And the winners are...
If there’s a proven way to get fitter, healthier and happier, we know you want to
hear about it. And after 12 months of being bombarded with the latest health news, we
also know you’re feeling a tad dizzy. Enter the Health Smart Awards ’08.
We trawled through the advice, remedies and tonics of the past year and made a list of the
items that live up to the hype, plus the people who inspired us to be the best we can be.
There were also some notions and potions that were downright wacky, and these garnered one of our less coveted but very deserving Dumb Bunny Awards. If you change one thing about your health this year, make sure it’s on our list...
Smart Anti-Aging
It’s very exciting when we find a product that truly works, and HealthSmart beauty writer Elisabeth King believes Olay Regenerist Facial Treatment Mask ($39 for a pack of 5) does just that. “It’s a prestige product that outperforms skincare masks many times its price,” she says.
Smart Role Model
There’s something very attractive about a woman who refuses to be stereotyped.
Chelsea Bonner, a former international size 14 model and founder of plus-size model agency Bella Models, is one. She believes many women sacrifice their health and happiness to fit a
manufactured ideal of beauty, and she knows what she’s talking about. When Bonner, 33, was a teenager, her younger sister Hanna began a dalliance with dieting. Over time, the yo-yo dieting morphed into anorexia and bulimia; within four years, her adored sister weighed just 45 kilos. Hanna has since recovered and had a baby, but the ordeal changed her older sister’s attitude to body image forever. The curvaceous 1.76cm blonde tried dieting herself, but
quickly realised that the effort to stay stick-thin wasn’t compatible with a fulfilling life. This realisation solidified when she worked for a Melbourne modeling agency in her early 20s;
there she noticed a paucity of fuller-figured models on the agency’s roster. Bonner convinced her boss to put her on the books and a successful modelling career followed. At 28, after a stint
in New York, she hung up her heels and opened her own plus-size agency that now represents 36 beautiful, voluptuous women in demand all over the world. “I’ve long been a passionate advocate for a more realistic portrayal of women in the media,” says Bonner. “It gives me
enormous satisfaction to see these gorgeous women starting to get the appreciation they deserve.”
www.bellamodels.com.au
Smart Product
When johnson’s Holiday Skin was released back in 2005 there was nothing on the market like it. For years, women had searched for a foolproof way to apply fake tan without unsightly streaks and patches, and now here it was – a moisturiser with a touch of tanning agent that went on smoothly to build a natural, lasting tan over several applications. Competitors have crowded the shelves this past year, but we love Holiday Skin for leading the way, and
showing us that it’s possible to look like you’ve had a break even if you haven’t left the house. Better still, it gives a healthy glow without burning you to a crisp.
Smart Fat Fighter
You have to love an exercise that takes just 20 minutes, involves slowing down every eight seconds and is more effective at burning fat than prolonged aerobics. Which is not to say that LifeSprints, the popular cycling exercise regime devised by Associate Professor Steve Boutcher, director of the Fat Loss Laboratory at the University of NSW, is a free ride – between the “rest” periods you’re flatout sprinting. The exercise routine involves eight-second sprints followed by 12 seconds of slow pedalling on a stationary bike for 20 minutes, three times a week. Boutcher studied 45 women over a 15-week period and found that the group doing
LifeSprints lost three times more fat than a group who did 40 minutes of sustained aerobic exercise. The research is an exciting breakthrough, he notes. “The fast/slow exercise cycle releases catecholamine [adrenaline/ noradrenaline] into the blood, which burns fat. Sprinting seems to use up fat inside the muscles, which is then replaced by fat from under the skin
after the exercise has stopped.” The other advantage is that it is timeefficient and produces results. “Overweight males and females won’t do it if it’s too hard,” notes Boutcher. “With this exercise, you can warm up,work out,warm down and be showered and dressed in 45 minutes.”
Smart Vitamin
Vitamin D may have been overshadowed by show pony vitamins A, B, C and E until now, but
no longer. The latest research shows that people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and
multiple sclerosis, are often deficient in vitamin D, and scientists now believe this may be significant. With low levels of vitamin D also linked to colon, prostate and breast cancers, scientists are seriously reconsidering vitamin D absorption. Found mainly in fatty fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines, with the highest concentration in grandma’s cure-all, cod liver oil, the vitamin is tricky to obtain solely through diet. Its main source is the UVB rays of sunlight. So how do we get enough of the vital vitamin without risking excessive sun exposure? The Cancer Council Australia recommends a few minutes of sun on the face, arms and hands (or equivalent area) in the early morning or late afternoon about five days a week, and 2-3 hours a week during winter for those living in Australia’s southern states.
Smart Germ
If you believe the commercials, germs are tiny terrorists storming benchtops and bins across
Australia, threatening to destroy our domestic way of life. Well, it’s time to give bacteria a break, because some are actually good for us. Probiotics are the live “friendly” bacteria found in foods such as yoghurt and fermented milk. It’s been known for some time that probiotics help balance
our levels of microflora, bacteria naturally found in the gut that are depleted by antibiotics. A 2007 study has now shown they are more effective than first thought. Melbourne’s Austin Hospital proved that a particularly virulent bacterium resistant to almost all heavy-duty antibiotics was cleared by the probiotic LGG (Lactobacillus rhamnosus Gorbach-Goldin), one of the few strains to survive the gut. LGG is found in yoghurts such as Vaalia. Excited researchers plan further studies; in the meantime, a tub of yoghurt a day may well keep the doctor away.
Smart Sleuthing
Last year, we saw the final act of a real-life David and Goliath story when a global pharmaceutical giant was forced to admit that it had misled consumers and was compelled by court order t pay a hefty fine. The saga began three years ago when two 14-year-old New Zealand schoolgirls, Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo, tested the levels of vitamin C in Ribena blackcurrant drink for a local science competition. They expected it to contain “four times the vitamin C of oranges”, as advertised. Imagine their surprise when they discovered that ready-to-drink Ribena contained no traces of vitamin C, and imagine the surprise of GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Ribena, when the girls reported their findings to the New Zealand Commerce Commission. The Commission took the company to court, GlaxoSmithKline coughed up $200,000 in admission of its gaffe – and two Kiwi schoolgirls made history.
Click here for our Dumb Bunny awards
