SHAPE Shares: Your Boss Might Be Bad for Your Health
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Happy Wednesday; it's time for another roundup of healthy living headlines. Scroll down for the biggest stories of the week and then tell us: What did we miss? Tweet us @Shape_Magazine or let us know in the comments below!
1. Your boss is making you sick. Yup, it's true. Working for a bad boss doesn't just facilitate a poor office atmosphere or long hours, it can also lead to chronic stress-which just might alter your genes and make you more susceptible to diabetes, heart disease, and inflammation. Researchers at Ohio State University found that chronically stressed mice experienced gene changes that primed their systems to fight an infection that didn't yet exist. The same gene changes were also found in chronically stressed people, the study authors discovered.
2. Workout Wednesday might become a national holiday. "Workout Wednesdays" have become increasingly popular, and now ACE Fitness is lobbying to make the Wednesday before Thanksgiving an official holiday. ACE is also launching a contest for readers to show how they're staying healthy and fit this holiday season. Snap a pic and tweet or 'gram it with the hashtag #ACEWorkoutWed, and you could have a chance to win a trip to the Dominican Republic. Get more details here.
3. Soon you'll know if your meat contains pink slime. Cargill Inc., one of the world's largest meat processors, will start labeling any products that contain finely textured beef, a.k.a. "pink slime." This move comes as consumers demand more transparency in how agribusiness companies make the food they produce and how these ingrdients are labeled on packages.
4. Charlie Trotter has passed on. RIP to the legendary Chicago-based chef. Before quinoa was the ostensible go-to trademark of a healthy diet and "food porn" was an actual phrase, Trotter was known for his glossy coffee-table books, outrageously rich recipes, and helping put the U.S. food scene on the map.
5. Endometriosis may be linked to pesticides. Despite the fact that mirex and beta-hexachlorocylohexane have been banned in the U.S. for decades, a recent study to be published in Environmental Helth Perspectives suggests that women who have had high exposures to those two specific pesticides may be at an increased risk for developing endometriosis, a condition that affects an estimated 10 percent of women in the U.S. and can cause chronic pelvic pain, infertility, and painful periods.
