy Rossum’s classic blowout at an appearance for Live! With Kelly, the ladies kept it long and loose this week.

Which celeb do you think has the ‘do of the week?

So Valentine’s Day is on the horizon like a shark in the water, and you don’t know what to get an important guy in your life. Well, I’ve got news for you: he wants to be pampered! While we may not admit it, guys like to feel and look good too! So here’s a go-to list for the modern man who could use a little love on the 14th.

1) The Art of Shaving Silvertip Badger Brush:
Every man needs a quality badger brush for when they shave, and this is the perfect one. To another male, the quality of a shave is not hard to perceive, and anything that produces less of a shadow is a necessity. Oh, and its design is attractive too, natch.
At Barneys New York for $180.

2) Yves Saint Laurent L’Homme After Shave Lotion:
So you got him that amazing brush. Now what? Well, he needs an awesome after shave lotion! L’Homme is personally one of my signature scents, and it is perfect and sexy for all hours of the day! Not too strong, but not subtle either, this is the ultra suave after shave every guy needs.
At Bergdorf Goodman for $48.

3) Clinique Anti-Fatigue Cooling Eye Gel:
Let’s face it: men like to go out, and sometimes, they don’t know their limits. We’ve all seen and felt this way at some point, but for some reason, it’s painful for the eyes (both his or hers and mine, since puffiness is not a good look). So Clinique came out with this magical product – a hangover cure for the eyes – that should be in every guys toolbox.
At Bergdorf Goodman for $26.

4) Byredo Loose Lips Candle:
They say that scent is the sexiest sense of the body. When activated by something pleasing, it changes the way you act and think, and men are not immune to this! Byredo, known for classic fragrances, also produces amazing candles. The luscious Loose Lips Candle (with strong notes of rose water, violet, morello cherry, rice powder and oris butter) will relax any guy’s nerves.
At Barneys New York for $65.

5) L.A Burdick Chocolate-Dipped Fruit:
And finally, the guilty pleasure for all: chocolate! Chocolate is a known antioxidant and is also known for reducing cholesterol and blood pressure. These healthy fruit “snacks” are sure to give your man a wonderful sugar high, and will keep him smiling for many a Valentine’s Day.
At Barneys New York for $46.

Evening primrose oil is known for its healing and moisturizing benefits. Kneipp’s Evening Primrose Intensive Balm, with its aromatic, light scent, is an intense and wonderfully soothing balm that heals the driest skin (like mine!). After bathing, I like to apply an oil (and this balm is certainly like oil) to seal in hydration and give myself a spa-like experience. Kneipp’s balm not only hydrates at the moment of application but also helps your skin retain moisture. With continued use, you can go a day without lotion (except, why would you?) and your skin will still feel supple. Along with primrose, it has sweet almond and jojoba oils.

But there is one odd ingredient: urea. Now, if I know my #foodiesproblems, urea is the cause of gout. Too much protein intake creates too much uric acid in the body, and that is not a good thing (it causes painful swelling in the joints). But apparently, it is great for the skin – especially problem areas like elbows and knees, and skin issues, like eczema. So, for those of us with dry or sensitive skin, this is the antidote! On SpaLook for $26.

Today marks my official merging of this blog with the Food Budget Challenge, a project that I stumbled upon through Katy’s blog months ago, and knew I wouldn’t even have time to contemplate signing up for until after December yarn craziness was over.  So, here we go.


As the name might imply, the budget I’m setting for myself is six dollars a day.  The way I generally apportion this out is monthly rather than weekly, keeping a “remaining for the month” balance as I go.


Contrary to what the name might imply, I am actually aiming for a grocery budget of $150 a month (~$5/day), which assumes that about $30 (the extra $1/day) each month will be spent on quick eats out, like burritos after work on the way to a show, or Hot Wok from New Seasons if I wasn’t able to make lunch for work that day.  


I do keep a separate “dining out” budget, which is excluded from my grocery budget — about $80 a month, or one medium-nice meal per week.


Oh, and for the record, it’s just me in the home, operating on this budget.  I do have friends over for dinner pretty often (one to two times per week), but almost equally am invited over to their houses or for “family dinner” potlucks among our group of friends, so I think it all evens out in the end!


Alrighty, so last week of the month, here we go:

Fred Meyer
2 cans sliced olives: $2.18
bell peppers: $2.50
1 pineapple: $2.99 — to cut up and bring with me to work for afternoon snacking
butternut squash: $2.08 — I’m thinking about a sesame squash/quinoa/spinach salad for work lunches this week
cucumber: $1.99 — to slice on hard boiled egg sandwiches on homemade bread for lunch
organic lettuce: $1.99
TOTAL: $13.73
Remaining for the month: $17.66


Here’s one of my favorite one-dish meals to make for the week — it’s quick, delicious, and yields tons of leftovers to bring for work lunches, which I like to alternate with yummy sandwiches on homemade bread (or, eat the sandwich for lunch and save the leftovers for dinner if I have to work late).  I make it with whatever veggies and protein I have on hand, and it always works out.


