Taking a little break

In case you haven’t noticed, I just don’t have much time to post these days.  Being a mother to three kids has finally caught up with me.  I plan to take a break for a little while and will evaluate what to do with this blog.  There are still over 400 posts with lots of great information, so please feel free to search or browse the categories.  Sorry to disappoint all my recent subscribers!

Top concerns?

My congresswoman is coming to my neighborhood next week to hold a community forum.  In her request for an RSVP, she also asked that we include our top desires or areas of concern for her to address.  That’s a really great question.  If you were to create a “government wish list,” what would it include?

I’m sure most people feel the economy, jobs, or health care reform should be the focus of government right now.  Of course these are concerns for me too, but I know that I have concerns that are less common that I want to draw attention to.  Here’s my list.  I encourage you to think about what yours would be.

1. Education Funding.  It’s frustrating that my state’s schools receive almost $1800 less than the national average per student each year to educate our children.  Parents are trying to bridge that gap and it creates incredible inequity in education.  The schools whose families can afford to do this are performing well.  The schools whose families can’t are struggling.
2. Farm subsidies.  The government should not be subsidizing industrial food production.  I’d like to see the playing field leveled for small and organic farmers.
3. Labeling of genetically modified foods.  Consumers have a right to know when they are consuming genetically engineered foods.  About 90% of soybeans grown in the U.S. are GM.  We deserve to know when we’re eating GM foods, and to have the power to avoid them if we choose.
4. Updating the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.  Chemical regulation in the U.S. is embarrassingly dated.  For example, why do our children have to consume synthetic food dyes when the same companies use natural ingredients to color their foods in Europe (Kraft mac and cheese, McDonald’s strawberry syrup, etc.)?  Because the EU has updated their chemical policies, while we have not.
5. Labeling of cell phone radiation levels.  Specific Absorption Rates (SARs) should be clearly labeled on packaging and wherever cell phones are sold.  Again, I want consumer rights to trump corporation rights and profits.

Categories are back!

When I stopped hosting my blog myself and started using wordpress, my categories did not import properly.  I’ve been working on it for a while.  Some of them are back, although almost 200 of my oldest posts still show as uncategorized.  The 200+ newest posts though are organized and you can now search through the categories on the right side of this page to find what interests you most.

49 states have obesity rates over 20%

Twenty years ago, every state in America had an obesity rate under 15%.  Now all, except Colorado, have more than 20% of their residents classified as obese (overweight people have a Body Mass Index, BMI, of 25-30; obese people have a BMI over 30).  Only Jon Stewart could make this very depressing fact quite hilarious.

What is your BMI?  Multiply your weight in pounds by 4.88.  Divide this number by height in feet squared.

Welcome to my new site!

HealthTakenSeriously.com has been getting so much traffic lately that I’ve finally decided to stop hosting it on my husband’s server at home.  For those of you that have been having trouble accessing this or any of my sites, my apologies.  Hopefully that won’t be a problem anymore.

Healthy home checklist

The Environmental Working Group has a healthy home checklist on their website.  It asks you what you do in different areas of your house, like the kitchen and bathroom, and makes suggestions of what to avoid.  We took it and here are a few things we could change around our home:

• Use iodized salt
• Avoid foam furniture
• Avoid wood patio furniture made before 2005

Vacation!

We’re on vacation until mid August.  I hope to come back with some good book reviews, as I have several books I plan to read.

Baby is born!

I had my 3rd son last week via water birth.  It was a wonderful experience and I highly recommend it for anyone wanting a natural birth.  I hope to be posting again in a week or two.

Exercising while pregnant

I’m 39 weeks pregnant today and proud to say that I worked out weekly up until last week!  This is my third pregnancy, but the first one where I exercised the entire 9 months.  I didn’t really work out at all with my second pregnancy, thanks to 9 months of nausea.  But this time, I made it to the gym 2-3 times a week for about an hour of mostly weights and stretching, and continued to walk as well.

I will say though that while it seemed crazy to be doing ab exercises while the muscles were so stretched out, I had the least back pain with this pregnancy.  I do think the strength training helped with that.  I have read that a conditioned mom has shorter, easier labors, so soon enough we’ll see if that’s the case.

Slow it down already!

This blog is all about health, but usually I focus on food or chemicals.  There is another aspect of health that is incredibly important that I feel like we hardly think about in Western society and that is the pace of our life, the amount of stress in our surroundings, and the decisions we make that affect our mental and physical health.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot as my husband gets more and more responsibility at work, and I see him working more and more hours, late evenings, and on weekends.  What does this mean for his health?  What does it mean for mine, and for our childrens’?