Author: Hilary Thompson

How To Safely Test Makeup In The Store

Post author By Hilary Thompson
Post date February 20, 2018

At its best, makeup gives us the confidence to feel our best. We highlight our brows, line our eyes, blacken our lashes, rouge our cheeks, and paint our pouts. We research the best products, we see samples in stores, we get free makeovers at department store counters—and we still spend thousands of dollars over a lifetime to feel beautiful. Ah, the price of beauty.
But some women have paid a much higher price. You may have heard of Katie Wright, a woman from Austin, Texas, who made headlines last summer. In a social media post, Wright wrote that she thought she had a “giant under the skin pimple” by her eyebrow and innocently squeezed it, as many of us would have done.

Within an hour, Wright knew something was wrong. The area swelled significantly. She felt like it was going to explode. Wisely, Wright went straight to the hospital.
She was diagnosed with severe cellulitis, a type of staph infection. Physicians watched the young woman closely, as staph can easily spread to the bone, muscle, and blood. The location of her infection was too near her eyes and brain for their comfort. They acted quickly, as cellulitis can easily become life-threatening.
https://twitter.com/katiewright/status/894919122982776832
Wright believes she acquired the infection from a makeup brush she used frequently on her eyebrows but never cleaned. Shocking pictures of her red, swollen face quickly went viral on social media. Wright tweeted that she had become famous for “being ugly.”
Wright is not alone, and even if you keep your own brushes ultra-clean, you might still be at risk…if you sample makeup in a store.
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Here’s the damage dirty samples can do.

In October 2017, a woman filed a lawsuit against Sephora claiming to have contracted oral herpes from a lipstick sample in their store. The alleged incident took place in 2015, when Elana Davoyan sampled the in-store lipsticks.

Davoyan is suing for $25,000 in damages for emotional distress, according to Today‘s coverage of the lawsuit. Prior to sampling the lipstick at Sephora’s makeup counter, she says, she did not have herpes. Davoyan claims she has been adversely affected due to the unsightliness of the sores now appearing around her mouth. The case is still pending.
In 2011, Mary Zorcik, a sales associate in a department store out of Forest Hills, New York, told Prevention that she contracted a horrible case of conjunctivitis the year before. The infection was so bad that she couldn’t wear her contacts for two weeks, and it may have been a result of contaminated samples.

Meanwhile, in a 2004 study out of Rowan University, Elizabeth Brooks, a professor and biological sciences researcher, found makeup samples to be harboring all sorts of contamination. Brooks found E.coli, staph, and strep in the samples, she told the Los Angeles Times in 2010.
The two-year study revealed that on Sundays, a shocking 100 percent of all the makeup samples (skin, eye, and lip makeup) were contaminated with a bacteria or virus of some sort. Most of it was staphylococcus aureus, a virus that usually doesn’t become a problem unless it’s transferred from the skin’s surface to the nose or eyes. But doesn’t makeup tend to get pretty close to our noses and eyes?
The good news is that makeup doesn’t offer a lot of food for pathogens. The 100 percent contamination found on a Sunday would slowly die off as fewer and fewer visitors transferred new germs into the makeup during the slow part of the week, Brooks told her university’s website. In a later interview with the Wall Street Journal, Brooks clarified that the bacteria was “all surface contamination. If the ladies wipe it off, we can get it near zero.”

That’s if you wipe it off, though, and this still brings up important questions for anyone who buys cosmetics: How risky is testing makeup in a store? If this can happen with a brush at home, as it may have with Wright, what about with brushes that are used by hundreds at the makeup counter? Or during free makeovers? Ultimately, how can you sample makeup safely?
Following these seven tips will help make your trip to the makeup counter as safe as possible.

1. Do your part. Don’t double dip.

Double-dipping spreads bacteria. If you want to sample a mascara a second time, ask for another wand. Know, too, that not everybody before you will be such a good citizen—always wash your face after a mall makeover, Brooks told the Rowan University news site.

To be extra safe, test everything on your wrist. Be sure to wash thoroughly with soap and water after you do, though, so any germs can’t find their way to your nose or eyes.

2. Beware of in-store brushes.

Before getting a “free” makeover in a store, ask some questions.
“You should be careful about using brushes that have been used on other people,” warns Alan Parks, MD, a board-certified dermatologist based in Ohio. “Make sure you see the brush being cleaned using some kind of [disinfectant] … .”

Parks isn’t wrong. The last thing you want is a free sample of pink eye with your makeover.
Celine Thum, MD, of Paradocs Worldwide has an even better solution. While she seconds that you should make sure brushes are cleaned before someone uses them on you, she goes one step further.

“Better yet, bring your own brushes!” Thum recommends. Also, she says, “before trying on [a] new color, have the employee scrape or sharpen off the top layers of exposed product.”

3. But if you’ve gotta use them, go disposable.

Use those disposable, one-time-use mascara wands, cotton swabs, and eyeshadow applicators on the makeup counters. They are there for your safety. Just hope that the person before you didn’t double-dip.

“If you are going to try out makeup in a store, it should only be products that you can apply using some kind of q-tip or other disposable applicator, where you know that people aren’t actually touching the product,” warns Parks. “You even have to be careful in these cases, as you never know when people may have used their fingers instead.”

