RED DEER ADVOCATE Thursday, June 27, 2013 B3
Straight talk about sun safety MIKE ROIZEN & MEHMET OZ
DRS. OZ AND ROIZEN is some concern that nanoparticles of zinc oxide, and also of titanium dioxide, allow for absorption into the skin, making these potential body pollutants. We’ll keep you informed as data emerges.) Step No. 3: SPF 30 is all you need. Higher sun protection factors offer little extra shielding. Staying in the sun too long because you think you’re covered could lead to skin damage. Step No. 4: Use plenty — and re-apply. Most people skimp on sunscreen, missing out on full protection. The only protection your skin needs is an ounce (a shot glass worth) of SPF 30 micronized zinc oxide, spread thickly to cover all skin exposed when you’re wearing a bathing suit (it depends on your body size, natch!). Reapply — usually every two hours, or sooner if you’re swimming or sweating. Step No. 5: Dress to thwart the sun. Wear a longsleeved shirt and pants when gardening, strolling or
‘Selfies’ now stretch through generations NEW YORK — In these hyper-connected, over-shared times dwell two kinds of people: those preoccupied with taking and uploading photos of themselves and those who have never heard of the selfie. The raunchy, goofy, poignant, sexy or drunken self-portrait has been a common sight since phone camera met social media. Now, nearly a decade since the arm-extended or in-the-mirror photos became a mainstay of MySpace — duck face or otherwise — selfies are a pastime across generations and cultures. Justin Bieber puts up plenty with his shirt off and Rihanna poses for sultry snaps, but a beaming Hillary Clinton recently took a turn with daughter Chelsea, who tweeted their happy first attempt with the hashtag ProudDaughter. Two other famous daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, selfied at dad’s second inauguration, pulling faces in front of a smartphone. And Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide earned a spot in the Selfie Hall of Fame with a striking, other-worldly shot, arms extended as reflected in his helmet outside the International Space Station last year. “It just comes so naturally after a point,” said Elizabeth Zamora, a 24-year-old marketing account co-ordinator in Dallas who has taken hundreds of selfies since she got her first iPhone two years ago, with the front-facing camera that has become the selfie gold standard. “You just take it and you don’t even realize it and then you’re sharing it with all your friends,” she said. “I try not to go crazy.” If we’re not taking them, we’re certainly looking, regardless of whether we know what they’re called. We’re lurking on the selfies of our teens, enjoying the hijinx of co-workers and friends and mooning over celebrities, who have fast learned the marketing value — and scandalous dangers — of capturing their more intimate, unpolished selves. The practice of freezing and sharing our thinnest slices of life has become so popular that the granddaddy of dictionaries, the Oxford, is monitoring the term selfie as a possible addition. Time magazine included the selfie in its Top 10 buzzwords of 2012 (at No. 9) and New York magazine’s The Cut blog declared in April: “Ugly Is the New Pretty: How Unattractive Selfies Took Over the Internet.” On Instagram alone, there’s selfiesunday,
along with related tags where millions of selfies land daily. More than 23 million photos have been uploaded to the app with the tag selfie and about 70 million photos clog Instagram’s me. What are we to make of all this navel-gazing (sometimes literally)? Are selfies, by definition, culturally dangerous? Offensive? An indicator of moral decline? Beverly Hills, Calif., psychiatrist Carole Lieberman sees narcissism with a capital N. “The rise of the selfie is a perfect metaphor for our increasingly narcissistic culture. We’re desperately crying out: Look at me!” But Pamela Rutledge doesn’t see it that way. The director of the non-profit Media Psychology Research Center, which explores how humans interact with technology, sees the selfie as democratizing the once-snooty practice of self-portraiture, a tradition that long predates Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. In selfies, we can be famous and in control of our own images and storylines. As for the young, the more authority figures — parents, teachers — dislike them and “declare them a sign of a self-obsessed, narcissistic generation, the more desirable they become,” she said. The word selfie in itself carries multiple connotations, Rutledge observes. “The ‘ie’ at the end makes selfie a diminutive, implying some affection and familiarity.” From a semantic’s perspective, the selfie is a “little’ self” — a small, friendly bit of the self,
Mehmet Oz, M.D. is host of The Dr. Oz Show, and Mike Roizen, M.D. is Chief Wellness Officer and Chair of Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic. To live your healthiest, visit sharecare.com.
One in five students report serious brain injury
she said. There’s a sense of immediacy and temporariness. “Granted, little is really temporary on the Internet, but it is more that by definition. Transient, soon to be upstaged by the next one,” Rutledge said. Self-portraits tagged as ‘selfie’ first surfaced on Flickr, a photo-sharing site, and on MySpace in 2004, Rutledge said. The earliest reference in UrbanDictionary was to “selfy” in 2005. In historical terms, elites in Ancient Egypt were fond of self-portraits, Rutledge said. And then there was the mirror, invented in the 15th century. Fast forward to the 1860s and the advent of cameras, launching a new round of selfies, though they took considerable skill and expense. Leap with us once again to 2010 and the launch of Instagram, and on to 2012, when 86 per cent of the U.S. population had a cellphone, bringing on the cheaper selfie as social media and mobile Internet access spread. “What’s most interesting to me is how we’re trying to grapple with what it means,” Rutledge said. “We know what it means when we see somebody’s picture of their kid holding a soccer ball. “We’re OK with that. And we know what it means to have a portrait in a high school yearbook or of a real estate agent on a business card. We know how to think about all of those things, but we don’t know how to think about this mass production of self-reflection.”
