Carving depicts stylishly plump princess

A 2,000-year-old relief carved with an image of what appears to be a stylishly overweight princess has been discovered in an "extremely fragile" palace in the ancient city of Mero?, in Sudan, archaeologists say.

At the time the relief was made, Mero? was the center of a kingdom named Kush, its borders stretching as far north as the southern edge of Egypt. It wasn't unusual for queens (sometimes referred to as "Candaces") to rule, facing down the armies of an expanding Rome.

The sandstone relief shows a woman smiling, her hair carefully dressed and an earring on her left ear. She appears to have a second chin and a bit of fat on her neck, something considered stylish, at the time, among royal women from Kush.

Team leader Krzysztof Grzymski presented the relief, among other finds from the palace at Mero?, at an Egyptology symposium held recently at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

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Researchers don't know the identity of the woman being depicted, but based on the artistic style the relief appears to date back around 2,000 years and show someone royal. "It's similar to other images of princesses," Grzymski told LiveScience in an interview. He said that the headdress hasn't survived and it cannot be ruled out that it actually depicts a queen. [ Image Gallery: Amazing Egyptian Discoveries ]

Why royal women in Kush preferred to be depicted overweight is a long-standing mystery. "There is a distinct possibility that the large size of the Candaces represented fertility and maternity," wrote the late Miriam Ma'at-Ka-Re Monges, who was a professor at California State University, Chico, and an expert on Kush, in an article published in The Encyclopedia of Black Studies (Sage Publications, 2005).

An ancient palace
The discovery occurred in 2007 as Grzymski's team was exploring a royal palace in the city, trying to determine its date. The sandstone blocks that made up its foundation were "extremely fragile," according to Grzymski, and the team found that the palace dated to late in the life of Kush's existence. The blocks were re-used in antiquity by the palace's builders and were originally from buildings that stood in earlier times.

When they found the relief it "was loose and falling apart so we just took it out," Grzymski said. It was brought to a museum in Khartoum, Sudan's modern capital, for safekeeping. "There's always a danger of robbers coming and taking (them) out, so many of those decorated blocks were in danger."

They found many other decorated blocks as well, Grzymski said. Because they had been re-used in antiquity the blocks were out of order and presented researchers with a giant jigsaw puzzle.?

"Ideally, I would like to dismantle this whole wall, this foundation wall, and take out the decorated blocks and see if we would be able reconstruct some other structures from which the blocks came," Grzymski told the Toronto audience.

It's one of many, many, tasks that need to be done in the ancient city. "It's considered one of the largest archaeological sites in Africa," Grzymski said of Mero?. "This site will be worked on for 100 years perhaps before it's fully explored."

Grzymski is a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum and the symposium was organized by the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities and the museum's Friends of Ancient Egypt group.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook? and Google+.

? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50354293/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Bacterial imbalance contributes to intestinal inflammation and carcinogenesis

Public release date: 2-Jan-2013
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Contact: Jillian Hurst
press_releases@the-jci.org
Journal of Clinical Investigation

Instability in the composition of gut bacterial communities (dysbiosis) has been linked to common human intestinal disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer; however, it is unclear if dysbiosis can instigate disease or if it is a consequence of the underlying disorder. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Mathias Chamaillard at the University Lille Nord de France in Lille, France, examined intestinal inflammation and tumorigenesis in a mouse model of dysbiosis. Dysbiosis enhanced intestinal inflammation and increased the risk for inflammation-associated colon cancer. Treatment with antibiotics or transplantation of fecal material from normal mice reduced disease risk and instigated long-term, beneficial alterations in intestinal bacteria. Conversely, transplantation of normal mice with dysbiotic fecal material increased intestinal inflammation and enhanced the risk of inflammation-associated colon cancer. These results demonstrate that gut bacterial communities play an integral role in protecting against intestinal inflammation and associated tumorigenesis.

