Category Archives: health & happiness

are you happy?

19 Saturday Apr 2008

Posted by in health & happiness, life stuff

≈ 11 Comments

Well, are you? If so, how do you know? What makes you happy?

I came across this list of questions about happiness on an h2g2 ‘talking point’ and thought they would make for a good starting place to discuss some thoughts and ideas about what happiness and being happy means to us.

  1. Are you basically a happy person?
  2. Can you learn happiness? Is it a skill?
  3. Are some people just born under a dark cloud?
  4. For the terminally miserable, is happiness just a phase that some people are going through?
  5. Can a dyed-in-the-wool unhappy chappy suddenly wake up one morning to find that they’ve turned happy?
  6. Are ‘things’ underrated? Can material stuff bring long-lasting happiness?
  7. Is good health the secret of all happiness?
  8. Is loneliness the root of all unhappiness?
  9. Is being happy actually a bit boring and overrated?

Feel free to deviate from the questions and/or add some of your own…

vitamins may shorten life?

18 Friday Apr 2008

Posted by in health & happiness, life stuff

≈ 11 Comments

Vitamins May Shorten Your Life

Research has suggested certain vitamin supplements do not extend life and could even lead to a premature death.

But the Health Supplements Information Service, which is funded by the association which represents those who sell supplements, said many people were simply not able to get everything they needed from their diet.

“For the millions who are not able to do that, vitamins can be a useful supplement and they should not stop taking them,” said spokeswoman Pamela Mason.

Not able to get everything they need from their diet? Yet they can afford expensive supplements? Yeah right.

I’ve always thought that taking vitamin supplements were a waste of money, not to mention the false sense of security it gives people who can’t be bothered to eat properly, as apparently your body just pisses away most of them. It’s interesting to read here that some may also have an adverse effect on your health.

What do you think?

fat is dead

01 Tuesday Apr 2008

Posted by in food & drink, health & happiness

≈ 18 Comments

fat-is-dead1.jpg

New Nietzschean Diet Lets You Eat Whatever You Fear Most

NEW YORK—While dieters are accustomed to exercises of will, a new English translation of Germany’s most popular diet book takes the concept to a new philosophical level. The Nietzschean diet, which commands its adherents to eat superhuman amounts of whatever they most fear, is developing a strong following in America.

Fat Is Dead, proclaims the ambitious title of the dense, aphoristic nutrition plan, which was written by Friedrich Nietzsche in the late 1880s and unearthed three years ago. After reaching bestseller lists in Europe, the book was translated into English by R.J. Hollingdale and published by Avon last month.

“One must strive to eat dangerously as one comes into the Will to Power Oneself Thin,” Nietzsche wrote. “What do you fear? By this are you truly Fattened. You must embrace your Fears, as well as your Fat, and learn to Laugh as you consume them, along with Generous Portions of Simple Salad. Remember, as you stare into the lettuce, the lettuce stares also into you.”

I think this is fabulous! Way better than The Secret, which stupidly promotes staying away from fat people as a way of getting thin – like duh. I’ve been living with a stick insect for almost four years who actually eats more than I do and a big fat lot of good that’s done for me. But finally here is a no-nonsense diet I can really sink my teeth into.

Eating dangerously, eh? Sounds like fun to me.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Oh, and also click here…

miss bimbo

28 Friday Mar 2008

Posted by in health & happiness, internet, wtf?

≈ 12 Comments

miss-bimbo.jpg

website promotes extreme diets and surgery to 9-year-olds

The internet game, aimed at girls aged 9 to 16, gives users ‘bimbo dollars’ to buy lingerie, diet pills and nightclub outfits. It has attracted 200,000 UK members

A website that encourages girls as young as 9 to embrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting in the search for the perfect figure was condemned as lethal by parents’ groups and healthcare experts yesterday.

The Miss Bimbo internet game has attracted prepubescent girls who are told to buy their virtual characters breast enlargement surgery and to keep them “waif thin” with diet pills.

Healthcare professionals, a parents’ group and an organisation representing people suffering anorexia and bulimia criticised the website for sending a dangerous message to impressionable children.

It looks like since I first came across this article a couple of days ago that the Miss Bimbo website has been blocked. What do you think? Too much ‘nannying’ or does a website like this pose a serious threat to the young girls who visit it?