photo via Flickr
High heels are an essential part of our fashion-glam culture. Finding a pair of flats at last night’s Sag Awards was like trying to find a vegan quinoa recipe in a Paula Deen cookbook. More common was the doughnut burger of the shoe world: the 29-inch stiletto like Emma Stone wore. What women will suffer for fashion! Personally, the two of us fall into the more utilitarian camp: while Em has been known to rock a sparkly pump at a party, you’ll find her more often than not in the day-to-day dressing up a flow-y, flowery dress with a pair of Converse. And Lo? Nothing comes between her and her Danskos. It may not be pretty, but nothing’s more ugly than her mood after 20 minutes in a pair of uncomfortable pumps (are they even called that anymore?). Which is why we always feel high and mighty in our low flats when a new study about the horrors of high heels comes out:  For a study published in the Jan. 12 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia compared the strides of 9 women who wore two inch heels for at least 40 hours a week for a minimum of two years with strides of 10 young women who wore heels less than 10 hours per week, by outfitting them with electrodes and motion-capture reflective markers to study their leg muscles. Here’s what they found happened to high heel wearers:
- They walk with shorter, more forceful strides
- They constantly have their feet flexed and their toes pointed
- The above causes their calf muscles to shorten
- And shorter muscles means much greater mechanical strain on their calf muscles
- The strain means walking less efficiently which can lead to muscle fatigue
- The greater muscle strain as well as the introduction of the occasional flat may mean greater risk of injury
Which is why it’s so nice that there are a few fashion-glam events like the Sundance Film Festival, where comfortable, cozy flats reign supreme. Here’s to more of them!
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photo via Flickr
http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2012/01/naked-news-cougars/
photo via Flickr
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data yesterday showing that the US still has the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world. And the new global abortion study from the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization (that’s published in the Jan. 19 issue of The Lancet) found that abortion rates are highest where the procedure is illegal, such as in Latin America and Africa, and that 95 to 97 percent of abortions in those regions were unsafe. According to the LA Times, “Experts couldn’t say whether more liberal laws led to fewer procedures, but said good access to birth control in those countries resulted in fewer unwanted pregnancies.”
In the face of numbers like these, in this day and age, it is absolutely insane that every single Republican presidential candidate is ready and willing to lead the fight against keeping abortions safe and birth control accessible.
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photo by emdot
Did you know that only about a third of employers in the U.S. observe Martin Luther King Day as a holiday? So we’re doing our bit by honoring this federal holiday. (Okay, so that’s not exactly a “bit.” Get inspired to do something actually meaningful here.) We’ll be back with our regularly scheduled program tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.!
photo via Flickr
With Santorum’s recent surge in the polls, it’s important to take time out to remind ourselves what a crazy sex-police zealot he is:
Read the rest of this post on SUNfiltered
As you may have noticed (we’re not exactly subtle on this point), we don’t buy the idea that men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and shuttles between the two are infrequent at best. We tend to think that women and men are a lot more alike than rumor (or headline) has it — especially when it comes to sex and love. But this is not to say that men and women are alike in all matters of love and lust. We’ll even go so far as to admit that some of the cliches about the gulf between men and women turn out to be true.
For example, we have long preached that women need to be incredibly blunt when it comes to asking men for what they want — or telling them what they don’t want. When rebuffing a guy’s advances, a vague and round-about rejection might seem kind, but ultimate it probably just ends up giving him hope. In our opinion, dudes are just programmed to find the tiniest bit of hope in anything a woman says or does.
And now here’s a survey to prove our long-time, amateur-psych theory: Psychologists at the University of Texas and Williams College recently studied undergrad speed-daters and discovered a number of interesting things:
- Men who considered themselves attractive overestimated a woman’s desire for them.
- The more attracted the man was to the woman, the more likely he was to overestimate her interest in him.
- Women consistently underestimated men’s sexual interest in them.
Looking for a new year’s resolution? Here are four, inspired by this study:
Read the rest of this post on SUNfiltered
photo of DSK graffiti via Flickr
It’s the most top-10-list time of year! And we’re not even going to try to resist its allure. 2011 was no stranger to sex scandals (is any year?). Most were political and/or not really all that surprising. And so, without further ado….(click on the link for a summary of the scandal):
- DSK
- Shirtless congressman on Craigslist
- Arnold’s love child
- Nude celebrity photos - the leaked, the faked, the hacked
- Anthony Weiner chweeting
- Herman Cain’s runaway “love” train
- Beiber as babydaddy
- Bye bye “bunga bunga” Berlusconi
- Ashton’s betrayal
- Penn State
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January 31, 2012
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