Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/144172
4A Daily News – Tuesday, July 16, 2013 Vitality health & fitness The secret to being satisfied with your life: study By Relaxnews What's the secret to happiness as you grow older? A new study suggests that during difficult changes as you age, an acceptance of what can't be changed may be a major predictor of life satisfaction. A team of researchers from Deakin University in Australia examined levels of life satisfaction and perceived control in 101 older adults living in a residential care facility, and another 101 older adults who lived independently in the same community. Researchers scored life satisfaction based on eight key domains -- standard of living, health, achievement, relationships, safety, connection to a community, future security, and spirituality and religion. The study defined "perceived control" as a primary control relating to the capacity to make changes to your environment as you like, and a secondary control relating to changes within yourself to adapt to your environment. The components were found to be equally important, and secondary control especially helped subjects living in the residential care facility cope with losses in primary control -- of their home or independence. Also, acceptance -- secondary perceived control -was found to be more important to the well-being of this group, the researchers wrote. "In order to protect the well-being of older individuals, adaptation involves both a sense of control and the active acceptance of what cannot be changed," the study's authors said. "Primary and secondary perceived control may predict satisfaction with comparable strength depending on the older person's situation. Acceptance takes more of a prime position in low control situations." The findings, announced last week, appear online in the Journal of Happiness Studies. Previous research has also found that people tend to become happier as they age, with a happiness hitting a global average low point at age 46 and increasing after that. Slapping, shoving kids tied to future health problems It's OK to touch public restroom doors By John Kelly The Washington Post If cleanliness is next to godliness, God has a lot to answer for. That's what I've decided after spending a lot of time hanging around in public restrooms. You've probably heard about how we might be becoming too clean in the United States. Some researchers think the rise in the number of kids suffering from allergies and asthma might be because they aren't exposed to the sorts of irritants that would allow their immune systems to develop robustly. It's called the hygiene hypothesis. Mark Holbreich, a board certified allergist in Indianapolis, studied the Amish, comparing their rates of various ailments to those of more typical Americans. "The Amish basically live as if it were 1860," Holbreich told me. "They're very clean. They have indoor plumbing. Their houses are immaculate. Their children get vaccinated, but they spend time — and their mothers spend time when pregnant — in the barn around all kinds of things: cow manure, food for the animals . . ." In other words, these aren't the kind of people who go everywhere with a bottle of Purell in each pocket. For whatever reason, the Amish have a very low rate of asthma and allergies when compared with the rest of the population. Not that things were necessarily better in the PHYSICIAN REFERRAL A FREE SERVICE PROVIDED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE 1-888-628-1948 www.redbluff.mercy.org AP photo Jerome Frazier, of Boston, holds up a belt as he testifies in favor of a bill that would prohibit parents from using corporal punishment to discipline their children during a legislative committee hearing at the Statehouse in Boston. By Genevra Pittman Reuters 19th century. "Look at what it was like in 1860: people dying from dysentery, typhoid fever, diphtheria, polio, measles," Holbreich said. "The upside is, through hygiene, better public sanitation and immunization, we've essentially eliminated the major killers of the 1860s, which were infections. The trade-off is, yes, maybe by having a cleaner environment and fewer infections, we've brought on more allergies." Please note that Holbreich is not saying that parents shouldn't immunize their children. They should. The Amish do. He just wonders what exactly it is about the Amish lifestyle that translates into fewer allergies and whether it's replicable for more modern Americans, short of keeping a cow in our living rooms. But you are no doubt wondering about my research. It is based on careful observation in men's rooms over the past 30 years. Back in the 1980s a typical restroom had, in addition to toilets and urinals, a sink or two, some soap and a towel. At the low end, the soap may have been a scary-looking, grayish slab of Lava resting on the sink's cracked rim. The towel may have been one of those continuous roller things that you pulled down on, exposing what you prayed was a clean section of fabric but suspected was just a bit someone had used before you that was finally rotating back around. And yet, it got the job done. Then certain pantywaists among us decided that the real problem with the public restroom was the doorknob you touched on the way out. About 15 years ago, I noticed the floors of restrooms starting to become mysteriously littered with paper towels just near the exits. Men (and I assume women) had decided that it was safer to open the door with a paper towel and then scoot out, even if that meant leaving a mess behind. At The Washington Post, janitors started positioning a trash can near the door, so these germophobes could at least toss their