###

TITLE:
NOD2-mediated dysbiosis predisposes mice to transmissible colitis and colorectal cancer

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Mathias Chamaillard
Inserm, Lille, , FRA
Phone: +33359317427; Fax: +33359317480; E-mail: mathias.chamaillard@inserm.fr

View this article at: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/62236?key=555e9b1899800b97fd0b

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 2-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jillian Hurst
press_releases@the-jci.org
Journal of Clinical Investigation

Instability in the composition of gut bacterial communities (dysbiosis) has been linked to common human intestinal disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer; however, it is unclear if dysbiosis can instigate disease or if it is a consequence of the underlying disorder. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Mathias Chamaillard at the University Lille Nord de France in Lille, France, examined intestinal inflammation and tumorigenesis in a mouse model of dysbiosis. Dysbiosis enhanced intestinal inflammation and increased the risk for inflammation-associated colon cancer. Treatment with antibiotics or transplantation of fecal material from normal mice reduced disease risk and instigated long-term, beneficial alterations in intestinal bacteria. Conversely, transplantation of normal mice with dysbiotic fecal material increased intestinal inflammation and enhanced the risk of inflammation-associated colon cancer. These results demonstrate that gut bacterial communities play an integral role in protecting against intestinal inflammation and associated tumorigenesis.

###

TITLE:
NOD2-mediated dysbiosis predisposes mice to transmissible colitis and colorectal cancer

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Mathias Chamaillard
Inserm, Lille, , FRA
Phone: +33359317427; Fax: +33359317480; E-mail: mathias.chamaillard@inserm.fr

View this article at: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/62236?key=555e9b1899800b97fd0b

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/joci-bic122012.php

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Photographer killed shooting Ferrari linked to Bieber

Police in Los Angeles are investigating the death of a paparazzi photographer who was hit by a car while trying to take pictures of a white Ferrari owned by pop star Justin Bieber. TODAY's Willie Geist reports.

By Daniel Strieff, NBC News

A paparazzo was struck by a car and killed after taking photos of a white Ferrari believed to belong to pop star Justin Bieber on a busy Los Angeles street, police told NBC News on Wednesday.

Madeline Nightingale, the watch commander of the Los Angeles Police Department?s West Traffic Bureau, said the photographer was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center shortly after Tuesday night's collision.

Bieber's vehicle was not involved in the crash, officials said.

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Justin Bieber was not in the car at the time of Tuesday's incident, police said.

The deceased, a white male in his late 20s, was not named pending notification of next of kin, she said.

?From what we understand, the car was owned by Justin Bieber, but he was not in the vehicle at the time,? Nightingale said.

A call by The Associated Press to a spokesperson for the singer was not immediately returned. Bieber's Twitter feed made no mention of the incident early Wednesday.

Police would offer no information on the Ferrari?s driver except to say the individual was believed to be a friend of the 18-year-old Canadian singer.

The incident occurred about 5:45 p.m. local time (8:45 p.m. ET) Tuesday after a California Highway Patrol officer flagged the Ferrari for speeding on the northbound 405 Freeway, Nightingale said. The car then exited at Sepulveda Boulevard and Getty Center Drive, she said.

During the traffic stop, the photographer crossed the busy Sepulveda thoroughfare, which runs?parallel?to the 405, and attempted to shoot photos of the vehicle?s occupants from a perch on the narrow divider, Nightingale said.

The Highway Patrol officer on the scene repeatedly warned the man that his position was dangerous, she said.

The man was then struck by a car traveling southbound on Sepulevda, Nightingale said.

Justin Bieber is the most googled person on earth. The pop star started as a viral sensation. He and his manager, Scooter Braun, sit down with Ryan Seacrest to discuss Bieber's journey and his future.

No charges were expected to be filed against the motorist, who stopped her car to attempt to administer assistance, Nightingale told NBC News. The driver was a woman with two young children in the vehicle, Nightingale said.

Complete US coverage from NBC News

The scene was still behind held at around 12:30 a.m. local time Wednesday (3:30 a.m. ET), she said. The investigation had been handed over from the West Traffic Bureau to the LAPD?s Multi-Disciplinary Collision Investigation Team, she said.

?We are going methodically to take our time to get everything we need to get the investigation resolved,? Nightingale added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/02/16296705-photographer-killed-while-trying-to-shoot-ferrari-believed-to-belong-to-justin-bieber?lite

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Love Rests On No Foundation ? Conscious Transitions

?Love rests on no foundation,

It is an endless ocean,

with no beginning and no end.

Imagine,?a suspended ocean,

riding on a cushion of ancient secrets.

All souls have drowned in it,

and now dwell there.

One drop of that ocean is hope,

and the rest is fear.?

- Rumi

One drop of that ocean is hope, and the rest is fear. My practice is full of people who are struggling with relationship anxiety: women and men with loving, attentive, honest partners who are stuck in an anxious loop and trying desperately to dissolve the block of fear so that they don?t sabotage the best thing that ever walked into their life. But if the relationship is so good, why, as Rumi wrote in this poem,?is it so scary?