This time, I started by dicing up half a fresh jalapeno.

Then, thick slices of some crimini mushrooms, and a chicken-feta-spinach sausage from New Seasons (I keep these frozen and on hand for quick meals like this one), which I sliced up, still frozen, and sauteed up in some olive oil in a big pan, with the mushrooms and jalapeno.  While this is sauteeing, I add my go-to seasoning base of salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast, plus a few shakes of some herbs de provence (or whatever green dried herbs you have on hand).

Once all these ingredients had browned, I tossed in 1 cup of orzo, and let it absorb the oils a bit, before adding water — I’m not exact here, since I just let the dish cook until the water is evaporated, but enough to cover the ingredients by an inch or two.


I put the lid on the pan and let this all simmer on medium-low, and in the meantime, chopped up a bunch of collard greens.

The easiest way to do this is to take a chef’s knife and make a slice down either side of the ribs of each leaf, removing the thick stalk.  If I’ve got a soup or stew coming up I’ll save these to throw in, but otherwise I’m not a huge fan of these so I compost them.


I wait until most of the liquid has been absorbed into the orzo…

And then chop up the greens into 1″ squares, and throw them in.

Cover with the lid for another 5 minutes, just enough to let the greens wilt and get bright green, then finish seasoning with salt and pepper and a little bit of lemon juice.

Typical of many of my Tuesdays, I was busy making not only this but prepping food for the rest of my week (my work week starts on Wednesdays, so this is when I really go at it and try to make enough food to last me through Sunday night, having to cook maybe only one additional night each week).  


So tonight I cooked up not only this orzo dish, but also some curried-carrot-parsnip-rutabega soup, a loaf of fresh whole wheat herb bread, some syrupy black beans with cumin and paprika (to accompany brown rice and veggies which I’ll prep some morning this week before work), and a fresh batch of earl grey kombucha.

Emily Levenson
Dairy-Free Cooking
Test Kitchen Tuesday
Red Pen Mama
Acquired Tastes
Fit Flexitarian
Warm As Pie 
Katy Rank Lev
My Inner Healthy
Little Blue Hen
xox, b
What da Health?
Project Food Budget 2.0
Fresh…A New Chapter
Chandeleah
Two Eggs Over Easy 
That’s Just Me
Eat Whole Be Vital
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Naturally {Un}refined
Pgh Dad  
yogabeautylife
Charmingly Modern
naMAMAste

Photo by Eddi van W.

By Srinivas Rao

In the earliest days of our childhood we spent a good amount of time doing creative things. We were continually building and creating things like lego castles, forts made of household items, and works of art. Somewhere along the way the importance of this takes a backseat and it’s written off as “that’s a good hobby, but not something you do to make a living.”

Before long we stop creating and turn into sponges that absorb information that is rarely put to use. We go through the motions, doing what we’re told, and are left scratching our heads as to why we’re so bored with everything in your lives. We don’t realize that our creative capacity is fundamentally important to doing something the matters in the world.

Have you ever noticed how the summer used to last forever when you were a kid and how time seems to fly when you’re an adult? Well, when you’re a kid a three month summer is a much larger fraction of your life and when you’re adult it’s much smaller. So if it seems like it’s going much faster that’s because it is. You’ve probably heard that every one of us has an inner child, the person inside us that never wants to grow up, our inner Peter Pan. As adults we’re so busy taking life so seriously we don’t give enough thought to tapping into our inner child.

The beautiful thing is that you have your inner child at your complete disposal. When was the last time you went to a toy store? When was the last time you went on all the rides at a carnival? When was the last time you acted like you were five instead of fifty? The beauty of this is it’s your opportunity to live as if you don’t have a care or a worry in the world, even it is for a brief moment in time.

Creating for the Sake of Creating

In adult life, it seems that everything we do has to have a purpose. We have to be able to answer the question why. Ask a kid why he’s building a lego castle and he’ll probably look at you like you’ve lost your mind. He’s building it because he feels like it and enjoys it. I think we need more of this mindset in our adult lives.

A few years ago I had a roommate who was absolutely brilliant and what some people might call crazy. But one thing I always appreciated about her was her need to create things that had no purpose. There was never a dull moment living with her. If you want to see an example check out the absolutely ridiculous parody music video on a Bollywood movie she and I made.” We need to do more creating for the sake of creating. You don’t need a reason to create.

Here are a couple of ideas for you:

• Build a castle made out of Legos
• Start a DIY furniture project
• Plant a Garden
• Paint a Portrait
• Make a Coffee Table Book With Your Own Photos

There’s an incredible sense of fulfillment in building something that you can be proud of. It’s something where you can directly see the impact of your work and it’s an important part of life that we lost sight of somewhere in our journey through childhood.

So, what are you going to start building today?