4. Skip the jars. Go tubing instead.

Never stick your fingers into a jar of cream, urges Parks. They’re a breeding ground for bacteria, and you may be the hundredth hand of the day to touch it.
“Think about all the germs that go into those jars when so many people are putting their hands in them,” Parks says. He also cautions against sampling products that go around the eye area because, remember: conjunctivitis.
When possible, opt for a squeezable tube, and only use it after wiping the tip with a tissue or—you guessed it—a disinfecting wipe.
No tube? Makeup that comes in a pump is safer than sampling from a jar, as well, because it’s a whole lot harder to “double-dip” with a pump—unless you have much smaller fingers than we do. The odds of someone before you contaminating it are extremely low. Pump away, germ-free!

5. Wipe it down.

Take disinfectant wipes with you to the store and wipe down anything that touches your face, like a lipstick tube or an eyeshadow brush, suggests Arisa Ortiz, MD, director of laser and cosmetic dermatology at UC San Diego Health.

6. Lipstick ‘em up.

Wipe off the end of the lipstick with a tissue or, better yet, a disinfectant wipe. Or scroll the lipstick all the way and use a cotton swab to sample from the very bottom of the stick (after wiping it off, of course).

Brooks told the Los Angeles Times that wiping the stick is probably sufficient. But she also added that she wouldn’t let her teenage daughters sample lipstick unless it was in an individual tester, so take that as you will.

7. Go Virtual

At some stores, you can actually try on makeup samples virtually. At Sephora‘s largest New York location, you can “Tap and Try” their makeup at a station that uses face recognition software to let you sample the latests shades and looks. At MAC stores, you can use their new Augmented Reality mirrors to see how a variety of eye makeup combinations would look on you.

L’Oréal has even created an app so you don’t even need to leave your house to try makeup before you buy it. Their Makeup Genius app takes a picture of your face, then shows you how you’d look wearing different shades and products. Sephora has a similar app.

After her close call, Wright began advocating for better makeup hygiene.

“If you take one thing away from this, please see how crucial it is to thoroughly wash your brushes and tools,” she told a reporter for HuffPost. “I urge everyone to take an extra step in your cleaning routine to prevent yourself from a horrifying, painful and potentially life threatening infection.”
Most experts suggest washing brushes frequently and replacing them when they start to look worn, too.

This is important stuff. It wasn’t just Wright’s health that suffered from her infection. Her pocket book took quite a hit, too. Since Wright’s pictures went viral, she has been trying to raise money for the medical expenses with a GoFundMe campaign.
“Unfortunately, this was not a cheap lesson to learn. I was left with thousands of dollars in hospital bills that I haven’t been able to pay yet,” Wright wrote on her fundraising page. “The doctors of St. David’s [Hospital] saved my life and it would mean the world to be able to pay them back for their services.”
Unfortunately, Wright’s experience isn’t exclusive to the home. Luckily, though, there are some safe ways to sample makeup—thanks to disinfectants, disposables, and technology that won’t put you at risk of contracting an unwanted viral or bacterial pathogen. Beautiful, isn’t it?

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Nutrition x Advice

9 Health Food Claims That Aren't Actually True

Post author By Hilary Thompson
Post date February 16, 2018

Every grocery store shelf confronts us with a host of labels that can be inconsistent at best and misleading at worst. What’s the health-conscious shopper to do?
Our mothers told us to eat one way, the news recommends another, and then there’s the internet: a never-ending swarm of questionable health claims. It seems that our best tools these days are skepticism and up-to-date scientific research to debunk these claims and myths that we’ve been led to believe.
Well, the experts have weighed in on the nine most common food claims. Here they are, in no particular order:

Eating After 6 Causes Weight Gain

There is an interesting—and sometimes troubling—connection between food and sleep, but there are also plenty of misconceptions. The most common one is that eating too late at night will cause weight gain.

Frida Harju-Westman, a certified nutritionist with health-tracking app Lifesum, says, “This is a persistent myth, and interestingly, no one seems to know exactly where it comes from. While 6 p.m. isn’t a magical time at which we stop digesting our food and gain weight, late night eating has been found to cause weight gain (primarily because it is usually the unhealthy foods we reach for that late in the day).”
Our bodies, she says, don’t know what time it is, only the amount of calories you are consuming. If you eat a healthy diet, it doesn’t matter what time you eat it.

You Only Need Five Servings of Fruits and Vegetables a Day

Stop us if you’ve heard this one: Five servings of fruits and vegetables a day is all you need to maintain excellent health. In fact, five servings might still not be enough.
“It is important to remember that the figure was initially chosen as an achievable aim that wouldn’t overwhelm the general population,” Harju-Westman says. “Recent research by institutions in Norway, the U.S., and the UK found that eating 10 a day could prolong life and reduce diseases.”

Obviously, she says, if you can only fit in five servings a day, it’s better than nothing, but eating 10 could be even better. After all, when you’re eating lots of fruits and vegetables, that means you have less space in your stomach for junk food.

Want Strong Bones? Only Milk Will Do

Countless generations of moms have made their kids finish their milk because it’s “good for your bones.” But is that really the case? Vanessa Rissetto, RD, CDN, says, “There’s this misconception that milk is really good for your bones and that it has so much calcium.”
According to the National Institutes of Health, eight ounces of whole milk contains 276 milligrams of calcium, about 28 percent of the recommended daily value (DV). A cup of fresh, cooked kale offers 94 milligrams of the nutrient, or about 9 percent of the DV, and doesn’t come packed with fat calories.
Even stranger, some studies suggest an association between milk consumption and poorer bone health. Rissetto says, “There was a study done in Sweden for 20 years that followed women who drank zero or one glass of milk per day and those that drank three glasses per day. Guess what? The women who drank three glasses were known to have more instances of fractures than those who did not.”
Her advice is to find other sources of calcium like broccoli, soybeans, kale and edamame.

