How to Keep Your Feet Happy : NPR

How to Keep Your Feet Happy : NPR

It’s been quite a while since I last blogged. Work and spring hit me hard. I’ll try to be better in the upcoming weeks.

While listening to my usual NPR podcast, this broadcast really hit home. Or rather, my feet. I have Plantar Fasciitis.

“. . . when your heel doesn’t stay attached to your shoe, there’s too much extra motion in the foot.

“Wearing an open-backed shoe, when the heel lifts off the ground, there’s a lot of tension that develops in the plantar fascia, and it increases the angle that the whole foot makes with the ground, and toes bend up further and that just stretches the plantar fascia more.”

I usually wear very sensible shoes (walking or cross-trainers) but I’ve been trying to girly-up my wardrobe this winter and added some slides with 2″ heels. I loved the extra height and not having to hem certain pants. Then came the heel pain in the morning. It was mild in the beginning and got worse as time went on. I tried adding heel cushions to my shoes which were OK but didn’t really solve the problem. I did a little research on heel pain and discovered plantar fasciitis and recognized the symptoms immediately. I’ve been doing exercises regularly and have had some real relief but it’s never gone completely.

This podcast explained alot about the footwear choices that can make a huge difference. My new slides and the springtime flip flops were part of the problem. I really hate dropping the new kicks and I don’t want to wear grandma shoes forever so a happy median must exist somewhere. The exercises from this report are much better than the ones from other sources on the net.

I really should take up foot yoga.

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Tags: feet, health, plantar fasciitis, shoes, pain, fashion

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Websites and designers face prosecution in new French anorexia law – Times Online

Websites and designers face prosecution in new French anorexia law

Websites and designers face prosecution in new French anorexia law – Times Online

Promoting extreme thinness will become a criminal offence punishable by a jail sentence under a government-backed law that was tabled yesterday in France to combat anorexia nervosa.

Now, I’m all for doing away with the obsession for excessive thinness and helping correct women’s body images (and I really hope that the super thin model ideal stops soon but I doubt it will), but I’m not certain this law is going to do anything affective to fight anorexia nervosa. It’s just going to create more work for lawyers.

Real change needs to occur in the industry, the schools and at home. Until the fashion designers and magazine editors change their attitude, nothing will change. Schools should be teaching healthy habits and outlooks and parents need to be more aware of the problem. More and more girls are starting to think they are too fat at 8 years not 16 years.

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Tags: anorexia, fashion, body-image, thinness, models, health, law, france

 

Unbelieveable! Smoking banned in French cafes!

Au Revoir to the Smoke-Filled French Cafe – washingtonpost.com
In bars and cafes across Paris, in restaurants and casinos throughout France, the once-revered cigarette now is officially banned, relegating one of the Western world’s last public smoking holdouts to the ashtray of history.On Wednesday, the public act that perhaps most epitomized the French as sexy, debonair, sultry, brooding — and perhaps more than a little susceptible to cancer — was snuffed out by the government.

In a single day, Parisian dining establishments and watering holes acquired an entirely new atmosphere.

Davy Kazan took a deep breath and glanced incredulously around the boisterous dining room of the Vaudeville brasserie, which is usually blanketed with smoke by mid-evening.

“You can actually smell the food!” declared Kazan, 39, a Munich resident who is on a New Year’s vacation in Paris.

He said he’s also excited about returning home to visit his favorite sports bar, which became smoke-free Wednesday under tighter smoking restrictions imposed in many German cities and regions.

But Romain Lefevre, a 41-year-old real estate broker, was fuming in the now-smokeless bar of Le Beaujolais Cafe a block from the Eiffel Tower.

“Not smoking during dinner is not a problem, but after eating — yes, I would like a cigarette with my coffee,” said Lefevre, a pack-a-day smoker for 20 years.

Personally, I’m very glad this has come about at last. I love Paris but I hate the smoking everywhere – especially in restaurants.

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Tags: Paris, france, smoking ban, smoking, cafes, life, culture, health