National Eating Disorders Awareness Week: Operation Beautiful [42, 43, 44]

February 26-March 4, 2012 is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

What kind of awareness are we trying to spread?

-20% of college students suffer from an eating disorder. That's 1 in 5. 91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting. 25% of college-aged women engaged in binging and purging in attempt to lose weight.

-More than 24 million Americans suffer from an eating disorder. An estimated 10-15% of people with anorexia or bulimia are male. 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner, and 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat. In the last ten years, the number of children under 12 years old being hospitalized for eating disorders has increased by more than 120 percent.

-Eating disorders are not diets. They are rarely even about food and weight. They are about control and perfectionism.

-They have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems.

But this week is not only about sharing the facts, it's also about spreading the love. On Facebook this is in the form of a group called "Operation Beautiful." Check it out: here. Other than spouting out random facts on here, I participated in an Eating Disorders discussion at our Active Minds meeting on Monday (don't know what Active Minds is? You're missing out! Check it out: here) and I also decorated the mirror in our apartment with happy, uplifting, inspirational little comments:

 The last picture's a little blurry, but the orange stickie says: "Contrary to popular belief, knowing you are beautiful does not make you conceited, it makes you revolutionary" and the blue one says: "Don't let your mind bully your body."




I got all my info from classes (yay Psych major) or from the FB page, which got it's info from: here, here, or here.

It's Cereal Time! [41]

5 Ingredients or less Wednesday is here once more! If food is one of my favorite things in general, then cereal definitely has to be one of my favorite categories of food. I eat cereal for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and as a midnight snack. I'm kind of picky about my cereal, but what kind of food am I not picky about?

 

 There's a funny story behind my love of rice cereal. When I was living in Ireland last year I would randomly go shopping at this little vegetarian co-op (happy memories) where I found this all natural, 2 ingredient rice cereal with which I fell head over heels in love. At first I was all worried because I had never seen any healthy rice cereal back in the states but then I realized (with a little help from my mom...) that the cereal I was so in love with was actually produced by an American company. Win! Although I haven't been able to find the exact product either in Michigan or Ohio (or Washington for that matter...) I have been lucky enough to stumble upon Erewhon Rice Cereal, with a grand total of 3 ingredients. Yum yum yum!

Bear Naked, RAKs, bible verses, WOW [37, 38, 39, 40]

February has been kind of lame-sauce in regards to blog posts. Senioritis and I have been a bit too buddy-buddy, completely blocking all attempts at motivation and productivity. But luckily there have been some small projects that have been successes, so here they are:

The other day I learned that you should always read the back of whatever food item you buy, and not just for the nutritional facts. Bear Naked is one company from which I sporadically buy food. When I was craving some chocolatey munchy food and found chocolate cherry trailmix-ish stuff I was quite happy. Then during class I was really bored and ended up reading the back of the package, and this is what I found: (what's in the brown box)

 Once it's all gone I'll be sure to recycle the package :)

Get ready! Random acts of kindness are making a comeback!! This week's act was buying ice cream for my roomie. We went to Jeni's Ice Cream (om nom nom nom!) on our way to the sketchy mc-sketch corner of Columbus to drop our friend off at the Greyhound station and I just paid for my roomie's ice cream completely out of the blue. You're welcome C!

Next up, excuse me as I bring out the crazy once again. I don't think I'm crazy to believe in God, I used to, but now I find my faith to be one of the most comforting aspects of my life. I know many don't agree with me and I'd like to tell them: to each their own. I won't judge you, please don't judge me. But, back on topic. As my Number Thirty blog post probably showed, I'm a huge fan of quotes. They help to keep me motivated, they lift my spirits, they make me laugh. I'll spare you further sappy comments, but quotes from the Bible are no different. I know I have friends who are quite similar in that regard, and so my latest project is to randomly surprise people with a Bible verse, in card or poster form. You'll have to wait for show and tell, I don't want to give away the surprise completely after all!

And finally, Sunday was the WOW (Wide Open World) offering day. That means that my church, LifePoint, takes a public offering and all of the money raised goes towards missions work all around the world. We have mission groups that work right here in the Midwest, in Peru, Cuba, Jamaica, and now even in Uganda. I've already talked about tithing more joyfully, but this offering really has allowed me to make a world-wide difference.   

Sustainable choices, #2 [36]

I have officially transitioned from food obsessed to water obsessed on this blog... Last night was college student diet night. It's definitely not my favorite style of meal, with the disposable containers and all, but I decided not to make it worse with attempted homey-ness. So, instead of pouring my "just add water, mix, and heat" soup into my favorite bowl and having a little plate on the side for my bagel, the soup stayed in its disposable cup and the bagel and table were separated only by the paper napkin my bagel was served on at the bakery. If I'm already going to contribute trash to the environmental epidemic, I might as well not double my impact by having to wash dishes (though for those who are wondering, yes there was a quick rinse of the spoon involved). Basically vow #2 of the sustainable choices challenge for me is to minimize either my trash production or my water usage each meal, I don't have to be screwing the Earth over in two ways with each meal. 

The sustainable choices challenge [35]

Did you know that the average (American) family of 4 uses 400 gallons of water a day? That's enough water to fill 6,400 drinking glasses.

 

You get the picture, it's that ⬆... times a lot.

I already talked about the importance of water, here (if you forgot, there's still time to go to the Hope Into Humanity website and donate!), but now I'm looking at it from more of a behavioral perspective rather than a giving/support perspective. You see, we use A LOT of water in the western world. Personally, one of my weaknesses is showering. It's a bit of a joke among my friends that I get cold really easily and so I'm selfishly protective of long, hot showers. Generally in the summer I'm much better about taking shorter and cooler showers, but in the winter? Forget about it. But, this year is about changing and improving so I said goodbye to long, hot showers this morning by taking a decently warm, 6-minute shower. I already restrict myself to showers every other day but from now on I'll be taking 10 minute showers max, enforced by the alarm on my phone. Why? Because a 5 minute shower, my eventual goal, uses up 10 to 25 gallons of water. Gross. 

So, because I want to protect this: 

I'll do this:   

Water conservation hasn't been my only interest in the environmental sphere. What I've done pre-2012 (and need to keep up this year) includes: using environmentally-friendlier laundry detergent and dish soap, reusable bags at the grocery store, and walking to class and up the stairs (even to my 4th floor apartment).

I'm not as smart as I sound, my info came from: Stanford or the EPA or Waterfootprint.org.