More Water is Always Better

Remember when we were all supposed to drink eight glasses of water per day, even when we were bloated with hydration, as far from thirsty as you can possibly be? Harju-Westman says that this arbitrary requirement is actually an overshot.

“There has been a significant amount of research which found that we don’t need eight glasses of water a day,” Harju-Westman says. “We can get some of the required liquid from other drinks, such as tea and coffee (which has been found not to dehydrate you), as well as fruits and vegetables, which also contain water.”

However, the nutritionist says, water is still the preferable source. Pay attention to your body’s signals so you can tell when you’re becoming dehydrated.

Still Water Runs Deep(er Than Fizzy Water)

Carbonated drinks don’t actually hydrate you, they say. Well, it looks like “they” are wrong again. Rissetto says that carbonation doesn’t ruin the hydrating effect of the water holding the bubbles.
“In a recent study, they gave people who had cycled about 4 percent of their body weight regular water, fizzy water, and sugar water—the result was that the carbonated water hydrated the cyclist just as well as the regular water,” Rissetto says.
Of course, there’s a big health difference between unflavored fizzy water and sugary soda pop, which scientists still say is associated with a range of health problems from diabetes to gout.

Detox Diets, Here We Come

Technically, if you have a healthy diet and lifestyle, you should never need to “detox” your body—no matter what cleansing herbal teas are on the shelf at the health food store.
“It is important to remember that the human body is well-equipped for dealing with any toxins that enter your body,” explains Harju-Westman. “For example, your kidneys filter your blood, removing any toxins found there through urine. Similarly, the liver stops some toxins from entering your blood stream, breaking down others, which are then removed from the body.”
Maybe that’s why many experts advise that you be wary of products that say “detox” or “cleanse” on the label. Jonathan Hawkins, a health and wellness advisor with Discount Supplements, says that these products tend to be just “marketing magic.”
Even worse, some detox diets and products can be dangerous.
“Detox products are often just a variety of laxatives and/or diuretics, designed to physically flush your system of waste and additional water, resulting in a flatter stomach and a feeling of being lighter,” Hawkins says. “Due to the ingredients, the results are almost instant, resulting in overnight praise for the company in question. However, for centuries, the human body has worked perfectly fine at detoxing itself.”
Instead of detox products and diets, Harju-Westman suggests caring for your kidneys and liver. She suggests drinking plenty of water and avoiding fatty foods and substances that stress the liver. Do these things and your body will detox itself, she says.

It Must Say “Low Fat” or It’s Horrible

Lots of foods contain fat, but is it all bad for you? Harju-Westman says no.
“Fat is a necessary element in our diets, as the body can’t process some vitamins without the fat’s help in dissolving them into your system,” she says. “Therefore, it is important not to cut out all fats from your diet, but instead, know the difference between the healthy (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) and unhealthy (saturated) varieties.”
Omega-3 fatty acids can be found in seafood and shellfish, while vegetable oils are particularly high in omega-6. They are both essential oils that help regulate the inflammatory process in your body and enhance brain function.

Laurie Endicott Thomas, author of Thin Diabetes, Fat Diabetes: Prevent Type 1, Cure Type 2, says that it isn’t easy to make sure you’re getting your fill of these essential nutrients.
“It is really easy to get enough of both of these essential fatty acids,” Thomas says. “It’s really hard to find anyone who has a deficiency of either one. The need for these two fatty acids was not even recognized until hospitalized patients were being fed nothing but sugar solutions intravenously for an extended period.”
However, Matthew Mintz, MD warns, “Some fish are very high in mercury levels. While the body can handle tiny bits of mercury, daily doses of fish that are high in mercury levels can actually be dangerous. About a year ago, the FDA released advice of how much and what kind of fish to consume. Eating tuna daily can be dangerous!”
So that’s the “good” fat. Doctors still recommend avoiding saturated fats. There is a long list of foods that contain saturated fats, and the American Heart Association recommends that you get no more than 5–6 percent of your calories from the substance. However, there is a lot of data that places this recommendation under scrutiny, including a study from 2010 and another one published in 2017.

Who Hearts Eggs?

You’ve heard the news: Eating a lot of eggs will drive up your cholesterol levels. There’s just one problem—this is actually outdated advice.
Melody Steeples, MPH, RD, from Woodland Clinic Medical Group, says that eggs got a bad rap for years.
“In general, eggs are actually a very good source of iron, zinc and choline (a nutrient that is crucial for a number of metabolic functions),” Steeples says. “So they are a healthy choice. Your genetics play a much bigger part in influencing your cholesterol levels than your diet does.”
Steeples’ advice to patients rarely includes limiting egg consumption in any way.

