Pennsylvania's Lincoln University has instituted a requirement that first-year students who arrive on campus with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher must either lower their BMI below 30 or take a one-unit course called "Fitness for Life" in order to graduate.The Chronicle of Higher Education provides some details on the university's reasoning:

Unless you've been under a rock all week, you have probably heard about the government task force that has recommended new guidelines for breast cancer screening.  It goes something like this... If you're younger than 50 or older than 75, you no longer have to worry your pretty little head about breast cancer, or getting those pesky boob squishing mammograms.

Previously I've written about the upside and downside to positive thinking. And while positivity and negativity might be polar opposites, combining optimism with action can lead to finding a balance between the extremes.

Don't fret if you're not part of the adoption/loss/infertility community because this year, our annual list has been expanded to include everyone in the blogosphere.

As we move closer and closer to the holidays, I'm feeling a wee bit anxious. Sort of like waiting for the proverbial stuff to hit the fan. Caregiving is like that. A caregiver named Fern, quoted on About.com, said: “I wish the calendar would flip directly from November to January. We just got settled into our routine since Mom moved in with us. As I look at my calendar, all I see are more things on the to-do list, extra burdens, and the chaos of disrupted schedules.”

One of the first things I did moving to California was to make a pilgrimage to Santa Monica Beach. I wanted to see the place where the fictional Dr. Marcus Welby would talk to his patients about not giving up, fighting for the next chance or saying yes to that one in a thousand treatment that could save their lives. Dr. Welby would not rest until he found the reason for the condition, no matter that his solution was far out of his general practitioner area of expertise. He was all knowing, all caring and had the good sense to select Dr. Steven Kiley as a bit of eye candy.

The Great American Smokeout happens every year on the third Thursday in November, and it has been going on each year since 1977.  This is a day that smokers all across the country are encouraged to not smoke, or at least cut back on their smoking for one day.  Each year millions of smokers participate in the smokeout in the hope that this one step will be the catalyst to their quitting permanently.

It's day 29. Does your computer know when your period starts? My iPod just warned me that I'm about to be incredibly cranky. Using my past blog posts as a guide, by searching for key words like "horrible cramps" and "PMS", I found some details of my last few periods to set up the background data. For years I've found myself blogging in the middle of the night while crying and complaining. Then some commenter, usually my sister, will go "Your life sucks? You mean just like how it did right about this time last month?" How embarrassing that it always hits me as a giant surprise.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." "Beauty is only skin deep." "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." Bartlett's Quotations is full of quotes about beauty. Great words by great poets.This week we'd like to introduce you to another great poet talking about beauty: Stephanie from The NieNie Dialogues is our BlogHer of the Week with her post Do You Still See Me?

"When I hear the official language [of the health care debate] it makes me suppose that this is a time when we need a lot more art that's not going to have answers that are in black and white. " Anna Deavere Smith to Bill Moyers, November 13, 2009

Over the holidays, it's a tradition to focus on food and festivities, and to put working out lower on your to-do list.  Way lower, like maybe just above organizing your sock drawer.  Who has time for the treadmill when you need every spare minute for shopping, cooking, fretting, decorating, partying, wrapping presents, lighting candles, and engaging in epic family arguments over trivial events that happened 20 years ago?Yet you know if you let exercise slide you’re going to feel guilty. 

In honor of Word Diabetes Day I've decided to do a blog roundup of women blogging diabetes.  Most are blogs by women who are living with diabetes, and others are women blogging about parenting a child with diabetes.  I've also included several informative links and resources at the end of this post. If you blog about living with diabetes or World Diabetes Day, please leave your link in comments. World Diabetes Day...