By NANCY GIBBS Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009

The first clue came when I got my hair cut. The stylist offered not just the usual coffee or tea but a complimentary nail-polish change while I waited for my hair to dry. Maybe she hoped this little amenity would slow the growing inclination of women to stretch each haircut to last four months while nursing our hair back to whatever natural color we long ago forgot.

Then there was the appliance salesman who offered to carry my bags as we toured the microwave aisle. When I called my husband to ask him to check some specs online, the salesman offered a pre-emptive discount, lest the surfing turn up the same model cheaper at Best Buy. That night, for the first time, I saw the Hyundai ad promising shoppers that if they buy a car and then lose their job in the next year, they can return it. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

By Alice Park Tuesday, Mar. 03, 2009

Early parenting choices are never clear-cut, and deciding whether to allow your infant to watch television or DVDs ranks as one of the more perplexing.

Thanks to marketing claims for TV shows and DVDs created for babies, many parents believe that watching educational programming will stimulate infants' brains and actually promote learning. It's a seductive line of reasoning. Certainly, exposing a baby to brain-engaging DVDs will put him on an early path to becoming, well, a baby Einstein, right? Maybe not. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television time for toddlers younger than 2, in large part because no studies have yet established that TV exposure improves babies' learning. Now a new study published in the current issue of Pediatrics confirms that position. (See the 100 best TV shows of all time.)

It has been estimated that, by 2012, there will be 1m obese children in England. 

Being overweight or seriously underweight as a teenager curbs life expectancy as much as smoking 10 cigarettes a day, a study suggests.

A third of common cancers could be prevented if people shifted to a sounder diet, exercised more and controlled their weight, researchers said on Thursday.
The figure does not include the benefits of tackling cancer by stopping smoking. Tobacco use alone accounts for about a third of cancers.

By JUSTIN FOX

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush didn't call for sacrifice. He called for shopping. "Get down to Disney World in Florida," he said. "Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed." Taken on its own, this wasn't such a horrible sentiment. But Boston University historian Andrew Bacevich has made a convincing case that it was part of a broader pattern of encouraging financial irresponsibility. "Bush seems to have calculated — cynically but correctly — that prolonging the credit-fueled consumer binge could help keep complaints about his performance as Commander in Chief from becoming more than a nuisance," Bacevich wrote in the Washington Post in October. Now we're paying the bill.