List of All Articles with Tag 'lifestyle'

Both sides of the political spectrum have their say about ESG: It’s either just a label that costs more, or it’s saving the world

The best place to dine in the US right now is Friday Saturday Sunday in Philadelphia, a city

Jim Carrey had a year unlike any other actor in 1994, during which he starred in three number one comedies: 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,' 'Dumb and Dumber,' and 'The Mask.'

France’s beloved abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel has reached a ripe old age

Janell and Stu Clarke set off on an epic motorcycle trip around the world with dog Skyla nearly 10 years ago. Now, the couple, who have traveled 150,000 miles and ridden through 108 countries, are returning home with three rescue dogs they picked up along the way.

Scientists have revealed the shocking impact of consuming ultra-processed foods in a short space of time. Two twin sisters were asked to switch up their diets as a part of a King's College London experiment for BBC Panorama. Aimee, 24, spent two weeks eating ultra-processed foods, while her sister Nancy was asked to consume the same amount of calories – but exclusively eating raw or low-processed foods. The results revealed that Aimee gained almost a kilo in weight, while her sister lost weight. The test also showed a difference in blood sugar and blood fat levels, with Aimee's worsening. So, what are ultra-processed foods? Some foods are considered "ultra-processed" under the NOVA food classification system developed by University of São Paulo researchers. They typically have five or more ingredients. The other three categories are unprocessed or minimally processed foods, processed ingredients and processed foods. "They tend to include many additives and ingredients that are not typically used in home cooking, such as preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, and artificial colours and flavours. These foods generally have a long shelf life," writes British Heart Foundation (BHF). Foods include ham, sausages, crisps, ice cream, mass-produced bread, carbonated drinks, instant soups – and even some alcoholic beverages such as whiskey, gin and rum. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Stocking up on ultra-processed foods often leaves no room for healthier options. The BHF encourages people to swap out to make conscious choices, such as swapping out flavoured yoghurts for plain and adding fresh fruit. Instead of buying pre-made sauces, they suggest making your own and freezing the extra portions for another day. Porridge with fruits and nuts also makes a great alternative to sugar-filled breakfast cereals. "In the last decade, the evidence has been slowly growing that ultra-processed food is harmful for us in ways we hadn't thought," Professor Tim Spector of epidemiology told BBC Panorama. "We're talking about a whole variety of cancers, heart disease, strokes, dementia." BHF Senior Dietitian Victoria Taylor said: "We already recommend people adopt a Mediterranean-style diet, which includes plenty of minimally or unprocessed foods such as fruit, vegetables, fish, nuts and seeds, beans, lentils and whole grains. This, along with exercising regularly and not smoking, has been shown to be beneficial for lowering the risk of heart and circulatory disease.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Nearly a half-century after its release, Queen’s classic “mock opera”—a favorite of Wayne and Garth’s—is still regularly cited as one of the greatest songs ever recorded.

Linguistic illusions—a phenomenon in which your judgment or understanding of a sentence or phrase conflicts with its actual meaning or structure—reveal how we process the world, and remind us that things aren’t always as they seem.

Women often use hormone therapy to relieve hot flashes and other menopause symptoms — and new research suggests whether they choose pills, patches or creams might matter for their blood pressure

The airline industry’s main lobby body is doubling its estimate for global net profit in 2023 as a

Al Roker has undergone his second knee replacement surgery, which had to be delayed after he was admitted to hospital for blood clots in his legs and lungs last December. The Today show weatherman, 68. has been reporting on the weather for the NBC morning show since 1996. Following his surgery, he returned to the programme on Tuesday (30 May). Roker has now said he is feeling “good” after the surgery on 9 May, which comes more than a year after his first knee replacement. He attended the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic event in New Jersey with his wife Deborah Roberts over the weekend, which he said was his first public outing since the surgery apart from work. Speaking to People, Roker said: “[It’s] nice to be wearing nice clothes. Here we are. You can’t help but feel better.” Roker was rushed to hospital the day after Thanksgiving and remained there for nearly two weeks due to the blood clots. He told his followers on Instagram that he was admitted “with a blood clot in my leg which sent some clots into my lungs”. “After some medical whack-a-mole, I am so fortunate to be getting terrific medical care and on the way to recovery,” he said, thanking fans for their well wishes. In March, Roker said he “wouldn’t be alive” if not for Roberts, 62. He told PageSix: “I guess I know it now. I didn’t know it at the time. Deborah was great at keeping all that away from me so I thought I was doing OK but that was great because I was able to focus on getting better.” Roberts is the presenter’s second wife, who he married in 1995 after splitting from ex-wife Alice Bell the year before. He shares daughter Courtney, 35, with Bell, and two children Leia, 24, and Nick, 20, with Roberts. Read More Jessie J confirms identity of her baby’s father after ‘struggling to keep things private’ Husband of non-smoker, 24, who died two weeks after lung cancer diagnosis reveals single telltale sign How noise complaints became a very British obsession Pharmacist warns against one common hay fever habit 7 tips and tricks for hay fever relief A Place In The Sun’s Jonnie Irwin admitted to hospital amid terminal diagnosis