Audio books are an excellent way to make the most of your time. You can listen to them while driving, exercising or doing chores around the home. Audible is the largest seller of audio books online with more than 100,000 titles currently available. Audible currently has a special offer that allows you to download one free audio book.

Try Audible Now and Get A Free Audio Book Download with a 14 Day Trial.

Washington, D.C. has been ranked the most literate city in America—the second year in a row it's snagged the title. Since 2003, the annual study of America's Most Literate Cities has crunched numbers on six key literacy indicators: "newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and internet resources" in cities with a population of 250,000 people or more.

But this year, study author Dr. John Miller dug deeper. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, compared his literacy data with income figures from the U.S. Census to find out if there's any correlation between a city's wealth and its literacy.

Apparently, money can't buy literacy. Miller says he "learned that wealthier cites are no more likely to rank highly in literacy than poorer cities." Take Cleveland—though the hard-hit city has the second lowest median family income of all cities in the survey, its library system is one of the best in the country. Cleveland also boasts the sixth highest newspaper readership and ranks fifth in magazine circulations. Despite its economic troubles, the city ranked 13th in literacy overall.

In comparison, Anchorage has the fifth-highest median family income, but ranks 61st in literacy. The rise of the Occupy movement has increased our awareness of income inequality across the United States. Even the poorest cities can help close the gap by investing in public education and literacy resources. Although "poverty has a strong impact on educational attainment," Miller says, cities that are "truly committed to literacy" can find a way to "create and sustain rich resources for reading." 

Check out this year's 20 most literate cities:

Photo via (cc) Flickr user Friar's Balsam.

Comedian Mark Malkoff needed a place to crash in L.A. But instead of couch-surfing like a normal human being, he decided to accost local celebrities, asking them to let him sleep over. Malkoff’s “Celebrity Sleepovers” features comedic cameos from actors like Rob Corddry, Kristen Schal, Camryn Manheim, Larry King, Ed Begley Jr., Steven Weber, Dave Coulier, Paul Feig and more as he attempts to create a slumber-themed edition of Stars: They’re Just Like Us.

American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance? have turned ordinary people, however briefly, into stars, making the rest of us wonder if maybe we could find our 15 minutes. A year and a half ago, one of the minds behind those shows decided to create a new type of star. Sharon Chang, the former chief creative officer of 19 Entertainment, is channelling her skills to promote social entrepreneurs.

Chang founded Yoxi TV, a company that handpicks media-shy nonprofit types and transforms them into what Chang calls “social innovation rock stars.”

Social innovation rock stars, Yoxi’s website says, “are original thinkers, creative problem-solvers, and fearless leaders who care about creating lasting social value. The world needs them to have more visibility and influence, so we do our part by helping them reach a mainstream audience.”  

What’s the point of making do-gooders hot? To make social innovation trendy and, in turn, inspire a generation, Chang says. “[The nonprofit world] seems to be lacking a lot of marketing savvy and can get pretty dogmatic about their approach, sticking to a particular way of fundraising,” she says. “You’re talking about selling ideas to get people to do things, [w]hether it’s buying a product or getting addicted to a show or movie, it’s about an intrinsic motivation, a desire to want to be a part of something. And not being lectured into feeling guilty about not doing something.”

Rather than starting with issues like labor rights, gender equity or environmental conservation, Yoxi wants to promote individuals who embody those issues. Essentially, “star qualities” draw people in, and the issues embodied by the characters become magnetic.

Like all marketing, it’s a bit manipulative, but a little iconography could be just what people need to be persuaded to do good. If Steven Tyler and Jennifer Love Hewitt can get people to wear feathered hair extensions, then getting people to think social causes are cool should be easy. “[We] meet with the social innovation rock star we want to represent and we conduct a lot of research and strategy sessions with them,” Chang says. “We say: ‘Ok, look, what are some of the most creative projects you can do?’”

Yoxi’s website invites visitors to view the group's band of rock stars. The leader of the band is probably Chid Liberty, the charismatic co-founder of a social enterprise called Liberty and Justice, which trains and employs women at a Fair Trade garment factory in Monrovia, Liberia. Chang plans to make Liberty the star of a new reality TV show. (From a branding perspective, Chang told Liberty she worried about the term “factory” and initially encouraged him to rebrand it. He declined.)

The show, which has not been filmed yet, will be a bit like The Apprentice, Chang says, but rather than Donald Trump, Liberty will be the judge. The high-stakes, high-drama show will be shot in Liberia, one of the poorest nations in the world.

Contestants—local, diaspora, and expatriate entrepreneurs—will battle it out for mentoring and funding to start their businesses in Liberia, a country with an unemployment rate that hovers around 80 percent. “We’re going to get all these ideas together from an online platform, do a final casting, get sponsorship, make an announcement, go to Liberia, and shoot,” Chang says. The judge will use “his expertise and cultural sensibility [to] help select the next generation of entrepreneurs and help them secure funding through the show. So we’re creating a competition, literally.” Chang says one of Liberty’s strengths is “he embodies a lot of issues: labor issues, fair trade, women’s rights, health, manufacturing, a lot of things.”