Miracle Vinegar

Alana Biggers, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the University of Illinois-Chicago, has a bone to pick with a common (and admittedly tasty) home remedy for just about everything.
“Apple cider vinegar (ACV) is not a cure-all,” Biggers says, bursting a million tart bubbles. “People say it will help with weight loss, diabetes, cholesterol, and hypertension—to name a few conditions. These thoughts are not entirely true.”
Studies that claim ACV enhances weight loss also put participants on low calorie diets, for instance. The magical vinegar has been shown to reduce cardiovascular risk in rats and improve cholesterol in rats with diabetes, Biggers says. “But it’s not the fantastic cure-all that people say it is.”
Rissetto chimes in with a similar claim. Stories about ACV reducing pH levels are nonsense as well, she says.
“The body regulates the pH in the blood on a regular basis, and just think—the stomach is a highly acidic environment because it has to break down food,” Rissetto says. “Also, if you have reflux, drinking apple cider vinegar is likely just going to make it worse, so I would venture to say not to overdo it.”
As it turns out, skepticism could be your greatest asset when making health and diet decisions. Next time you’re at the store, scanning labels and adding groceries to your cart, be sure to keep a healthy dose of doubt on hand.

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Motherhood

Public Or Private: A Breakdown Of Everything To Consider Before Choosing A School

Post author By Hilary Thompson
Post date November 21, 2017

The choice between public and private school can be awfully daunting for a parent. The variables involved are overwhelming: Every family has unique financial, academic, spiritual, cultural, and even environmental factors to consider, and the task only gets more complicated for parents of children with disabilities.
That said, there are some clear advantages and disadvantages to each of these systems. The ultimate choice will vary from one family to the next, but here’s what you should know before you make this all-important decision for your child.

Money talks.

Private school can be financially prohibitive, which is the No. 1 reason many parents choose free public schools for their kids.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, the average price tag for a year of private elementary school is $7,770, and the average annual cost of a private high school is $13,030—neither one of which can compete with free.

My advice to parents would be to think longer term.

However, the quality of public schools varies from district to district, forcing many parents into tuition payments for private education just because of where they live. According to an article in Time, the high cost of living in a “good” public school district might just outweigh the cost of living in an average neighborhood and sending your kids to private school.
Time calculates that, by the time a child in the public school system graduates from a “good” high school, they will have paid $52,982 more than a private school parent for education and housing. The magazine also notes that putting away those savings in an Education IRA could offset costs for their child to attend a university when they do graduate.

Like everything involving money, the reality is far more complicated just beneath the surface.
Charlie Donaldson, MBA, a college funding advisor with College Bound Coaching, frequently speaks to families who have paid tens of thousands of dollars for their children to go to private school—yet who can’t afford to send them to a decent college when they graduate.
“My advice to parents would be to think longer term,” Donaldson tells us. “What’s more important? The best high school education possible but a second-rate college? Or, an average high school education from a public school and being able to afford to send your kid to the best college possible?”

Let’s talk results.

Getting down to brass tacks: Do public or private schools offer a better education? As you might have guessed, the answer is complicated.

Whether a school is public or private is far less important than whether it is well-run and using a good curriculum.

Laurie Endicott Thomas, a writer and editor who has written several books on education, says that there are more important things to worry about than the “public vs. private” debate.
“Whether a school is public or private is far less important than whether it is well-run and using a good curriculum,” Thomas tells HealthyWay.
If you want to know how well your child will do in a school, she suggests, pay close attention to the school’s reading program.

According to Thomas, phonics are preferable over “sight words,” which introduce children to reading through teaching common words as a whole. In fact, she advises, “If the school is giving out lists of ‘sight words’ for children to memorize, especially before the children have learned the alphabet, the parents should choose some other school.”
Of course, those would be fighting words to some education researchers. In a 2016 study published in the journal Literacy Practice & Research, Nancy Broz, Erica Blust, and Cynthia Bertelsen argue that “the best way to recognize words is through instant recognition that drains no attention, and therefore contributes most to fluency.” That is, sight words.
However, in that study, those same researchers built their word lists based on the sample school curriculum’s phonics program; they introduced words only after covering all relevant phonemes. So, again, perhaps we’re not dealing with an either/or debate. (Let’s just assume that we are never dealing with an either/or debate.) So it still a debate if the conclusion is “both/and”?
When it comes to where your child will get the best education, there’s no easy answer. All you can do is research each school’s curriculum and approach as much as possible.

Find the teacher for every child.

Despite the advantages of many public schools, parents of kids with disabilities often find that public schools are better equipped to handle their children’s special needs. The government mandates compliance with special education laws, and once an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or 504 plan is set in place for the child, all parties are required to abide by it.

While many private schools are supportive of children with disabilities, they are not required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to institute a formal plan—though, of course, they must still comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In a private school then, parents sometimes have to take it upon themselves to make sure a child’s progress is closely monitored and documented.
It’s a crucial issue—if children with disabilities later find they need help in college, they’ll need proof of a disability to achieve those accommodations.

One track…or many?

Then there’s the thorny issue of academic diversity, which Donaldson knows firsthand. His son attends a public honors academy in which the most-gifted learners—including his boy—are pooled together in an alternative program. Although he’s happy for his son, Donaldson has mixed feelings about this practice, he says.
“All of the ‘good’ kids and/or ‘smart’ kids have been removed from the regular public schools,” he says. “The average kids and those who don’t have great home lives no longer have good examples to look up to, to be friends with, to pull them up.”

This generally plays out in a discriminatory way, segregating students by race and socio-economic status.

