By now you’ve probably all seen famous athletes and ordinary people walking around wearing rubber bracelets with holograms implanted in them. Maybe you even own one yourself. This popular fitness fad of the past few years comes with the promise of greater balance, strength and performance ability to anyone who wears one.
Well, a recent study shows that this fad is brought to us by nothing more than questionable marketing practices and our own desire to believe. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, in partnership with the American Council on Exercise, tested the bracelets (specifically the Power Balance brand) and found that they have absolutely no measurable impact on performance. For the complete study, see “Power Balance or Power of Persuasion?“
The American Heart Association has a nifty tool for assessing your overall health on-line. Their new site, “My Life Check,” asks you to input basic data relating to “Life’s Simple 7” heart health factors which include activity level, cholesterol, diet, blood pressure, blood sugar, smoking status, and body weight. Based on the information you provide, you are “graded” in each of the seven categories and provided with suggestions for improving your score. The site also includes lots of information explaining why the “Simple 7” are so important to your health. Get online and see how you rate!
“Playing a computer game during lunch affects fullness, memory for lunch, and later snack intake.” That’s the fairly straightforward title of a recent study by researchers in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol in the U.K. They fed 44 subjects the identical lunch, but half of them played on-line solitaire while they ate and the other half simply ate. After lunch all the participants were presented with cookies, and the gaming group ate significantly more than the group that had no distractions while eating. So now we’re learning that not only does mindless eating cause you to eat more during the meal at hand, it also seems to carry over to later meals!