I used to think that love was only scary for people who had come from abusive childhoods. I knew that the trauma didn?t have to be overt emotional, physical, or sexual abuse to qualify as abuse ? in fact, it?s often the covert abuse that creates more challenges in terms of accepting real love later in life ? but the correlation between the first relationship and later relationships was blatantly obvious. An emotionally invasive mother creates a blueprint belief that says, ?Love means no self.? An absent father creates a love script that says, ?Love means abandonment.? A combination of these parental deficits naturally creates a dangerous cocktail where love and fear meet in a terrifying collision.

However, after years of doing this work, it?s clear that even people who grew up with loving parents stumble upon trouble with love relationships as adults. The psychological world likes to assign all root causes of emotional challenges to the parents, but this is a limited and short-sighted approach to understanding the factors that contribute to the evolution of the wounded self (ego). The following factors have a profound affect on a person?s ability to love freely:

• Prenatal, birth, and early bonding experiences
• Relationships with peers and siblings (teasing, bullying, social hierarchies)
• Beliefs instilled by schooling and religion (right and wrong; good and bad)
• What you witnessed in your parents? marriage
• What you witnessed in terms of your parents? ability to attend to their own emotional needs responsibly
• Inherited anxiety
• Previous love relationships (painful experiences with exes, break-ups)

And then there?s the undeniable fact that we?re all born with a scared part of ourselves. We can call it wounded self, ego, small self or whatever name you prefer, but we are wired as humans to have a fear-based self. This fear-based self likes to be in control. It likes guarantees and shirks risky endeavors. It hates to be vulnerable, and considers emotional vulnerability the most distasteful risk you could ever take. It likes definites and abhors ambiguity. It likes to be certain. It likes to be right. It equates self-worth with success and achievement. The word maybe is anathema.

And guess what? When you commit to loving someone, you?ve entered the realm of the ambiguous. There are no guarantees that your marriage will work out. The fear-based self would like a 100% money-back guarantee at the onset of marriage that all will be well for the rest of your life, but that?s an impossible desire to fulfill. The fear-based self looks for signs that you?re making the ?right? choice (as if there is a right choice). And it recoils at the thought that, in committing to marriage, you?re exposing your heart to the risk of hurt and loss. It could be said that there is no act more vulnerable than loving another human being. And it is for this reason that the fear-based self tries to convince you to run for the hills as quickly as you can.

The antidote? Gathering your courage and taking the leap into the unknown. When you admit that fear is in the driver?s seat in the form of sending the familiar thoughts down the well-worn groove of your mind, you find the willingness to break the anxious loop and ask, ?What are these thoughts protecting me from feeling?? The first layer will be something like, ?I?m scared that if I look inside I?ll discover that my truth is that I have to leave the relationship.? But that?s just the first layer. If you gather another handful of courage and dive back into the watery underworld of psyche, the answer that lives in your soft, exposed heart will be something along the lines of, ?I?m scared of being vulnerable. I?m scared of getting hurt. I?m scared that I can?t handle the pain.?

A daily practice is immensely helpful: Inner Bonding?, mindfulness, yoga or martial arts are all ways to address the fear and grow the love. It?s also essential to keep in mind that the heart is tender and vulnerable, and when we remember that loving another is risk, we automatically pull back the projection that says, ?If I was with a different partner who was more _______, I would be happier, more alive, more certain.? Hold your heart with compassion, remind yourself that it will open and close like the petals of a rose, and know that when it closes, the work is to see it with gentleness, without judgement, knowing that it?s just what the heart does. As Pema Chodron writes in her weekly quotes:

Bodhichitta is our heart?our wounded, softened heart. Now, if you look for that soft heart that we guard so carefully?if you decide that you?re going to do a scientific exploration under the microscope and try to find that heart?you won?t find it. You can look, but all you?ll find is some kind of tenderness. There isn?t anything that you can cut out and put under the microscope. There isn?t anything that you can dissect or grasp. The more you look, the more you find just a feeling of tenderness tinged with some kind of sadness. This sadness is not about somebody mistreating us.

This is inherent sadness, unconditioned sadness. It is part of our birthright, a family heirloom. It?s been called the genuine heart of sadness.