As a parent, Donaldson is glad that his son has high achievers influencing him—but he thinks this sort of academic segregation could be a problem for society as a whole. And he’s not alone.
William Mathis, of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, calls the practice of separating learners into different classrooms based on test scores “tracking.”
“Initially touted as a way of tailoring instruction to the diverse needs of students, tracking has instead become a way to stratify opportunities to learn, limiting the more beneficial opportunities to high-track students and thereby denying these benefits to lower-tracked students,” Mathis wrote in a May 2013 brief.
Even worse, continued Mathis, “This generally plays out in a discriminatory way, segregating students by race and socio-economic status.”
This phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by the U.S. Department of Education. In 2014, the Department issued a press release that reads like the news of 60 years prior:”Black Students to be Afforded Equal Access to Advanced, Higher-Level Learning Opportunities,” says the subhead.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found that the South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey School District’s 2,500 black students were “significantly underrepresented in advanced and higher-level learning opportunities.” The district made significant changes as a result of the OCR investigation, revising criteria for Advanced Placement classes and limiting the practice of tracking in elementary schools.
Still, gifted programs—tracking—are one of the ways struggling city school districts retain the children of wealthier families—the families whose kids who might otherwise bounce for elite private academies.
That said, a greater variety of academic experiences may really be more available to children at private schools, creating a form of voluntary tracking without the scrutiny that comes with public funds.
Nicholas Maldonado, recruitment and admissions coordinator at the private Arthur Morgan School, points out the diversity of experience that private schools can offer. “Private schools provide the freedom to create curricula that encourages . . . experiential learning through more trips, both service-oriented and outdoor, active student government with real power to implement change, and a large variety of elective courses that can range from physical to artistic to intellectual,” Maldonado says.
Meanwhile, magnet and charter schools continue to blur the line between public and private.
Did we mention that this discussion gets complicated?

Keep the spirit.

If religion is important to you, private school will give you options outside secular public schools. The U. S. Department of Education reports that 19.9 percent of private schools are Catholic and 48.7 percent are categorized as “other religious,” while 31.3 percent are considered nonsectarian.

If you prefer to leave your religion out of education, public school might be a better choice. With the separation of church and state instituted by the U.S. government, public schools leave religious matters in the parents’ capable hands.

Consider inclusivity—or the lack of it.

Alina Adams, author of Getting Into NYC Kindergarten and Getting Into NYC High-School, counsels hundreds of New York families every year to help them make decisions about where to send their kids to school. The mother of three biracial children herself, Adams has experience with diversity issues in both private and public schools.

“My daughter actually spent much more time on the Civil Rights Movement and issues of racial, ethnic, religious, and gender diversity in her private Jewish day school than my son who went to a large public specialized high school, and was often the only African-American student in the class,” Adams tells us.
Her son put the issue clearly when he told her, “I’m tired of everyone turning to me when it’s time to hear the ‘Black’ perspective.”
It’s worth investigating any school’s record on diversity, both in the student population and the curriculum, before committing to sending your kids there; kids in integrated schools actually show better test scores, reports The Century Foundation. More importantly, exposure to people from all walks of life will help to engender compassion in a world of cultural pluralism.
Anyway, before you make the assumption that public schools will always be more diverse, consider the case of mom and attorney Jessica Paluch Hoerman.
“My husband and I were public school kids and always intended to send our kids to public schools,” she explains. Following that plan, Hoerman and her husband started their children in underfunded rural public schools without much racial diversity.

After some time, the Hoermans decided their kids would be better served in private schools.
“The private schools [in our area] have more diversity and inclusion than the public schools and given the challenges of today’s world, we have been thrilled that our kids have been able to speak openly in a safe environment,” Hoerman says. “We know that was not the case in the public schools we left behind.”

Go green.

With environmental degradation a critical issue in today’s society—and one that, we should point out, affects all of our children’s health—many parents are looking for schools that are explicitly concerned with their environmental impact. If sustainable living is important to you, too, you may be interested in what thousands of schools across the country are doing.

The Green Schools Alliance engages with nearly 8,000 schools—both public and private—as well as districts and organizations to create greener institutions. Together, the Alliance is playing a part in the lives of more than 5 million children around the world.
The GSA provides schools and educators with a step-by-step plan to go green (or at least get greener). Public or private, all are welcome.

We’ve got a problem.

Kids can be mean, and bullying remains a pervasive problem that schools must deal with. While every administrator is worried about the issue, private schools tend to have more flexibility about handling repeat offenders.

Parents have to not only worry about student bullying their child, but they also have to worry about teachers bullying students.

Corey Walker, an administrator at an elite private boarding school, testifies to this, saying that her admissions committee puts a strong emphasis on “having an open and inclusive community and [trying] to weed out anyone who wouldn’t do well in that environment.”

Ken Johnson, a culturalist, conflict specialist, lecturer, and award-winning author, suggests that public schools don’t have the same freedom to pick and choose the “nice” kids.
“Bullying is a huge issue in my public schools,” Johnson says. “Especially in low-income schools, parents have to not only worry about student bullying their child, but they also have to worry about teachers bullying students.”
To make matters worse, the pervasive use of technology and social media has brought bullying to an all-new level. Kid-on-kid cruelty can create a witch’s brew of mental and physical health issues—suicide, substance-use disorders, and eating disorders often originate with bullying.

So do the bullies really congregate in the public schools? A bit. Yeah. According to the latest U.S. Department of Education’s “Student Reports of Bullying” report, 15.3 percent of private school students between the ages of 12 and 18 said that they were bullied at school. Meanwhile, 21.3 percent of public school students in the same age range reported bullying.

Time to wrap it up (and time to get started).