Yoxi's interest in the show concept is part of being what Chang calls a "for-value company." "We don't waste time debating whether we should be for-profit or non-profit, we simply focus on creating shared value for all," Yoxi’s website says. Chang says the company is technically a nonprofit at this point, but could become hybrid model in the future.

Creating a reality TV show and shining the spotlight on social innovators the way you would an up-and-coming musician is a new concept. Chang says she always had an “icky feeling” being around the advertising world, where so much time, money, and resources go into selling products. Now she wants to market something of value to the world.

But there are reasons for sticking to the issues, not the faces. By approaching social change using models from the entertainment and advertising worlds, there’s one thing Yoxi is leaving out: equal opportunity. Chang admits that when casting for the show, she will take superficial qualities into account. “If I’m looking at 10 entrepreneurs with equal qualification and equal potential, and three of them look better, have better style, I will work with those three first because I think I stand a higher chance of putting them to the foreground and shining a spotlight on them so they can become examples for other people to follow,” she says. “And I’d rather place my bet there first.”

This approach may make nonprofit types—or anyone who believes in a meritocracy—feel a bit “icky” too. Because of good looks, style, and a charismatic personality, an aspiring social entrepreneur might ultimately benefit from massive funding to start a business, not to mention a moment in the spotlight. While Chang was hesitant to reveal her estimate of how much the winner could earn, she says “funding should be quite significant.”

But Chang doesn’t find this approach shameful; she finds it realistic. Pop culture is driven by superficial qualities, and Chang says she would rather exploit those qualities for a good purpose than wait around for people to change. “We live in a society where people are obsessed with vanity, with fame, with celebrity,” she says. “This is not something we can change overnight… it would be more useful for us not to try to fight that.”

Chang anticipates criticism and admits her project is controversial, but she’s not going to let that stop her.

“I don’t think we can accomplish anything by being afraid, so we just have to go with it.”

This is the sixth story in our series on social enterprise in Africa by Laura Burke, a reporter based in Cote d'Ivoire.

Photo courtesy of Sharon Chang

Abortion is safer than giving birth, according to a new study—but we already knew that. The study, published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, compiled existing data to find that women are 15 times more likely to die in childbirth than they are during an abortion. About 1 in 11,000 women die giving birth, compared to the 1 in 167,000 women who die while undergoing legal abortions.

The pairing of the data is conspicuous—in the developed world, both childbirth and legal abortions are relatively safe procedures, and few women make reproductive health decisions on the basis of remote possibility of death. In both abortion and childbirth, the risk of death generally only influences a woman's decision in extreme cases—when the life of the mother is endangered by a problem pregnancy, for example, or when a woman is forced to secure an unsafe abortion in a place where it is not legal or accessible. Big-picture numbers hardly come into play.

Women should have access to the best data available to inform their reproductive health decisions, whether they use it or not. But this study is more political move than it is public service. State legislators often cite abortion's health risks when lobbying to increase restrictions on the procedure—whether by over-regulating abortion facilities or considering fetuses people. Of course, these laws are really predicated on moral arguments, not scientific ones. If the scientific community establishes that their numbers are wrong, they will find new numbers.

Anti-abortion rights activists are already getting a head start. "Study Claiming Abortion Safer Than Birth Totally Misleading," one said. The study is biased, said another. Even mainstream outlets are capitulating to the political posturing over the hard data. The Huffington Post called the study "controversial." TIME's report begins: "Abortions are considered high-risk, but…"

The defensive framing of this study may be necessary to combat political claims that abortion is "high-risk." But it also helps to drum up a false dichotomy between women who choose to have abortions and those who choose to give birth. Reproductive choice is not a number's game—women choose based on a number of personal factors, of which risk of death is only one. And they do not always choose the same way. Most women who undergo abortions are mothers already.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user jessica.diamond

Everyone knows restaurants' portions are out of control—they're usually two to four times the recommended meal size, and they're growing every decade. Meanwhile, almost half the food produced in the United States today is thrown away—including $44 billion worth in the retail industry—while 50 million people  in the U.S. experience food insecurity or malnutrition. This triangle affects everything from obesity rates to ballooning waste-disposal costs to every person who can't afford to eat properly.

Enter Go Halfsies, a new social initiative that's tackling these three depressing, interrelated problems at the same time. Halfsies plans to partner with local restaurants, beginning in Austin and New York City, that will designate a certain portion of their menu to the initiative. When a customer chooses a meal with a "go halfsies" symbol, she'll pay full price while receiving only half of the portion. Ninety percent of the proceeds are donated to support the fight against hunger. 