Past the defenses/mental addictions (I?m with the wrong person, I?m not in love enough)?and projections (everything he/she does irritates me), lives the wounded, softened heart. When you can crack open the hard shell of your learned protections, you will rest in this vulnerable place, and you will probably cry. They will be tears of beauty and tears of pain. They?ll be tears of recognizing your tenderness and the immense risk you take when you choose to love. It?s the grief of being human, of knowing how little control you have over outcomes and people, and when you allow yourself to touch down into this exquisitely raw place, you let go of trying to control and open the doorway for joy and love to enter.

Source: http://conscious-transitions.com/love-rests-on-no-foundation/

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Thompson's late TD pass decides Outback Bowl

South Carolina wide receiver Damiere Byrd (10) celebrates with tight end Rory Anderson (81) after scoring on a 56-yard first-quarter touchdown against Michigan during the Outback Bowl NCAA college football game, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

South Carolina wide receiver Damiere Byrd (10) celebrates with tight end Rory Anderson (81) after scoring on a 56-yard first-quarter touchdown against Michigan during the Outback Bowl NCAA college football game, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

South Carolina's Ace Sanders (1) runs back a punt 63-yards for a touchdown against Michigan during the first quarter of the Outback Bowl NCAA college football game, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

South Carolina cornerback Jimmy Legree (15) intercepts a pass intended for Michigan wide receiver Drew Dileo (9) during the first quarter of the Outback Bowl NCAA college football game, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Michigan wide receiver Drew Dileo (9) celebrates after scoring on a five-yard touchdown reception against South Carolina during the second quarter of the Outback Bowl NCAA college football game, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

South Carolina cornerback Akeem Auguste (3) breaks up a pass intended for Michigan wide receiver Joe Reynolds (85) during the first quarter of the Outback Bowl NCAA college football game, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Steve Spurrier's plan to use two quarterbacks in the Outback Bowl worked so well that Dylan Thompson and Connor Shaw both earned game balls.

That's a first for the Head Ball Coach, who has a well-known penchant for benching struggling QBs. Except in this case, the Gamecocks' winningest coach used his talented pair of passers by design.

Shaw began Tuesday's 33-28 victory over Michigan with a 56-yard touchdown pass to Damiere Byrd. Thompson closed it out by throwing a 32-yard TD strike to Bruce Ellington in the final minute to help South Carolina match the school record for victories in a season.

"I don't know if I've ever given two quarterbacks a game ball, but today I said: 'Hey, we've got to give them to both you guys,'" Spurrier said.

"Both those young men are just so super team-oriented. There's no jealousy, nothing. ... Those guys are just really, really good teammates. Wonderful team players," the coach added. "We tried to tell Connor: 'It's your game.' And it was his game, but Dylan was going to play. He understood that. It worked beautifully as it turned out."

Thompson replaced Shaw during the winning drive, covering the final 43 yards after Shaw began the march from his own 30 and kept it alive with a 6-yard completion to Ace Sanders on a fourth-and-3 play. Devin Gardner's third TD pass of the game had given Michigan a 28-27 lead.

"I wasn't nervous. I knew I had great guys around me, and I trusted them and just was confident," Thompson said.

Shaw threw for 227 yards and two touchdowns after missing the Gamecocks' regular-season finale with a left foot sprain. Thompson led the Gamecocks (11-2) to a victory at archrival Clemson, and threw for 117 yards and two TDs in the bowl.

Gardner threw for 214 yards in his fifth start for Michigan (8-5) since Denard Robinson injured his right elbow late in the season. Robinson took some snaps at quarterback and even attempted his first passes in a game since Oct. 27, but lined up mostly at running back and rushed for 100 yards on 23 carries.

Sanders caught TD passes of 4 yards from Thompson and 31 yards from Shaw, who completed 18 of 26 passes before aggravating his foot injury and limping off during the final drive. The speedy receiver had nine catches for 92 yards and also scored on a 63-yard punt return ? one of four plays over 50 yards yielded by Michigan.

Gardner was 18 of 36, including TD passes of 5 yards to Drew Dileo and 10 and 17 yards to Jeremy Gallon, who gave Michigan its late lead and finished with career bests of nine receptions and 145 yards. Robinson set the NCAA record for career yards rushing by a quarterback, hiking his four-year total to 4,495 ? 15 more than West Virginia's Pat White ran for from 2005-08.