There is a wealth of information to consider before choosing the appropriate type of education for your children.
Start by making a list of your priorities: Is diversity more important than academic variety, for instance? Is your child a victim of bullying? Do they have special needs?
The U.S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement suggests starting by writing down the five things that are most important to you in your child’s education. Then do the research. Websites like Great Schools and School Matters can help you learn about the options in your area.

It’s important to find out if schools you’re interested in have an application procedure as early as possible. You don’t want to find the perfect school only to discover that you missed a deadline. And if you go the private route, you’d better make sure you can afford the tuition.
Once your online research is complete, it’s time to do a little hands-on investigation. Call the schools you’re considering and schedule a visit. If they allow you to sit in on classes, take advantage of the opportunity; nothing shows you how a school operates like watching the teachers at work.
Ultimately, weighing the culture of the schools you’re interested in against a list of your top priorities will help you come closer to making this important decision.
No matter where you fall on the “public vs. private” debate, such a complex issue simply can’t be boiled down to a single question. We shouldn’t be asking ourselves, “Are private or public schools better?” We should, instead, be asking what’s right for our unique children.

Tags 50037141, hemingway, parenting

Lifestyle

10 Hygiene Habits It's Time To Ditch

Post author By Hilary Thompson
Post date November 9, 2017

Del the Funky Homosapien rapped it best: “It’s important to practice good hygiene/At least if you wanna run with my team.”
Well, we do want to run with Del’s team, and besides, smelling nice is always a plus. But think of hygiene more as a happy medium than an all-out blitz. It is possible to overdo it.

In fact, sometimes, in the name of health, we innocently do more harm to our bodies than good. From drying your hands to washing your dishes and cleaning your ears, here are 10 hygiene practices you’re better off skipping. Don’t worry; you’ll still be able to run with Del.

1. Relying on Too Much Hot Air

By nature, not only do electric hand dryers fail to “wipe off” the bacteria remaining on your hands, but they may also spread it to the entire room, essentially aerosolizing the bugs. Not to mention, hand dryers are louder and often less effective, and they can leave your skin chapped and dry. Plus, if you’re concerned about the environment, know that standard warm air dryers use a lot of power and can be resource-intensive to install.
Summary: Hand towels are often more effective at fighting germs. Use fewer towels to reduce your ecological footprint.

2. Using This Old Excuse to Get Out of Your Turn Doing Dishes

Dishes are everyone’s least favorite chore—they’re gross, and they take forever. So it’s no surprise that people often “let them soak” to avoid the dirty work. It turns out, though, that there’s some very scary things that make a home inside that dirty sink.
According to research compiled by the University of Arizona, somewhere between 50 and 80 percent of bugs that lead to food-borne illnesses are bred right at home.
And where exactly in the home do you think these pathogens are breeding? The second-worst offender in microbiologist Charles Gerba’s research, after the kitchen sponge, is the kitchen sink. It has more bacteria than your toilet, according to Gerba. (“That’s why your dog likes to drink out of the toilet,” he jokes.)
Summary: Wash dishes as soon as possible with hot water and soap.

3. Waging All-Out War on Microbes

According to study authors, this sanitizing agent is “no more effective than plain soap at preventing infectious illness symptoms and reducing bacterial levels on the hands,” and its potential to kill even healthy bugs may be associated with the “emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”
The FDA seems to have agreed with the study’s conclusions, as the administration recently restricted triclosan’s use in certain products.
Summary: When in doubt, use plain soap every time to win the fight against germs.

4. Skipping the Dirt

The data shows that geophagy shows up most commonly in women in the early stages of pregnancy and in pre-adolescent children. Both categories of people are especially sensitive to parasites and pathogens, according to the study’s authors. A little dirt goes a long way.
Summary: Don’t fear a bit of dirt on your veggies—that mud pie you ate as a child might have been medicinal.

5. Over-Reliance on the Fridge

Long before the invention of refrigeration (and the concept of hygiene), milk, bread starter, and vegetables were often fermented before eating. The researchers found that eating slightly fermented foods actually boosts your immune system and increases the nutrient content of the food. Who doesn’t love sourdough?
Summary: Keep your fruit and veggies in a bowl on the kitchen counter for a little probiotic boost in your diet.

6. Refusing to Share

It’s important to note, though, that you really don’t want to share food or drinks with people who are actively sick. That’s especially true of drinks, Sunny Jung of Virginia Tech explained to Popular Science. No matter how careful you may be, there’s always some level of backwash left in the cup after a sip. Yuck.
Summary: Share food and drinks with healthy friends and family to boost your immunity.

7. Relaxing in the Shower

The soap you use is important, too. “Many soaps will strip your skin of natural oils and cause your skin to dry out,” Parks says. Try to use gentle soaps, like those made for sensitive skin, and make sure to rinse every last bit of lather from your body before [linkbuilder id=”3589″ text=”getting out of the shower”].
Here’s another shocker: Hot showers are actually most beneficial at night, as part of your bedtime routine. The cooling process that begins after stepping out of a hot shower can create an easier transition to sleep—potentially leading to a more restful night. A temperature drop triggers your body to rest because it slows down the body’s metabolic activities, like digestion, breathing, and heart rate.
Summary: Keep hot showers as short as possible, and take them at night to help you sleep.