It's a piecemeal solution—what about all the leftover-lovers?—but it's certainly a start. And it could encourage long-term good habits, too; besides feeling good about an individual purchase, a patron may discover that a whittled-down portion suits him just fine. Eventually, perhaps that'll be enough to convince restaurants to stop wasting food in the first place, even without a "go halfsies" symbol.

Last year, a controversial academic report-turned book touched off a debate over whether college is worth the money. The book presented years of data showing that students' critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and writing skills don't improve in college because many of them aren’t required to devote much time to their studies.

Now, the book's authors, NYU sociology and education professor Richard Arum and University of Virginia sociology professor Josipa Roksa, are back with a follow-up study showing that the lowest-performing students from Academically Adrift are more likely to be unemployed, have large amounts of credit-card debt, and be financially reliant on their parents after graduating from college.

Students surveyed in Academically Adrift took the Collegiate Learning Assessment, which measures skills and competencies that "matter for many important early-adult life-course outcomes" and "successful adult transitions," Arum told Inside Higher Ed. He said he was stunned to discover that 9.6 percent of graduates who scored in the bottom 20 percent on the CLA were unemployed in spring 2011, compared to the 3.1 percent of grads who scored in the top quintile. A whopping 35 percent of poor CLA performers moved back to their parents' homes after graduation, compared to 18 percent of top scorers. And more than 51 percent of low scorers had significant credit card debt, compared to 37 percent of high performers.

Phil Gardner, director of research for the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University, told Inside Higher Ed he wasn't surprised by the findings. Today's college students "don't have a sense of why they're there," and "don’t have to put as much effort into college" because they aren't held accountable for their performance. Gardner says if they want young people to survive in this economy, "universities have to put a little more resources up front and get these kids to understand what it means to be a professional and what’s going to be expected of them."

It makes sense that students used to receiving a rubber stamp on assignments without much effort will have a tough time succeeding later in life. But when students complain about professors who require them to participate in class and complete real assignments, faculty members hoping to receive tenure are put in a tough spot. It's time for colleges to move away from an education model that treats students as consumers and start ensuring graduates walk away with more than just a piece of paper. 

Photo via (cc) Flickr user velkr0

Buildings eat up a huge amount of energy—about two-fifths of the country’s total use—so to suppress their appetite for power, efficiency entrepreneurs are churning out a suite of nifty technologies, like automatically shading windows, smarter thermostats, and high-tech heating and cooling systems. But a new report from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Green Lab concludes that constructing new, energy-efficient buildings almost never saves as much energy as renovating old ones.

Renovated buildings outperformed new buildings on energy savings in every category: single-family homes, multifamily complexes, commercial offices, “urban village” mixed-use structures, and elementary schools. Though the conclusion may seem counterintuitive in an age of ambitious LEED standards in many new buildings, consider that it uses more energy and creates more impact to construct an entirely new building than to fix up one of the same size for the same purpose. The only exception to the lab’s finding was converting a warehouse to a multi-family dwelling, which required enough extra materials that creating a new building was the greener choice.

The report doesn’t take into account the costs associated with renovations and new construction, but green builders say fixer-uppers are often the more economical choice, too. “It costs less to take an existing building and renovate that to build a new one, at least on the projects I’ve worked on,” says Helen Kessler, a board member of the Illinois chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. She cautions, though, that these comparisons vary from building to building: “There’s always an “it depends” about this."

One goal of the report was to make the case for building reuse as smart development practice, an option that is often overlooked. For green-minded preservationists, the data in the report gives heft to long-held beliefs: As TreeHugger’s Lloyd Alter puts it, “As a writer about sustainable design [the report] backs up the arguments I have been making for years, and as a preservation activist, it gives me and everyone in the movement the ammunition we need to demonstrate that old buildings are green.”

But the report’s data doesn’t offer any insight into a perennial problem with old buildings: They’re short. While it might make not make environmental sense to replace an old two-story building with a new two-story building, what if the replacement is an energy-efficient seven-story structure that's accessible via public transit? To address these questions, the report’s authors call for more research into “the relationship between density and environmental impacts as it relates to building reuse versus new construction.” That rather dry formulation glosses over a real point of contention between preservationists and advocates for density, who often support creating a LEED-certified 12-story building where a four-story charmer once stood.

But as Kessler puts it, there’s always an "it depends." In some cases, the space in old building can be put to better use: Ashley Katz, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Green Building Council, points to the Treasury Department’s newly LEED-certified historic headquarters, where renovations added 164 “workstations." And the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Kaid Benfield argues that more density doesn’t necessarily require building the tallest skyscrapers possible. “To increase density enough to make a difference, we don’t always need to maximize it,” he writes. “Much of the time a moderate amount of human-scaled urbanism will be far more appropriate than a high-rise.”

In cases in which there’s no question of trade-offs, though—if, for example, a family plans to knock down an old house to build a new one of the same size with all the latest efficiency accoutrements—renovating is always the better choice.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user Rob Young

In our Dealbreakers series, exes report on the habit, belief, or boxer brief that ended the affair.