Taking off yet another pair of jeans that simply wouldn’t fit, I was on the verge of tears. Under the harsh glare of the dressing room lights, my reddening face felt even more humiliating as I shimmied myself back into my own clothes. I had dedicated the day to jeans shopping and started it feeling optimistic, but this was quickly waning. This was the sixth store, and the seventh pair I’d tried on. None of them were happening. I question why I’ve spent hours traipsing around Oxford Street, dodging crowds and trying not to get hit by a black cab. Jeans shopping is not fun. It’s a mission. More than three years ago, I swore off jeans for the foreseeable future. At the time, I was practically living in a pair of faded black M&S high-waist, straight-cut jeans that were cropped right above my ankle. The search for those jeans had also been painful, so when I found this perfect pair, I told myself that was it – I was never going to buy jeans again. But at the start of 2023, I was devastated to find my severe lack of a thigh gap had led to a rather large hole being rubbed into the inner thigh of my beloved jeans. I resolved to get the hole fixed and am still planning to do so, but I recently become enamoured by the idea of blue jeans. It’s been a long time since I owned a pair of blue jeans I really liked. Maybe it was time to start the search again? I initially felt buoyed by the knowledge that size ranges are more extensive than ever before. In the jeans section of Asos alone, you can filter the type of denim you want to unprecedented levels of specificity: choose from 17 different styles, over 30 “jeans families”, dozens of brands, colours, and washes, six “body fits” from Curvy to Petite, and sizes up to UK32. It’s a dizzying array of choices, but surely meant that it’d be easier than ever to find what I was looking for. Yet, this couldn’t be further from the truth for many women, particular those of the larger, curvier variety. I am currently extremely average in size at a UK14. But due to the aforementioned lack of thigh gap, combined with wide hips, a generous posterior and thick, muscly calves, I’ve struggled to find jeans that are both comfortable and flattering. It’s always one problem or another: gapping at the waist, unable to get them up past my hips, too tight to sit down comfortably, too baggy to look good, too long, too suffocating, too unforgiving. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, things are even worse for plus-sized women. A friend of mine, a size UK18, has been burned so often that she was ready to give up. She told me that when she visited Khloe Kardashian’s Good American outpost in Selfridges, she tried on one pair of jeans and nearly walked out when it didn’t fit, thinking none of the others would either. The sales assistant had to stop her and tell her she would help her find something else – and they did. The look on my friend’s face when she showed me the jeans later was priceless, like butter couldn’t melt. It struck me how rare this experience is. Women just want jeans that not only make them feel confident, but are also comfortable and are worth paying a bit more for Sonia Robinson Jones Part of the reason jeans shopping is so demoralising is the lack of consistent sizing in the fashion industry. On social media, some influencers have highlighted this by trying on jeans in the same size in different stores and showing how vastly different the fits are. A UK12 in H&M can fit just right, but a UK12 in Zara might barely zip up. The same size in River Island won’t even get past your thighs, while a pair from Next might be a bit too roomy. Unreliable sizing and poor quality construction makes clothes shopping such a headache, but still the high street brands persist with the status quo. According to Sonia Robinson Jones, associate lecturer in fashion at the University of East London, this is because fast fashion brands “tend to cut their [garment] blocks for the younger body size and grade their sizes up accordingly”, rather than allowing for the fact that women tend to become curvier as we age. “In essence, jeans need to be contoured to a wider selection of body shapes… Women just want jeans that not only make them feel confident, but are also comfortable and are worth paying a bit more for.” Then there is the question of sustainability. I had initially set off with a list of criteria for my perfect jeans: dark blue, high-waisted, no rips, straight leg, preferably from a company with sustainable credentials. My holy grail jeans would have been ELV Denim, which sources unwanted jeans from warehouses around the UK and reconstructs them into entirely new pieces – but at a starting price of £255 per pair, I’d have to save my pennies for another time. Other sustainable brands such as Nudie Jeans and Lucy & Yak were at a more digestible price point, but I wasn’t keen on the idea of returning jeans that didn’t fit and adding to my carbon footprint. Aja Barber, contributing editor at Elle UK and author of Consumed, which explores the effects of fast fashion on the planet, tells me she gets around the horror of it all by shopping for second-hand jeans on eBay. “I have one style that’s my go-to and they’re widely available because the maker over-produces, so I’d rather buy them secondhand than have them become landfill waste, which is what happens to a lot of secondhand clothing that doesn’t get bought,” she explains. “Plus some brands aren’t great on ethics or sustainability and I’d rather not give them my money even if they make my size. Secondhand is a work-around for this.” She also recommends thinking hard about whether you need lots of pairs. “The best route here is to realise you don’t need five pairs of jeans,” she says. “Two pairs max and spend the most you can on getting the best possible pair.” Barber is also an advocate for getting clothes custom-made for a better fit, if it’s within your financial abilities. “I think we shy away from ideas like getting your clothes made because it sounds inaccessible and fancy, but if you’re plus-size like I am, it can be a godsend. I think instead of trying with stuff on the rack, it might be best to take this route.” As for myself, I eventually caved and decided to try buying jeans online from US brand Everlane, which partners with ethical factories and uses recycled materials, organic cotton and less water to create their clothes. I ordered two pairs of jeans from their Curvy collection, knowing that I would not be sending them back, and prayed they would fit. When they eventually arrived, I was ecstatic. The jeans fit. They actually fit! And now, I will never buy another pair of jeans again. Promise. Read More Flip-flops, nudity and ‘up the vajayjay!’: How the red carpet became a platform for protest Women with body hair remain a cultural taboo, and I can’t see it changing Why I’m suspicious of the silver fox Edward Enninful steps down as British Vogue editor-in-chief amid reports of rift Barbie stars Margot Robbie, Issa Rae and Simu Liu react to their own doll replicas Amanda Holden’s most extravagant fashion from the BGT live shows