8. Abusing the Q-Tip

Like many processes in the body, earwax production is a self-cleaning, protective mechanism that you shouldn’t interfere with in most cases. Even worse, sticking objects in your ear can damage your eardrum and lead to hearing loss.
Occasionally, earwax gets impacted and messes with your hearing. Even in this case, though, you shouldn’t try to clear the blockage yourself. Instead, visit a doctor to remove it.
Experts suggest that if you absolutely must try something at home, just put a drop of mineral oil in your ear every day for a few days. That can loosen built-up earwax. Once the wax reaches peak-gooeyness, squirt clean water gently into the ear canal and wipe with a fresh towel; that should do the trick.
Summary: Don’t stick things in your ear. Ever. Unless earwax is impeding your hearing, leave it there.

9. Developing a Preoccupation With Exfoliation

Just like with hot showers, this is an issue of preserving the oils that protect the skin. Even worse, you can actually damage the skin if you don’t give those shiny new layers time to grow in.
So how often should you exfoliate? Dermatologists like to point out that everyone is different, and that your skin will let you know if you’re over-exfoliating. Unfortunately, it can only do that by getting all red and painful, so it might be best to err on the side of caution.

The consensus among dermatologists, when pressed, seems to be that you shouldn’t exfoliate more than two or three times a week.
Summary: Do exfoliate. Do not do it every day. And don’t try to get a straight answer out of a dermatologist.

10. Fearing Greasy Hair

Everyone’s hair is a little different—there’s a wide range of types, from the brittle and dry to the over-oily. But all of us could probably stand to go easier on the shampoo.

The oil that the hair naturally produces, called sebum, is actually good for your hair and your skin, as it forms a protective layer and locks moisture in.
Unfortunately, shampoos don’t discriminate between healthy oils and gunk like dirt, sweat, and product residue. Shampoo strips away the good and the bad, potentially leaving your hair drier and more vulnerable to damage.

Now, it’s true that some people need to wash their hair daily. People with extremely fine or oily hair, or who live in very humid climates, or who sweat profusely, might consider shampooing daily with a mild moisturizing shampoo. But that’s not most of us.
Summary: Go as long as you can between shampooing your hair, even if that means more ponytail days.
The point of all this is not that you should stop taking care of yourself entirely, of course. Fail to heed Del the rapper’s warnings and you know the result: “You’ll be funky.”

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10 Hygiene Habits It's Time To Ditch

Post author By Hilary Thompson
Post date November 9, 2017

Rapper Del the Funky Homosapien said it best: “It’s important to practice good hygiene/At least if you wanna run with my team.”
Well, we do want to run with Del’s team, and besides, smelling nice is always a plus. But think of hygiene more as a happy medium than an all-out blitz. It is possible to overdo it.

In fact, sometimes, in the name of health, we innocently do more harm to our bodies than good. From drying your hands to washing your dishes and cleaning your ears, here are 10 hygiene practices you’re better off skipping. Don’t worry; you’ll still be able to run with Del.

1. Relying on Too Much Hot Air

Ah, the old and bitter controversy: hand towels versus air dryers. Well, debate no further. An authority no less illustrious than the Mayo Clinic points to research that shows paper towels are better than electric hand dryers, at least in terms of scraping away bacteria.

By nature, not only do electric hand dryers fail to “wipe off” the bacteria remaining on your hands, but they may also spread it to the entire room, essentially aerosolizing the bugs. Not to mention, hand dryers are louder and often less effective, and they can leave your skin chapped and dry. Plus, if you’re concerned about the environment, know that standard warm air dryers use a lot of power and can be resource-intensive to install.
Summary: Hand towels are often more effective at fighting germs. Use fewer towels to reduce your ecological footprint.

2. Using This Old Excuse to Get Out of Your Turn Doing Dishes

It’s tempting to leave dishes in the sink to soak—especially when you know it’s your roommate’s turn to do the dishes tomorrow. But a dirty sink full of old, gross dishes is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria like salmonella and E. coli.

According to researchers from the University of Arizona, somewhere between 50 and 80 percent of bugs that lead to food-borne illnesses are bred right at home.
And where exactly in the home do you think these pathogens are breeding? The second-worst offender in microbiologist Charles Gerba’s research, after the kitchen sponge, is the kitchen sink. It has more bacteria than your toilet, according to Gerba. (“That’s why your dog likes to drink out of the toilet,” he jokes.)
Summary: Wash dishes as soon as possible with hot water and soap.

3. Waging All-Out War on Microbes

Good old-fashioned hand-washing is still the best way to fight the spread of germs, but should you really choose antibacterial soaps designed to nuke all microorganisms, no matter what? Triclosan, a broad-spectrum antibacterial agent used in soap, mouthwash, and even deodorant, was examined in a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

According to study authors, this sanitizing agent is “no more effective than plain soap at preventing infectious illness symptoms and reducing bacterial levels on the hands,” and its potential to kill even healthy bugs may be associated with the “emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”
The FDA seems to have agreed with the study’s conclusions, as the administration recently restricted triclosan’s use in certain products.
Summary: When in doubt, use plain soap every time to win the fight against germs.

4. Skipping the Dirt

According to researchers at Cornell University, a little dirt in your diet is a good thing. Maybe you shouldn’t wash your garden vegetables so scrupulously.
They say that geophagy, or the consumption of soil, has existed in humans for millennia—and it may actually help protect the stomach against pathogens, toxins, and parasites.

The data shows that geophagy shows up most commonly in women in the early stages of pregnancy and in pre-adolescent children. Both categories of people are especially sensitive to parasites and pathogens, according to the study’s authors. A little dirt goes a long way.
Summary: Don’t fear a bit of dirt on your veggies—that mud pie you ate as a child might have been medicinal.