The first time we had a conversation outside the confines of our student newspaper office, I told him I wanted to figure him out.

“You’re a tough nut to crack,” I said. “I like that. It feels like a challenge.”

If I have a type (I later learned that I definitely have a type), he embodied it perfectly: reserved but not shy, just playing his cards close to the vest. He seemed perplexed by my incessant questions about his life and would never give more information than was required. When I asked where he grew up, he said he had lived in the same house for almost his entire life, leaving out the fact that his mother had recently sold his childhood home after his parents’ traumatic divorce and he was planning to help her move out a couple of weeks later. When I confessed a head-over-heels crush the next semester, my nerves causing me to talk way too much and way too fast, he calmly responded he was interested in me as well. He used no more than 10 words.

For the first several months, I treated him like a reporting project. Every revelation about what he was actually thinking or feeling felt like a hard-earned victory. He was more of a challenge than I thought. He was a numbers guy, and he approached relationships with the same dispassionate logic he would any other equation. Over time, I needed to ask fewer and fewer questions to get at the heart of the matter, but he still rarely volunteered anything. Including his feelings about me.

I can count on one hand the number of times he told me I looked beautiful, or even “nice.” Most of them were a direct result of me baiting him. “You look so handsome,” I’d say when he put on his best-fitting slacks and my favorite pink button-down in advance of a dinner date. “I feel so outclassed!”

“No, no,” he’d say. “You look nice too.”

It wasn’t just the shallow stuff. Journalists crave positive feedback as validation that the hours we’ve spent covering mind-numbing school board meetings or staring at blank Word documents have been worth it. As he became the most important person in my life, he became the one whose approval I most craved. But he almost never read my work. Usually, that made perfect sense: For years, I covered education policy, local governments, and big-money philanthropists—hardly scintillating material for people who didn’t have kids, live in the suburbs, or have a vested interest in who was donating money to whom.

But even when my newspaper ran a huge feature story I’d worked on for weeks, even when I wrote long pieces about life in Baghdad when I was stationed there covering the war, he rarely read my articles unless I asked him to. Once, when I told him over a crappy satellite phone connection that I was upset he hadn’t read an A1 centerpiece I wrote about Iraq’s emerging black market for real estate, he said he didn’t understand the complaint. “Why do I need to read the story?” he asked genuinely. “You told me all about it last time we talked.”

It’s not that the lack of compliments made me doubt his feelings for me. He gave the best hugs, ones that communicated how much he meant it. He called me loving pet names and gave thoughtful gifts. We could talk about any subject for hours on end, and after the first year or so he even began trusting me enough to reveal more than what was on the surface. I was in love with him, and for most of the time we were together, I didn’t have any serious doubts that he was in love with me.

Yet his reticence turned me into someone I didn’t want to be—an insecure woman who fishes for compliments. I pouted when he didn’t remark on something I wanted him to notice, and then I felt badly about myself for being that girl. I bought items of clothing I didn’t like that much because I thought he would like them, then shoved them to the back of the drawer when he didn’t comment. Rather than adjusting to his ways over time, I became more frustrated with my inability to elicit approval. We’d have stupid arguments over why he never said “I love you” first—if I knew he loved me, what was the point of him saying it all the time?

The dynamic made it difficult to see when the relationship started going south. Was he acting weird, or was I being paranoid again? Were we having less sex because we weren’t attracted to each other anymore, or because my insecurities had built up to the point of impossibility? Honestly, I still don’t know.

In the end, we couldn’t agree on how to split up, either. He called things off, then immediately flew away for an extended stay with his family to avoid talking about it further (he had secretly booked the ticket three days earlier). When he returned, he had no qualms about continuing to live together while he scouted new apartments, because it was more convenient that way. I had begun to mentally prepare myself for the breakup, but I fought the cool, detached way he executed it. When it came time to divide our things, he produced a spreadsheet.

Part of me still feels like I was in the wrong, like it’s needy and narcissistic to demand compliments from your partner when he’s communicating love and affection the best way he knows how. But when you make a living stringing words together for maximum impact, you tend to be committed to the idea that words matter. I wanted to be told as well as shown that I was smart and desirable and maybe even beautiful. It turns out that for me, love can’t be left unspoken.

In a time of continued economic uncertainty, Americans' priorities are shifting, according to MetLife's fifth annual survey of American ideals. They are less concerned with professional success and the trappings of material wealth, instead aspiring to a greater sense of personal fulfillment.

Things are easier said than done, or so the old adage goes, and we couldn't agree more. That's why we do The GOOD 30-Day Challenge (#30DaysofGOOD), a monthly attempt to live better. Our challenge for January? Financial fitness.

Make a wish list to curb impulse buys.

