The WELLalarm Blog

How Fit is Wii Fit?

Wii Fit is here! The Nintendo game was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, who created millions of couch potatoes with his previous games like Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, and Zelda. Miyamoto is now trying to reform those couch potatoes with Wii, a gaming system that uses a remote-control wand requiring players to actually move their bodies to play. Miyamoto took this idea a step farther by designing Wii Fit, a game created to get people purposefully exercising.

The game comes with a Wii balance board(TM), which you can use to play balance games and do strength training, yoga, and aerobics. Players weigh themselves every day and can set goals and chart their progress.

So what are people saying about Wii Fit? Will it turn you into a lean, mean machine, and will you have fun while you're at it? From what I've read, the game has some limitations. Oh, you knew that was coming, didn't you? There still is no magic wand for fitness.

Wii Fit appears to be ideal for fitness novices, people who don't exercise much to begin with. The yoga component is more about exercise than an authentic yoga practice, and the strength training is a good place to get started but no substitute for the gym. This is according to a small survey of Wii Fit testers in the New York Times. Another reviewer for the Times was not impressed with the intensity of the Wii Fit workouts.

The game seems to prioritize weight loss over cardiovascular health, perhaps because weight is easier to track on the Wii Fit balance board.

Still, if Wii Fit gets otherwise sedentary people to move around I think that's a good thing. Wired blogger Chris Kholer admitted to the appeal when a friend asked him why he didn't just go running instead: "'Because I want to bank Wii Fit minutes,' I say, realizing how into the 'game' aspect I am." Wii Fit appeals to a wider audience than the usual gaming crowd, but also provides more exercise than the gaming crowd usually gets. Wii Fit may even be a great fit for senior citizens.

I'll stick with my own workout routine, thanks all the same. But I do know a few couch potatoes who could use a little electronic motivation.   

Read about another gamer's test ride of Wii Fit on Kotaku.

Watch the trailer for Wii Fit, and then watch a parody of the Wii Fit trailer.

Cooking Vegetables

We all know we’re supposed to be eating our vegetables. But there are so many different notions out there about how we should prepare our veggies. Is raw always better? Is poaching better than microwave cooking?

The New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope just wrote about how to cook your vegetables in her Well column. The answer? There really is no one perfect way to cook vegetables; different methods all have their own benefits and disadvantages.

Cooked and processed tomatoes (and other red-fleshed fruits) are higher in the powerful antioxidant lycopene than raw tomatoes. Poaching releases some nutrients but leeches out others. You will lose less vitamin C if you microwave your vegetables than if you boil or steam them. Whole fats (like dressing or avocado) actually help the body absorb more lycopene, lutein, and beta carotene in vegetables.

Cover your bases by eating a wide variety of vegetables in a wide variety of ways! Here are a few ideas.

Herbed haricorts vert from Saveur

Lettuce hand rolls from Cookie

Homemade agave syrup ketchup (lycopene!) from The Kitchn

Avocado and watercress salad from Epicurious

Raw Tuscan Kale Salad with Pecorino from the New York Times

Potato salad doesn’t have to have mayonnaise. Try tossing cooked, chopped potatoes (with their vitamin-rich skins) in olive oil instead.

• 4 medium-sized waxy potatoes
• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• ½ cup watercress
• 2 Tablespoons minced scallions or ramps
• 2 Tablespoons (or more) fresh thyme and/or chives
• Salt and pepper to taste
• A dash of paprika

Chop potatoes into slightly larger than bite-sized chunks and boil until just tender. Combine while the potatoes are still warm so the flavors blend. Let cool to room temperature.

Image by Landon Nordeman from Saveur.

Member 2 tk yr meds! (Remember to Take Your Medications)

Teens and ‘tweens are notoriously resistant to taking responsibility for chronic illnesses. Of those with asthma, for example, only 30% of teens take their preventative medicine correctly. What’s a parent to do? You want to teach your child independence and self-reliance, but these lessons are often two-steps-forward, one-step-back. In the case of meds, the lessons can come at a heavy price!

Cincinnati doctors are trying to solve this problem by texting reminders to their young patients. Dr. Maria Britto, an asthma specialist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, came up with the idea when she noticed how much text messaging her teen patients did while in her office. A pilot test is underway to see if text messaging teenaged patients reminders can improve how they manage their asthma.

I think this is a great idea, too, which is why text reminders is one of the services we provide through WELLalarm™. We can nag your 14-year-old diabetic child for you, sending her timely reminders to get her insulin! Any way parents and medical professionals can communicate with teenagers in their language gives us all a little more hope.

Read more about teenage non-compliance in this article on transplant patients from Transplant Journal.

This article from Medical News Today discusses medical noncompliance among teenage cancer patients.