waste in a bin. And now it's come to this: Not long ago, I was in the restroom of a fancy office building. In addition to a trash can on the floor near the door, there was a wall-mounted dispenser full of squares of paper towel. These towels were too small to dry your hands with and existed only to use in grasping the door handle. This was a sanitary door-opening system. My God, people, are you that afraid of bacteria? What's next in the anti-infection arms race? Disposable gloves that you put on after washing your hands, then remove and dispose of in an incinerator after leaving the bathroom? A Barbicide emergency shower and eyewash station? Surely, a little bacteria's good for you! I had hoped Holbreich would back me up. But he pointed out that I was conflating things. "Have those behaviors affected the prevalence of allergic disease?" he asked. "The answer is no." Allergic disease has been on the rise for 75 years, since long before our national wussification. "The premise that our bathrooms are too clean, that we wash too often, that we use hand sanitizer, that's not going to explain everything," he said. I will continue to wash my hands in public restrooms. And I will continue to bravely grasp the door handle with my bare hand. Tehama Family Fitness Center Kid's Summer Fit Camps! SCHOOL PHYSICALS Fun Workouts, Exercise Skills, Nutrition Education, Active Games, Water Fun, Sports, Goal Setting, And Other Health And Fitness ARE YOUR CHILD'S IMMUNIZATIONS UP-TO-DATE? Session 1: June 17th-20th • Session 2: June 24th-27th Session 3: July 8th-11th • Session 4: July 15th-18th *All Sessions Run Daily from 1pm-4pm* Meet in the Basketball Gym! 30 per child Per Session $ 20 per additional child $ (same family) *Healthy Snack Provided* 6-12 years old For Information or to Sign Up Contact Aubrie Thomas 528-8656 Tehama Family Fitness Center 2498 South Main St. Red Bluff www.tehamafamilyfitness.com Lassen Medical Is Offering Saturday Walk In Clinics For School and/or Sport Physicals Saturday July 20th August 10th 9AM-1PM DON'T FORGET PHYSICAL FORMS AND IMMUNIZATION RECORD Accepting Most Insurances Including M-Cal & CHDP www.lassenmedical.com 2450 Sister Mary Columba Drive (530) 527-0414 Children who are punished through pushing, shoving and slapping are more likely to be obese and have other health problems when they grow up, a new study suggests. "This is one study that adds to a growing area of research that all has consistent findings that physical punishment is associated with negative mental and now physical (health) outcomes," said Tracie Afifi, who led the study at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Last year, she and her colleagues published findings linking hitting and slapping in childhood to a higher risk of depression and anxiety later in life. For the current report, they re-analyzed data collected in 2004 and 2005 by United States Census interviewers, who surveyed more than 34,000 adults across the country. Participants were asked whether their parents or other adults at home pushed, slapped, grabbed, shoved or hit them for punishment as a child. They also reported their current health conditions. About 1,300 people reported being physically punished at least "sometimes" without more extreme physical or emotional abuse or neglect. Compared to people who weren't punished physically as children, they were more likely to have been diagnosed with at least one chronic health condition. Specifically, those participants were 25 percent more likely to have arthritis and 28 percent more likely to have cardiovascular disease - though the second finding could have been due to chance, the researchers wrote Monday in Pediatrics. More people who had been punished physically were obese: about 31 percent, versus 26 percent of those with no history of physical punishment. Not every child who is slapped or pushed will develop mental or physical health problems, Afifi said. But pain and inflammation from physical punishment, as well as psychological and behavioral responses to being hit, could lead to long-term problems for some children, she added. "Changes in sleep, risk-taking behaviors, immune functioning and regulation of stress hormones that result from chronic or intense stress may be important factors," Michele Knox, a psychiatrist who studies family and youth violence at the University of Toledo College of Medicine, commented in an email. "This isn't the safest method of discipline," Afifi told Reuters Health. "Your child might be fine afterward, but maybe not." Knox, who was not involved in the new research, told Reuters Health doctors should talk with parents about alternative, non-physical methods of discipline. "If we want what's best for our children, we need to choose discipline that does not come with these risks," she said. Afifi said the point of the study is not to blame parents, or to say all discipline should be avoided. "The recommendation against physical punishment does not imply the avoidance of discipline," she said. "We're not saying, 'Just let your kid run wild.'" A Retirement Community for the Active Senior Citizens EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY Tehama Estates provides the best living environment available to active seniors in Red Bluff, CA. We will show you ways to stay involved in the care of loved ones, and work with you to maintain the highest quality of life. Summer Special 1/2 OFF first month rent! ◆ Independent Living ◆ Private Apartments ◆ House Keeping Services ◆ Three Nutritious Meals Daily ◆ 24 Hour Secure Environment ◆ Warm & Friendly Staff ◆Recreational Programs ◆Scheduled Transportation ◆Private & Formal Dining Rooms 750 David Avenue, Red Bluff • 527-9193