"I'd rather win the game," said Robinson, who attempted two passes in the third quarter, both incompletions, and also ran twice on plays in which he took the snap as the quarterback ? a role he's embraced since being injured during a loss to Nebraska.

"It was just what I thought it was going to be," Robinson said. "I tried to make the most of it."

South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney was quiet for much of the day, but shifted momentum in the fourth quarter with a big hit on Vincent Smith that sent the running back's helmet rolling several yards backward and caused a fumble that the SEC defensive player of the year recovered to set up Shaw's TD pass to Sanders for a 27-22 lead.

The TD capped a three-play sequence that began with Michigan running its second fake punt of the game, gaining 4 yards to the Wolverines 41 for what was ruled a first down, despite not appearing be one when the officials called for a measurement. South Carolina challenged the spot, but the ruling on the field was upheld.

Clowney then slammed into Smith just as the Michigan runner was taking the handoff from Gardner, jarring the ball loose.

"I asked one of those other refs there. I said, 'You know the ball did not touch the first-down marker.' He said, 'I know it didn't.' I said, 'Well, why did he give it to them?' and he said, 'I don't know,'" Spurrier said.

"Clowney knocked the ball out the next play, so I'm glad they gave it to them. ... We gained about 10 or 15 yards."

Robinson was injured during the first half of Michigan's two-touchdown loss to Nebraska on Oct. 27. He missed the rest of that game, as well the next two against Minnesota and Northwestern before returning the final two weeks of the regular season to contribute in ways that didn't require him to throw the ball.

The 6-foot, 197-pound native of Deerfield Beach, Fla., entered the game during Michigan's second possession and ran for 15 yards on his first play. Gardner threw 26 yards to Gallon, moving the Wolverines into position for Brendan Gibbons to kick a 39-yard field goal.

Down 14-3 after Sanders' punt return, Michigan marched 75 yards in 11 plays to trim South Carolina's lead to four, with Robinson carrying four times for 20 yards along the way. Gardner finished the drive by flipping his touchdown pass to Dileo early in the second quarter.

Michigan began the day ranked second in the nation in pass defense, allowing 155 yards per game. South Carolina matched that in the opening half alone, with most of the yardage coming on Shaw's long TD throw to Byrd and Thompson's 70-yard completion to Jones that led to Sanders' second TD for a 21-10 lead.

The Wolverines turned South Carolina's only turnover into Gibbons' 40-yard field goal in the second quarter, and Matt Wile's Outback Bowl-record 52-yard field goal trimmed Michigan's deficit to 21-16.

South Carolina ended on a five-game winning streak that followed consecutive losses to LSU and Florida. The Gamecocks also won 11 games last season.

"We hit eight of 10 goals we started the season with," Spurrier said. "We did that last year, too. That's good, but it still can be better."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-01-01-T25-Outback%20Bowl/id-302a60531550490fb2a7f92404b518ff

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HEALTH & WELLNESS ? Running down costs ? New North ... - Insight

Derek Sharratt, an analyst programmer at Secura, works out in the company?s fitness center. Health and wellness are incorporated into the culture of the company, which recently won a platinum-level Well Workplace Award from the Wellness Councils of America (WELCOA). Badger Mining Corp. of Berlin also was a platinum-level winner. To read more about the awards, visit insightonbusiness.com.

As Wisconsin?s businesses struggle with rising health insurance premiums, employers are looking to their workforce to help meet those challenges by encouraging healthier lifestyle choices.

Nationally, the Kaiser Family Foundation?s annual look at the state of employer-sponsored insurance shows health insurance costs are growing much faster than wages. The report says that while employee contributions to their health insurance premiums jumped by 180 percent since 1999, their earnings grew just a quarter as fast. The average health insurance plan offered by a large company is $15,745, and many employers are shifting more health care costs to their workers.

That?s why more employers are taking a proactive approach to lowering health risks, and employees are eagerly climbing on board.

Appleton-based Secura Insurance has offered employees an on-site ?mini physical,? a health risk assessment that includes a blood draw, cholesterol check, blood pressure and body fat measurement. Based on the risk evaluation score, employees can earn a 5, 10 or 15 percent credit to offset health and medical premiums.

?It?s a reward for being healthy, and it works,? says Becky Doell, human resources consultant at Secura. ?Every year more and more of our associates qualify for the maximum credit, and today the majority of them do earn that 15 percent.?