We’ve all suffered from a bout of buyer’s regret. Turns out that sweater you just couldn't live without isn’t quite as perfect without the blinding lights of the fitting-room mirror. Within a week it’s taken residence in your closet, right alongside other long-forgotten purchases. That’s why today’s task is to help curb those occasional impulse buys.

You’ve already made a list of what you need; it’s time to make a wish list to help you decide what you really want. A new bicycle? A flight to New York? By setting clear, big-picture goals, you’ll have them in the back of your mind every time you’re tempted to buy the latest and greatest cat hairbrush. You’ll have a heightened awareness of all the traps of checkout-line extras and charming salesman.

Be wary of the buy one, get one free deal. Were you really intending to purchase it in the first place? Don’t be tempted to throw a few needless things into your cart to reach $100 just so you can get that 10 percent off. Stay strong, stand your ground, and remember your goals!

It takes nothing more than a split-second burst of willpower. Gather your courage and walk away, knowing every bit saved is a step toward getting what you really desire. And when the time comes to check something off your wish list, you can make the purchase guilt-free. You’ve earned it!

So take a few minutes and make your wish list. Don’t be afraid to think big! It’ll keep you focused and motivated, so you can recognize an impulse buy for what it is.

Come back tomorrow for the next task in our financial fitness challenge.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user jovike

Washington, D.C. has been ranked the most literate city in America—the second year in a row it's snagged the title. Since 2003, the annual study of America's Most Literate Cities has crunched numbers on six key literacy indicators: "newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and internet resources" in cities with a population of 250,000 people or more.

But this year, study author Dr. John Miller dug deeper. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, compared his literacy data with income figures from the U.S. Census to find out if there's any correlation between a city's wealth and its literacy.

Apparently, money can't buy literacy. Miller says he "learned that wealthier cites are no more likely to rank highly in literacy than poorer cities." Take Cleveland—though the hard-hit city has the second lowest median family income of all cities in the survey, its library system is one of the best in the country. Cleveland also boasts the sixth highest newspaper readership and ranks fifth in magazine circulations. Despite its economic troubles, the city ranked 13th in literacy overall.

In comparison, Anchorage has the fifth-highest median family income, but ranks 61st in literacy. The rise of the Occupy movement has increased our awareness of income inequality across the United States. Even the poorest cities can help close the gap by investing in public education and literacy resources. Although "poverty has a strong impact on educational attainment," Miller says, cities that are "truly committed to literacy" can find a way to "create and sustain rich resources for reading." 

Check out this year's 20 most literate cities:

Photo via (cc) Flickr user Friar's Balsam.

Comedian Mark Malkoff needed a place to crash in L.A. But instead of couch-surfing like a normal human being, he decided to accost local celebrities, asking them to let him sleep over. Malkoff’s “Celebrity Sleepovers” features comedic cameos from actors like Rob Corddry, Kristen Schal, Camryn Manheim, Larry King, Ed Begley Jr., Steven Weber, Dave Coulier, Paul Feig and more as he attempts to create a slumber-themed edition of Stars: They’re Just Like Us.

American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance? have turned ordinary people, however briefly, into stars, making the rest of us wonder if maybe we could find our 15 minutes. A year and a half ago, one of the minds behind those shows decided to create a new type of star. Sharon Chang, the former chief creative officer of 19 Entertainment, is channelling her skills to promote social entrepreneurs.

Chang founded Yoxi TV, a company that handpicks media-shy nonprofit types and transforms them into what Chang calls “social innovation rock stars.”

Social innovation rock stars, Yoxi’s website says, “are original thinkers, creative problem-solvers, and fearless leaders who care about creating lasting social value. The world needs them to have more visibility and influence, so we do our part by helping them reach a mainstream audience.”  

What’s the point of making do-gooders hot? To make social innovation trendy and, in turn, inspire a generation, Chang says. “[The nonprofit world] seems to be lacking a lot of marketing savvy and can get pretty dogmatic about their approach, sticking to a particular way of fundraising,” she says. “You’re talking about selling ideas to get people to do things, [w]hether it’s buying a product or getting addicted to a show or movie, it’s about an intrinsic motivation, a desire to want to be a part of something. And not being lectured into feeling guilty about not doing something.”

Rather than starting with issues like labor rights, gender equity or environmental conservation, Yoxi wants to promote individuals who embody those issues. Essentially, “star qualities” draw people in, and the issues embodied by the characters become magnetic.

Like all marketing, it’s a bit manipulative, but a little iconography could be just what people need to be persuaded to do good. If Steven Tyler and Jennifer Love Hewitt can get people to wear feathered hair extensions, then getting people to think social causes are cool should be easy. “[We] meet with the social innovation rock star we want to represent and we conduct a lot of research and strategy sessions with them,” Chang says. “We say: ‘Ok, look, what are some of the most creative projects you can do?’”