THE CANADIAN PRESS A new study shows one in five middle and high school students in Ontario report they have suffered at least one head injury that knocked them unconscious for more than five minutes or required overnight hospitalization. The study’s authors say that suggests traumatic head injuries are far more common among young people than previous statistics indicated, likely because many incidents go unreported. The paper, published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, looks at the prevalence of such injuries among the province’s public school students in Grades 7 through 12, as well as the circumstances surrounding them. Researchers at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital analyzed data from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s 2011 survey on drug use and health, which was filled out by close to 9,000 Ontario students aged 11 to 20. They found that roughly five per cent of students reported having a traumatic brain injury in the past year — and more than half those cases (56 per cent) were sports-related. There was also a link with alcohol and cannabis, with frequent users showing “significantly higher odds” of a head injury in the past year than
their tee-totalling peers. Boys were more likely than girls to report having experienced a head injury in the past year — 6.9 per cent compared with 4.3 per cent, according to the study. Head injuries more than a year old were also linked to poorer grades in the present, said co-author Gabriela Ilie, a neuropsychologist. “There is a relationship, but that relationship is important when we keep in mind that traumatic brain injuries are preventable,” she said Tuesday. The latest figures from Statistics Canada showed 2.7 per cent of teens aged 12 to 19 had suffered a head injury in 2009 and 2010, though the agency didn’t specify how serious those injuries were. Ilie said everybody, from parents and teachers to teens themselves, has to take action to keep young people from getting hurt — and ensure they get proper treatment when they do. “There are issues related to equipment, there are issues related to rules and regulations that can be addressed,” she said. “But there are also things that we can do as a community in terms of our perception of brain injury... to treat it with the same amount of respect and care and consideration that an injury to the arm or an injury to the leg is addressed.”
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BY LEANNE ITALIE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
sitting by the pool or shore. Tightly woven, dyed fabrics block more rays than gauzy or white materials. But since those rarely give more protection than SPF 6, consider using sun-guard clothing with an ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) of 15 to 50. You also can wash sun protection into clothing with laundry additives containing the sunscreen Tinosorb. Step No. 6: Shade your face and peepers. Slap on a broad-brimmed hat and large sunglasses. These protect delicate facial skin (which deserves a dose of sunscreen year-round) and eyes; they take the brunt of sun exposure in all seasons. Step No. 7: Take vitamin D-3 and omega-3 DHA. It’s true that well-protected skin misses out on the sun exposure your body needs to produce vitamin D. But that’s no reason to go outdoors unprotected. A daily vitamin D-3 supplement assures you of a year-round supply of this important vitamin. The sun’s rays are too weak to make sufficient D yearround in the northern half of the U.S. and Canada, anyway. Aim for 1,000 IU of vitamin D-3 daily. Meanwhile, dig into salmon or wild trout twice a week, or get 900 mg of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA from a daily algal oil supplement. One reason sunshine harms skin is that it suppresses the immune system. A new report reveals omega-3 DHA keeps immunity strong, even when you’re playing in the summer sun.
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We should talk. Did you know your lifetime odds for developing skin cancer are a whopping 1 in 5? Treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers (melanoma is the most life-threatening form) jumped by almost 77 per cent from 1992 to 2006. And even more startling: From 1970 to 2009, melanoma diagnosis increased by 800 per cent in young women and 400 per cent in young men. Thankfully, regularly using sunscreen can slash that risk. (And so can never, ever going anywhere near a tanning bed!) But with store shelves packed with hundreds of brands of sunscreens in all kinds of formulations, choosing the right one can be downright confusing. Here’s how to stay safe in the sun this summer: Step No. 1: Choose a sunscreen with minerals. We’re concerned about chemical sunscreens with active ingredients that are absorbed into the skin and, in small amounts, into the bloodstream. Some act as endocrine disruptors, mimicking hormones in the body. We don’t know yet what the health effects could be, so play it safe. Look for sunscreens that contain zinc oxide, titanium dioxide or both. These finely crushed minerals work by reflecting and scattering the sun’s ultraviolet rays like a protective shield. (In contrast, other sunscreens absorb the sun’s rays, releasing the damaging energy as heat.) Our top choice is zinc oxide because it’s best at blocking both UV-A rays, which harm cells deep in the skin, and UV-B rays, which cause sunburn. Step No. 2: Avoid chalky-looking skin — go micronized. Like you, we prefer invisible protection over a thick white coating that’ll leave you looking like an extra from “Beach Blanket Bingo.” So buy a sunscreen containing micronized zinc oxide that won’t leave you looking smeary. (There