I enjoyed this blog post by a Georgetown medical student on the frustrations of treating noncompliant teenage HIV-postitive patients.

Image from Blueshift.

Knitting on the brain

Those who know me well know I take my knitting seriously. I started knitting when I got sick as a way to fight against the numbness in my hands. It wasn't long before I found another fantastic benefit of knitting. It is a soothing form of meditation that helped me cope with a very stressful illness.

Knitting is meditation? Absolutely! Knitting puts me into a sort of trance. I get caught up in the rhythmic repetition of counting stitches and clicking needles. This sort of rhythmic activity is exactly what researchers have in mind when they praise the benefits of meditation. According to researchers, 20 minutes of meditative activity like knitting can reduce your heart and breathing rate and even slow brain waves. 

I like the way Dr. James S. Gordon, a professor of psychiatry and family medicine at Georgetown University, put it in an article on spinning: meditation is “like taking a little vacation from the way our mind works.”

Meditation even delivers a dose of energy into your brain’s happiness center. Just ask the researchers at the University of Wisconsin's Keck Laboratory now conducting tests with Tibetan monks. MRIs  showed that meditation created profound activity in the left prefrontal cortex, an area associated with happiness and positive thoughts and emotions. This sort of brain activity is especially intense among longtime meditation practitioners.

The Bhagavad Gita praises work done “in the calm of self surrender,” without anxiety over the results, work for its own sake.  I’m down with that. But being a westerner with soft spot for style, I do get a thrill over the results of knitting. When I first started knitting I created a series of handbags that were so popular I started my first business, CionOriginals. I had a blast making these one-of-a-kind bags named after famous women.

Since starting WELLalarm I’ve had to put CionOriginals on hold. I’ll still do special projects, though, like bridesmaids’ handbags for FashionMista Katie's wedding.

And I do plenty of personal knitting. It keeps my hands alive, keeps my spirits up, and it led me to the entrepreneur path. I owe a lot to knitting.

Talk to me about knitting! Here are a few of my favorite resources.

My favorite online knitting store is kpixie.com.

My favorite knitting store in New York City is Gotta Knit at 14 East 34th Street (between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue).

I love the free patterns at Knitty.com.

I just found out about Head Huggers, a charity that donates hand-knit caps to cancer patients.

The Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine focuses on how meditative activities can help heal the body.

WELLalarm Partners with Google Health

Some exciting news in the emerging world of online healthcare...after a prolonged alpha phase Google Health has publicly launched in beta! With Google health, Google, has taken on a tremendous undertaking of providing a place for the world to store and manage their health records, find critical resources including doctors, and provided a place for consumers to access and utilize health services, such as WELLalarm™, online. In the next few weeks, as we count down to our own public beta, we will share with you how WELLalarm™ is partnering with Google Health to help you put healthcare in your hands!

NEW pre-launch contest starts TOMORROW!

Do to the incredible response we received to our first contest, we have decided to do a NEW contest to celebrate the countdown to our public beta!Contest winners will be announced on our blog and our Facebook page every Sunday evening at 10pm. We'll pick 1 winner each week for 6 weeks!  The sooner you sign up, the more chances you have to win a FREE charm and 1 full year of premium service FREE!

4th Contest WINNER!

We are thrilled to announce that Bobbye Fussell is our 4th contest winner! Congrats Bobbye!

Holy Peanut Shells, Batman -- 8% of Kids Have a Peanut Allergy!

Peanut allergy doubled among children between 1997 and 2002. Those who suffer from a food allergy know that allergy-induced    can be fatal within minutes, but parents and children often feel unsupported in their efforts to prevent attacks. School nurses feel the pressure too. It usually falls to them to manage life-threatening food allergies at school, but there are no Federal guidelines for them to do so. Nurses (who are sometimes responsible for more than one school) report that they usually develop their own training guidelines themselves.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd knows first hand how dire this situation is. His own daughter has a severe food allergy. Already in the six short years of her life she has had four anaphylactic reactions.

While I am sorry that Senator Dodd’s daughter suffers from food allergies, I am glad allergy sufferers have such a powerful advocate. Last week, in conjunction with National Food Allergy Awareness Week, Dodd introduced his Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act to the Senate. (The House of Representatives passed the act on April 8 of this year.) This legislation would ensure that “schools have access to consistent, uniform food allergy guidelines and resources to actually carry them out.”

I’m very excited about this new legislation. Food allergy, like the CIDP that I have, is an autoimmune disease with no cure. Passing the FAAM Act will raise awareness of food allergies and empower kids, parents, and school nurses to better manage their allergies.

Furthermore, this is an excellent example of how WELLalarm could help everyone (it takes a village!) manage children’s allergies. Nurses, teachers, after-school aides, daycare providers, camp counselors, and others could all be notified of which kids have which allergies, and of their respective doctors, medications, treatments, and hospitals – all at the parents’ discretion, of course.

