On the way

Money, or the lack of it, changes everything, and that includes how people will be working out in 2010.

In these belt-tightening times, cost-conscious workouts at home and at the gym topped the list of fitness trends for this year in a survey, followed by shorter, more time-efficient regimens, such as boot camp and circuit training.

“People are looking for ways to accomplish as much as possible with as little time and money as necessary,” said Cedric X. Bryant, chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise (ACE), which conducted the online poll of fitness professionals.

“Last year ‘budget-conscious’ was on the list but this year the majority of the respondents put it as one of the top,” he added.

Bryant said some 600 ACE-certified fitness professionals responded to the annual poll, which the non-profit organization has been conducting for a decade.

Other money-saving measures, such as the shift from personal training sessions to small group training classes and in-home workouts using smaller, more portable equipment, also made the list.

“Personal trainers are seeing they’ve got to respond to market needs. Working with two to four clients at a time they can charge less but still get their hourly fee,” Bryant said.

Boot-camp workouts and circuit training, both of which burn calories while building strength and endurance, will be among the most popular trends in 2010, as time-constrained consumers seek shorter, more intense regimens.

One bright spot is the rise of exergaming-type systems, like Nintendo’s Wii Sports, Wii Fit and the PC-based Dancetown. Bryant says the fitness-based video games are turning up in health clubs and senior centers.

Functional training workouts, which are geared to improving the quality of life and the ability to perform everyday tasks, will remain strong, and the use of computerized tracking and online training and scheduling tools will increase in the coming year.

幸福也是一个公众需求、也是一个公众服务，而在过去我们一直在避免提及这种情况，政府也没有把它列为自己政绩的指数当中，主要原因是，幸福取决于你自己的感受，这是没办法去验证的，唯一能看到你自己是不是幸福的人就是你自己，但是幸福事实上是一个公众性的社会福祉相关的服务和功能。
在西方文化以及文学当中，幸福是以比较为基础的，要么你和你去年的自己相比、要么你和邻居相比，这种幸福观是以竞争为基础的，但是我们认为幸福事实上指的是一种和谐生存的状态，取决于我们的关系。正是由于新经济学主导了我们过去一个世纪很多的经济活动，根据新经济学的理论我们的幸福很多的情况下是来自于外部对于我们感官眼耳口鼻的刺激才是幸福，这样意味着会刺激生产和消费，但事实上却没有考虑到幸福在某种程度上也可以给予你的内心对于自己的控制来自于冥想。

Cutting meat production and consumption by 30 percent would help to reduce carbon emissions and improve health in the most meat-loving nations, scientists said on Wednesday.
Using prediction models, British and Australian researchers found that improving efficiency, increasing carbon capture and reducing fossil fuel dependence in farming would not be enough to meet emissions targets.
But combining these steps with a 30 percent reduction in livestock production in major meat-producing nations and a similar cut in meat-eating, would lead to “substantial population health benefits” and cut emissions, they said.
The study found that in Britain, a 30 percent lower intake of animal-source saturated fat by adults would reduce the number of premature deaths from heart disease by some 17 percent — equivalent to 18,000 premature deaths averted in one year.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, it could mean as many as 1,000 premature deaths averted in a year, they said.
According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions are from meat production and experts say rising demand for meat, particularly in countries with growing economies, could drive livestock production up by 85 percent from 2000 levels by 2030.
The scientists said global action was needed to maximize the benefits of cutting meat production and consumption, and that the environmental advantages “may apply only in those countries that currently have high production levels.”
The study was published in The Lancet medical journal as part of a series in climate change and health ahead of the Copenhagen global climate summit scheduled next month.
In a second study, British scientists found that increased walking and cycling, and fewer cars, would have a much greater impact on health than low-emission vehicles in rich and middle-income countries.
Andrew Haines, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and head of the research series, said delegates at Copenhagen needed “to understand the potential health impacts of their plans.”