Yoxi’s website invites visitors to view the group's band of rock stars. The leader of the band is probably Chid Liberty, the charismatic co-founder of a social enterprise called Liberty and Justice, which trains and employs women at a Fair Trade garment factory in Monrovia, Liberia. Chang plans to make Liberty the star of a new reality TV show. (From a branding perspective, Chang told Liberty she worried about the term “factory” and initially encouraged him to rebrand it. He declined.)

The show, which has not been filmed yet, will be a bit like The Apprentice, Chang says, but rather than Donald Trump, Liberty will be the judge. The high-stakes, high-drama show will be shot in Liberia, one of the poorest nations in the world.

Contestants—local, diaspora, and expatriate entrepreneurs—will battle it out for mentoring and funding to start their businesses in Liberia, a country with an unemployment rate that hovers around 80 percent. “We’re going to get all these ideas together from an online platform, do a final casting, get sponsorship, make an announcement, go to Liberia, and shoot,” Chang says. The judge will use “his expertise and cultural sensibility [to] help select the next generation of entrepreneurs and help them secure funding through the show. So we’re creating a competition, literally.” Chang says one of Liberty’s strengths is “he embodies a lot of issues: labor issues, fair trade, women’s rights, health, manufacturing, a lot of things.”

Yoxi's interest in the show concept is part of being what Chang calls a "for-value company." "We don't waste time debating whether we should be for-profit or non-profit, we simply focus on creating shared value for all," Yoxi’s website says. Chang says the company is technically a nonprofit at this point, but could become hybrid model in the future.

Creating a reality TV show and shining the spotlight on social innovators the way you would an up-and-coming musician is a new concept. Chang says she always had an “icky feeling” being around the advertising world, where so much time, money, and resources go into selling products. Now she wants to market something of value to the world.

But there are reasons for sticking to the issues, not the faces. By approaching social change using models from the entertainment and advertising worlds, there’s one thing Yoxi is leaving out: equal opportunity. Chang admits that when casting for the show, she will take superficial qualities into account. “If I’m looking at 10 entrepreneurs with equal qualification and equal potential, and three of them look better, have better style, I will work with those three first because I think I stand a higher chance of putting them to the foreground and shining a spotlight on them so they can become examples for other people to follow,” she says. “And I’d rather place my bet there first.”

This approach may make nonprofit types—or anyone who believes in a meritocracy—feel a bit “icky” too. Because of good looks, style, and a charismatic personality, an aspiring social entrepreneur might ultimately benefit from massive funding to start a business, not to mention a moment in the spotlight. While Chang was hesitant to reveal her estimate of how much the winner could earn, she says “funding should be quite significant.”

But Chang doesn’t find this approach shameful; she finds it realistic. Pop culture is driven by superficial qualities, and Chang says she would rather exploit those qualities for a good purpose than wait around for people to change. “We live in a society where people are obsessed with vanity, with fame, with celebrity,” she says. “This is not something we can change overnight… it would be more useful for us not to try to fight that.”

Chang anticipates criticism and admits her project is controversial, but she’s not going to let that stop her.

“I don’t think we can accomplish anything by being afraid, so we just have to go with it.”

This is the sixth story in our series on social enterprise in Africa by Laura Burke, a reporter based in Cote d'Ivoire.

Photo courtesy of Sharon Chang

Abortion is safer than giving birth, according to a new study—but we already knew that. The study, published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, compiled existing data to find that women are 15 times more likely to die in childbirth than they are during an abortion. About 1 in 11,000 women die giving birth, compared to the 1 in 167,000 women who die while undergoing legal abortions.

The pairing of the data is conspicuous—in the developed world, both childbirth and legal abortions are relatively safe procedures, and few women make reproductive health decisions on the basis of remote possibility of death. In both abortion and childbirth, the risk of death generally only influences a woman's decision in extreme cases—when the life of the mother is endangered by a problem pregnancy, for example, or when a woman is forced to secure an unsafe abortion in a place where it is not legal or accessible. Big-picture numbers hardly come into play.

Women should have access to the best data available to inform their reproductive health decisions, whether they use it or not. But this study is more political move than it is public service. State legislators often cite abortion's health risks when lobbying to increase restrictions on the procedure—whether by over-regulating abortion facilities or considering fetuses people. Of course, these laws are really predicated on moral arguments, not scientific ones. If the scientific community establishes that their numbers are wrong, they will find new numbers.

Anti-abortion rights activists are already getting a head start. "Study Claiming Abortion Safer Than Birth Totally Misleading," one said. The study is biased, said another. Even mainstream outlets are capitulating to the political posturing over the hard data. The Huffington Post called the study "controversial." TIME's report begins: "Abortions are considered high-risk, but…"

The defensive framing of this study may be necessary to combat political claims that abortion is "high-risk." But it also helps to drum up a false dichotomy between women who choose to have abortions and those who choose to give birth. Reproductive choice is not a number's game—women choose based on a number of personal factors, of which risk of death is only one. And they do not always choose the same way. Most women who undergo abortions are mothers already.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user jessica.diamond