I’ve even created a special peanut charm just for kids with peanut allergies. Future charms for different allergies are due out in the fall!

My greatest hope is that WELLalarm could prevent exposure to allergens in the first place by keeping everyone aware of each child’s condition. But in the event of an allergy-induced anaphylactic reaction people must know what to do and parents, doctors, and emergency personnel could be contacted immediately through a call or text message. Adult supervisors would know the most urgent course of action, like administering a shot. Lives can be saved.

It's gratifying to be a part of the solution to this difficult situation. And I’m glad Senator Dodd is also joining the effort to raise awareness and help us manage children’s food allergies.

Find out more about food allergies on the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network’s website.

Read the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act (FAAM) here.

Read more about peanut allergy at Peanut Allergy.com and Kids Health.org.

The Food Allergy Initiative is a great resource for people with food allergies.

Allergic Child focuses on children's allergies and is a great resource for parents and caretakers.

Food Allergy.org sells cookbooks, including The Ultimate Food Allergy Cookbook and Survival Guide and Allergy Cooking With Ease.

MedlinePlus (a branch of the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health) has several articles on food allergy.

Cubicle Yoga

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the cubicle! This invention was meant to encourage egalitarianism and communication in the workplace, but alas, for many of us it is anything but.

So how to celebrate this unfortunate anniversary? You could transform your little prairie dog den into a mini-yoga studio with these simple exercises.

Deep breathing
As any yoga instructor will tell you, it’s all about your breath. Start by sitting up straight (but not stiffly) in your seat. Breathe in slowly through your nose. Then breathe out slowly through your mouth. Be sure you breath out more slowly than you breathe in. If you’re working late and alone, try this variation: breathe out with your mouth closed, humming like a bee. Keep your lips relaxed and apart from your teeth.

For more breathing exercises, try these pranayama exercises from Yoga Journal.

Lion pose
First, crinkle your nose, mouth, eyes, brows, and cheeks together into a tight scowl. Then release this pose, take a deep breath, and open your eyes and mouth wide, sticking out your tongue as far as possible. If you’re not too self-conscious, breathe out a sigh or whisper, “haaaaah!” Repeat a few more times. This tension-releasing exercise is especially useful before an important meeting.

Foot flex/point
Get the blood circulating through your legs again. Sit with both legs stretched out in front of you. Flex and point your feet at least 10 times, holding each pose for a few seconds.

Uttanasana, or forward bend
Bend over as far as is comfortable. Instead of touching your toes, hold your elbows with opposite hands. Alternatively, you could clasp your hands together behind your knees. Just hang there for a while, breathing slowly and deeply. Then keep your back flat (arms extended out if there’s room) as you slowly rise out of the pose.

If you have a sensitive back, try a seated forward bend. As with any exercise, be sure to listen to your body. Don’t strain your muscles and if you’re in pain, stop immediately.

Loving your cubicle workout? The good people at the Alberta Centre for Active Living have provided a few short yoga videos, Yoga @ Your Desk.

NY Wellness Guide also has an office yoga video.

Image of desk yoga from Bootstrapme.com.
Image of lion pose from Yoga Journal.
Image of uttanasana from Yoga Art and Science.

The Push for a National Electronic Medical Record System

Over three years ago, President Bush set a goal: by 2014 most Americans would be using an electronic medical record. Physicians would be able to use EMR systems to share lab results and images, and to share information like prescriptions to hospitals and other health facilities.

So how are we doing?

According to a story in AMNews, we’re no closer to the 2014 goal than we were in 2004. “Costs, hassle and a lack of congressional action are among the factors slowing health IT development.” It has been particularly difficult to coordinate health records for practices that vary wildly in size and that are spread throughout the nation.

In the story, AMNews references a report published by the California HealthCare Foundation, Gauging the Progress of the National Health Information Technology Initiative.

In a related story, Health Data Management reports that the American Medical Association is calling on Congress to require the Department of Health and Human Services to complete all national technical standards to support electronic prescribing by the end of 2009.

While the National EMR system appears to be stalled, states are creating their own e-Health initiativesaccording to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund. States are hoping to improve the quality of care while keeping costs low. However, they face many of the same challenges as the National EMR system does.

Meanwhile, South Carolina is hoping to learn about user’s habits through their Medicare personal health records (PHR) pilot program.

And in Florida, PatientKeeper will create a physicians’ Web portal for the Greater Ocala Health Information Trust. PatientKeeper will also provide an integration platform.

However, the ultimate solution may come from the competition heating up in the private sector over the creation of an interoperability platform between Google Health and Microsoft’s Healthvault.