A visitor to China’s Loess Plateau would rightly be puzzled that the region was once the cradle of Chinese civilization.
Through thousands of years of farming, much of the once fertile soil has been leached to the point of infertility. Massive dust storms pick up the loose soil and carry it as far as Tokyo and Taipei. During sunset, fumes from factories block out the sun well before it can be observed sinking below the horizon.
But all this may be finally changing.
In 2005, the Chinese government, in cooperation with the World Bank, completed the world’s largest watershed restoration on the upper banks of the Yellow River. Woefully under-publicized, the $500 million enterprise transformed an area of 35,000 square kilometers on the Loess Plateau — roughly the area of Belgium — from dusty wasteland to a verdant agricultural center.
The result of careful terracing, replanting of native vegetation and restrictions on grazing, the rejuvenated land now supports a thriving local agricultural economy. Even better, the new vegetation reduces flooding and dust storms by anchoring the region’s soil and is becoming a large carbon sink.
As the Copenhagen meeting on climate change begins, the restoration project may finally get the attention it deserves. A new film directed and written by John Liu, the founder of the Environmental Education Media Project and a veteran eco-film director, will tell the story of the Loess Plateau. The documentary, “Hope in a Changing Climate,” takes the story of the Loess Plateau as its lead, but quickly moves to Rwanda and Ethiopia where similar successes have come from a process known as forest landscape restoration.
Copenhagen is the first time forest landscape restoration will be on the agenda at a major international climate conference. Under what is known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation Plus (REDD+), Copenhagen negotiators hope to establish a regulatory regime to fight deforestation and manage forested areas. Proponents of forest landscape restoration are hoping this could include recognition and support for projects across the globe.
That could be a major step forward in popularizing landscape restoration. The process suffers from being literally as exciting as watching grass grow. It can take decades for vegetation to fully return, and strict attention must be paid to mundane matters like grazing and over-planting. Mr. Liu’s documentary overcomes this stumbling block with jaw-dropping fades from muddy denuded landscapes to lush fields.
It is becoming harder to deny the importance of forest landscape restoration in combating climate change. A new study by the World Resources Institute shows that about 1 billion hectares of land could be restored across the globe. Rough estimates indicate that carbon sequestration through this process could eliminate 50 percent more carbon from the atmosphere than a proactive cessation of deforestation could.
Still, forest landscape restoration is decidedly complex. Because ecosystems vary based on geography, and lasting success depends on the support of local residents, the process is pesteringly cross-disciplinary. Any forest landscape restoration project requires the know-how of engineers, ecologists and soil scientists, plus an understanding of local economics and politics.
In the Loess Plateau locals built and must maintain the terraces that have brought about their ecosystem’s incredible recovery.
Much hangs in the balance of the Copenhagen talks, and although forest landscape restoration is a shining light in what has over the past few months become a darkening debate, it is no panacea. It must be implemented in combination with carbon cuts and sound anti-deforestation policies.
Despite the successes of the Loess Plateau, about one-third of the Yellow River remains so polluted that its waters are not fit even for agricultural use. Fully restoring the river to its former pristine state will prove a long and complicated process.
Still, forest landscape restoration can be put into place now. “Any opportunity we have to reduce carbon and to lift people out of poverty should be taken,” Mr. Liu said. “Investing in local people and empowering them to restore their own environment will have a much greater impact than flying leaders around in 747s to talk to each other.”
Indeed, by the time the political squabbling ends and a new agreement is fully implemented, trees planted today could be saplings.

By PAUL MOZUR
Paul Mozur is a freelance writer based in Taipei, Taiwan.

Men who bottle up their anger at being unfairly treated at work are up to five times more likely to suffer a heart attack, or even die from one, than those who let their frustration show, a Swedish study has found.

The study by the Stress Research Institute of Stockholm University followed 2,755 employed men who had not suffered any heart attacks from 1992 to 2003.

At the end of the study, 47 participants had either suffered an attack, or died from heart disease, and many of those had been found to be “covertly coping” with unfair treatment at work.

“After adjustment for age, socioeconomic factors, risk behaviors, job strain and biological risk factors at baseline, there was a close-response relationship between covert coping and the risk of incident myocardial infarction or cardiac death,” the study’s authors wrote.

Covert coping was listed as “letting thing pass without saying anything” and “going away” despite feelings of being hard done by colleagues or bosses.

Men who often used these coping techniques had a two to fivefold higher risk of developing heart disease than those who were more confrontational at work, the study showed.

The researchers said they could not answer the question of what might be a particularly healthy coping strategy at work, but listed open coping behavior when experiencing unfair treatment or facing a conflict as “protesting directly,” “talking to the person right away,” “yelling at the person right away” or “speaking to the person later when things have calmed down.”

The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.