Doell says risk and prevention are a part of life that the property and casualty insurance company deals with daily, and knows that prevention is an investment that pays off not only for its associates, but for the company?s bottom line. For instance, carrying extra weight is a risk factor. Health care costs for someone in the obesity range can increase an additional $600. Someone scoring high in eight risk factors are susceptible to as many as 15 chronic conditions, which translate into higher health care costs.

Employee wellness assessments are gaining in popularity in northeast Wisconsin and nationwide as costs continue to rise. And while more workers are rolling up their sleeves for testing, many are concerned whether their health risk status should be a public matter.

?The employers we serve get to see an aggregate summary of risks for the total employee population, but we keep individual results confidential,? says Michael Naparalla, president and co-owner of Healics, the oldest privately held risk assessment company in Wisconsin. With offices in Appleton and Williams Bay, the nurse owned-and-operated company supports employer-sponsored wellness programs across the nation with worksite health screens, individual and group health risk reports, health coaching and online interactive wellness resources.

?

It?s all about risk

Naparalla says nationwide, 20 percent of employees are driving 80 percent of health insurance costs for companies. For every 100 employees a business has, 63 are overweight or obese, 38 have high cholestorol, 24 don?t exercise, 29 have high blood pressure and 18 smoke or chew tobacco.

?We do have a lot more manufacturing in the New North, and as a general trend we know that men in those industries tend not to go to the doctor for regular checkups,? says Naparalla, who sees an increased risk of cardio issues in the Dairy State.

According to the World Health Organization, 80 percent of all heart disease stroke and Type 2 diabetes, and up to 40 percent of cancers

could be prevented if people ate healthier, exercised more and stopped using tobacco. But scary statistics don?t produce change: motivation does.

?

A culture of wellness

Continual support with small but steady progress leads to changes that stick, and a healthy business culture starts at the top with buy-in from the president and executive leadership.

?That attitude trickles down to the entire organization, so it really motivates people if they know their managers are on board. And if leadership isn?t excited about healthy change, they need to change course themselves and preach it for the overall good of the organization,? says Naparalla.

A wellness-focused corporate culture and a healthy work/life balance was exactly what Barb Kretsch was looking for in an employer when she joined Secura five years ago.

?I needed to get back to a healthier me, and this environment offers so many different opportunities in its wellness program that you really have to choose not to be healthy,? says Kretsch, marketing communications manager at Secura. ?I credit the company?s wellness program, the fitness instructors and colleagues in my classes to where I am today. Overall, I feel good about myself, and I have more energy to perform my role.?

Health and wellness are values deeply, intentionally embedded into the culture of the company, with an emphasis on good eating habits and exercise. Employees can take a break and work out at the on-site fitness center with a personal trainer. At the caf?, healthy entr?es, fresh fruits and vegetables are priced lower than standard fare, and menu selections are labeled bronze, silver and gold with gold being the healthiest option. Secura even had software installed to help measure portion control and tally nutritional information for various eating plans like Weight Watchers.

For Kretsch, working out three days a week has not only helped lower her insurance premiums, but inspired her to start running. This year she participated in her first 5K and five-mile runs.

?I never dreamed that would happen in my lifetime,? Kretsch says.

Source: http://www.insightonbusiness.com/6463/health-wellness-running-down-costs-new-north-employers-help-workers-to-trim/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=health-wellness-running-down-costs-new-north-employers-help-workers-to-trim

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Kandi Burruss,Todd Tucker Engaged?

Are Kandi Burruss and Todd Tucker engaged?Kandi is on vacay and suspiciously has shared several pics with her ring finger covered. And of course it doesn’t help that there has been the rumor that Todd proposed while they were still filming Real Housewives of Atlanta and that it is alllllllll on video – for the finale. those rumors always turn out to be true. Kandi is a great girl so I hope this is true, she deserves to have this happiness and pop out them babies she wants! Kandi is shaping up to be one of the bigger “Housewives” stars, as we will be seeing more of the multi-talented mama in 2013. he just finished up filming “The Kandi Factory” for Bravo and she has a really lucrative adult toy line “Bedrom Kandi.” Her mama gave her the perfect franchise name. Just sayin!   Kim will also have her spin-off but that girl doesn;t make sense to me anymore, so I am not sure I can muster up enough guilty pleasure points to watch that shiz. I will be tuining into Kandi’s show though. And RHOA – if they show them broke @ss grandma strippers again, I will be forced [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/QaWqgADzSe0/

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