We’ve all been told to not skip breakfast, or that it is “the most important meal of the day.” But is the claim backed up with any real facts? Is this some conspiracy that breakfast food companies and restaurants made up or something your doctor would tell you?

Being healthy vs. being skinny

It’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that breakfast does in fact improve your metabolism making breakfast eaters generally weigh less that those of us who skip breakfast. It also makes you less hungry throughout the day, making you eat less lunch and an earlier dinner causing you to also weigh less. HOWEVER, most people who eat breakfast have healthier habits all around, which I believe is the main factor. You cannot take an unhealthy, obese person and tell them to “eat breakfast” hoping that it makes them more healthy. It may give them minimum weight loss benefits, depending on what they choose to eat for breakfast. The International Journal for Obesity reported that eating a protein rich breakfast is highly beneficial, whereas a protein neutral breakfast is actually comparable to eating no breakfast at all. It doesn’t really matter when you eat, but what you eat. The Huffington Post even claims that many cereals have too much sugar and can be very unhealthy. Now I’m not saying that you should swear off of breakfast altogether, but don’t go thinking that you can grab that frozen pizza out of your fridge and call it a healthy meal because it hasn’t hit noon yet.

Your Brain

This article reports that eating breakfast can actually improve your mood by regulating your blood sugar. However a super fatty oily breakfast can actually do the opposite and make you less productive by giving you that “I feel gross and need a nap” feeling just to get your metabolism back in check. Berkhan claims that these blood sugars that increase your mood depends heavily on “how you do on breakfast.”

Why were we misled?

I for one, am pretty unhappy with the lies breakfast has been telling me. My healthiest and happiest friends have told me that they usually just have a coffee for breakfast, and then go on their morning run. So where did this myth start? The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that “ scholars in this field of inquiry-breakfast science- have been fudging facts and misinterpreting the science” and “the literature shows signs of research bias.” 

James Doohan, an actor from Star Trek, was shot at numerous times, and the only fatal one was dodged by a silver cigarette case sitting in his shirt pocket, which reflected the bullet that could’ve killed him. Sadly however, in most cases being a smoker doesn’t save your life. Studies show that it undeniably does the opposite. However, instead of looking into cigarettes, e-cigarettes, or hookah, I became increasingly interested with Nicotine. Nicotine is a “natural substance produced by a family of plants known as Solanaceae or Nightshade.”However, the addictive effects of cigarettes come from the nicotine inside the tobacco, which is reported to only be between.6-3%. This is why the claims that nicotine is actually poison are true, but there is so little present in cigarettes you can’t really jump to the conclusion that cigarettes are poison. It says here that there’s also little amounts of nicotine present in tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and even cocoa plants!

No matter the excuse, physical or emotional,  take a look at this to help you out.

First off, I’d like to say my title is very contradicting because I myself have been a gymnast for many years and at 5’5, under no circumstances would I consider myself short. However growing up as a gymnast, I tended to notice that many of the more successful gymnasts are short. In my gym, the older and higher level gymnasts tended to be much shorter than I was. When I would watch competitions on TV, I also seemed to pick up on the professionals apparent miniature size. My question was this: would I ever be a good gymnast if I wasn’t short? Of course there are many gymnasts who are my size or taller, but I wondered if skills would actually be easier for me if I was shorter.

http://espn.go.com/sexiestathletes/dominique_dawes.html

Skin Whitening: yeah it’s a thing. For whatever reason, many places all around the world regard light skin as being superior. For this reason, many new products that alter or claim to alter the color of your skin has become very popular. Must like tanning, these products such as creams, bleaches, chemical peels, pills, etc. are very harmful to your skin. However, there are various aspects to consider regarding this issue.

• Dark grey spots 

• Skin cancer 

• Acne 

• Swelling of the skin 

• Thinning of the skin 

• Cataracts 

• Setting down of fat on face, chest, upper back and stomach 

• Increase in appetite and weight gain 

• Osteoporosis 

• Neurological and kidney damage due to high level of mercury used in the creams 

• Psychiatric disorders 

• Severe birth defects 

• Asthma 

• Liver damage”

All in all, skin whitening IS RACISM. We should not be promoting or insinuating under any circumstances that one skin color is better than another. Perhaps the consequences of skin whitening aren’t only to those who practice it, but to society as a whole. 

Why Mosquitos Buzz In Peoples Ears was one of my favorite books growing up. It’s a cute little story based on an African legend. However, many of us have trouble relating because we don’t often come into contact with mosquitos. Unless we’re camping or traveling, most of us don’t even give these creatures a second thought. Furthermore, the ones we come into contact with are usually harmless. In certain continents however, mosquitos are a huge problem transmitting a spectrum of different diseases. The most affected country is Africa. The issue here is that there is no known vaccine for Malaria, which is the most prominent of the diseases. Other widespread diseases spread by mosquitos are lyme disease ( usually in ticks also ) yellow fever, and encephalitis. Mosquitos can even affect your pets by transmitting heart worms. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there was an estimated 660,000 deaths caused by Malaria in 2012 and 91% of these deaths were in Africa. So why should we care? We are especially at risk whenever we travel because we have absolutely no immunity to the virus. Not only is this disease prominent in Africa, but also Asia, Latin America, The Middle East and Europe, as reported by the World Health Organization. National Geographic reported yesterday, that there may be a new mosquito repellant that is better than all the others. They discovered that mosquitos are attracted to certain odors in your skin, and by offsetting these odors, we could combat this problem. They proved this by performing an experiment where people would stick their hands inside a cage, and after applying the chemical, the mosquitos would no longer touch them and basically not even know that their hands were present. I think the cage serves as a way to deter most confounding variables, but there could still be a few ( the differences in peoples natural odor, etc. ) Although this repellent still isn’t on the market, I think that this is an issue we should really look into and be aware of because most of us hate ticks, cockroaches, and beetles, but tend to assume mosquitos do no harm. So next time you’re at a barbecue enjoying an ice cold beer and get a mosquito bite, be aware that you could actually be infected with a life threatening disease!