5. Over-Reliance on the Fridge

It goes without saying that some foods (such as meat) need to be refrigerated. But according to a study published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology, purposefully allowing other foods like fruits and vegetables to be exposed to warm air (thereby slightly fermenting them) can actually cultivate your own homemade and delicious probiotics!

Long before the invention of refrigeration (and the concept of hygiene), milk, bread starter, and vegetables were often fermented before eating. The researchers found that eating slightly fermented foods actually boosts your immune system and increases the nutrient content of the food. Who doesn’t love sourdough?
Summary: Keep your fruit and veggies in a bowl on the kitchen counter for a little probiotic boost in your diet.

6. Refusing to Share

Odds are, if you and a pair of friends want to share an oversized dessert at your favorite restaurant, you’ll ask for three spoons with the dish. You might assume using separate spoons is healthier than sharing. Not necessarily, say researchers.
Encouraging the spread of healthy bacteria in our guts is something we need to do more of, the researchers say. Sharing saliva among healthy friends and family members—and thus introducing their microbes into your own microbiome—may actually help your immune system. Not only does sharing cut down on calories, then, but it also builds up the body’s supply of good bugs.

It’s important to note, though, that you really don’t want to share food or drinks with people who are actively sick. That’s especially true of drinks, Sunny Jung of Virginia Tech explained to Popular Science. No matter how careful you may be, there’s always some level of backwash left in the cup after a sip. Yuck.
Summary: Share food and drinks with healthy friends and family to boost your immunity.

7. Relaxing in the Shower

There’s nothing like a long hot shower, especially first thing in the morning. It wakes you up and leaves you feeling fresh and ready to start the day. But is it good for your skin?
According to Alan J. Parks, MD, founder of DermWarehouse, the answer is, sadly, not so much. Hot showers strip protective oils from your skin, so you should always keep them short as you can stand, Parks suggests.

The soap you use is important, too. “Many soaps will strip your skin of natural oils and cause your skin to dry out,” Parks says. Try to use gentle soaps, like those made for sensitive skin, and make sure to rinse every last bit of lather from your body before getting out of the shower.
Here’s another shocker: Hot showers are actually most beneficial at night, as part of your bedtime routine. The cooling process that begins after stepping out of a hot shower can create an easier transition to sleep—potentially leading to a more restful night. A temperature drop triggers your body to rest because it slows down the body’s metabolic activities, like digestion, breathing, and heart rate.
Summary: Keep hot showers as short as possible, and take them at night to help you sleep.

8. Abusing the Q-Tip

It’s too bad earwax is brown and sticky. Many people falsely assumed that it’s dirty and needs to be cleaned. Earwax (scientifically named cerumen) is a combination of sebum (oils), secretions from glands in the outer ear canal, and skin cells. It’s all good stuff, people.

Like many processes in the body, earwax production is a self-cleaning, protective mechanism that you shouldn’t interfere with in most cases. Even worse, sticking objects in your ear can damage your eardrum and lead to hearing loss.
Occasionally, earwax gets impacted and messes with your hearing. Even in this case, though, you shouldn’t try to clear the blockage yourself. Instead, visit a doctor to remove it.
Experts suggest that if you absolutely must try something at home, just put a drop of mineral oil in your ear every day for a few days. That can loosen built-up earwax. Once the wax reaches peak-gooeyness, squirt clean water gently into the ear canal and wipe with a fresh towel; that should do the trick
Summary: Don’t stick things in your ear. Ever. Unless earwax is impeding your hearing, leave it there.

9. Developing a Preoccupation with Exfoliation

You need to exfoliate to remove a layer of unpleasant skin cells, exposing the beauty beneath, right? Maybe so, but it’s a mistake to treat your skin like a plank that needs sanding. There’s no good reason for most of us to exfoliate every day.

Just like with hot showers, this is an issue of preserving the oils that protect the skin. Even worse, you can actually damage the skin if you don’t give those shiny new layers time to grow in.
So how often should you exfoliate? Dermatologists like to point out that everyone is different, and that your skin will let you know if you’re over-exfoliating. Unfortunately, it can only do that by getting all red and painful, so it might be best to err on the side of caution.

The consensus among dermatologists, when pressed, seems to be that you shouldn’t exfoliate more than two or three times a week.
Summary: Do exfoliate. Do not do it every day. And don’t try to get a straight answer out of a dermatologist.

10. Fearing Greasy Hair

Everyone’s hair is a little different—there’s a wide range of types, from the brittle and dry to the over-oily. But all of us could probably stand to go easier on the shampoo.

The oil that the hair naturally produces, called sebum, is actually good for your hair and your skin, as it forms a protective layer and locks moisture in.
Unfortunately, shampoos don’t discriminate between healthy oils and gunk like dirt, sweat, and product residue. Shampoo strips away the good and the bad, potentially leaving your hair drier and more vulnerable to damage.

Now, it’s true that some people need to wash their hair daily. People with extremely fine or oily hair, or who live in very humid climates, or who sweat profusely, might consider shampooing daily with a mild moisturizing shampoo. But that’s not most of us.
Summary: Go as long as you can between shampooing your hair, even if that means more ponytail days.
The point of all this is not that you should stop taking care of yourself entirely, of course. Fail to heed Del the rapper’s warnings and you know the result: “You’ll be funky.”