7 Pilates Moves for Better Posture
Good posture allows you to sit, stand, squat and perform other everyday movements in good alignment, said Jessica Valant, a physical therapist and Pilates instructor in Denver. This means that your muscles, bones and joints are able to move comfortably without strain.
Pilates can be a helpful tool for improving alignment, said Ms. Valant, because the exercises require you to practice balance, coordination and stability.
Core strength, a well-known benefit of Pilates, plays a role in supporting your posture. 'The core is like a train station,' Ms. Valant said: All of your movements run through it.
Pilates also improves your mind-body connection, which makes you more aware of how you're carrying yourself, said Kira Lamb, a classical Pilates teacher in New York City. Practicing Pilates can also help you move more efficiently as you get stronger, she said.
This routine is designed to support your posture by helping to improve your core strength, spinal mobility and pelvic stability. It also builds strength in your posterior chain, the muscles along the back of your body such as the glutes, hamstrings and back muscles.
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Cardiologists Are Begging You To Eat More of This High-Protein Food if You're Over 60
Cardiologists Are Begging You To Eat More of This High-Protein Food if You're Over 60 originally appeared on Parade. More than 5% of American adults have heart disease, making it an incredibly common medical condition. Unfortunately, heart disease is also the leading cause of death for men and women, causing one in three deaths. Because the risk of developing it increases with age, cardiologists say it's crucial to pay attention to your risk factors as you get older. While there are some risks for developing heart disease that you can't control (like your genetics), lifestyle factors (like your diet) are largely within your control. Heart-healthy diets tend to focus on fruits and vegetables, but choosing the right protein is also a crucial element of eating to support heart health, according to Dr. Cheng-Han Chen, MD, interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, CA.🩺SIGN UP for tips to stay healthy & fit with the top moves, clean eats, health trends & more delivered right to your inbox twice a week💊 Not all protein is created equal when it comes to heart health, though. 'Protein's effects on heart health depend on the source of the protein,' points out , director of the Hypertension Center at Northwell's Staten Island University Hospital. With that in mind, there's one high-protein food cardiologists recommend reaching for regularly to support your heart health—especially if you're over The High-Protein Food Cardiologists Want You To Eat if You're Over 60 If you're over 60, cardiologists recommend adding salmon to your plate more often. 'Salmon is a high-quality protein and an excellent choice for heart health,' Dr. Chen says. 'It's one of the best natural sources of omega-3 fatty acids.' Dr. Behuria agrees, explaining, 'Salmon is a good source of high-quality protein, which is relatively high in omega-3 fatty acids."Omega-3 fatty acids may help increase HDL ('good') cholesterol in the body and lower LDL ('bad') cholesterol, Dr. Chen points out. High levels of LDL cholesterol is linked to a buildup of plaque in the arteries, which increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. The omega-3 fatty acids in salmon may also help reduce inflammation in the body, according to Dr. Behuria. 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Seeking a more comprehensive understanding of sexual violence in Utah
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For instance, over the past decade, claims have circulated suggesting there is an especially high risk of sexual violence for adolescent girls and adult women living in Utah compared with the rest of the country. Many familiar with other data about the state have found this conclusion puzzling. When recently asked about allegations Utah was worse than other locations in terms of sexual violence, Professor Justin Dyer, who researches Utah youth, said, 'such a claim seems out of step with what we already know in this area.' Taking into account all the data Like other important questions about Utah, so much depends on which information and data is being seriously considered (and which is not). Kathleen C. Basile, associate director for Science in the Division of Violence Prevention in the Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the CDC, told the Deseret News, 'I think readers and those who are interested in this kind of (sexual violence) data should look at all the sources.' Her colleague, Sharon G. Smith, also a behavioral scientist in the Division of Violence Prevention at the CDC, likewise said that 'using all of these data together helps give you a better picture of what the problem actually looks like.' Utah researchers agree. Valentine said, 'you have to always look at all of the studies,' and ask yourself, 'where are they gathering this information?' We have found three meaningful data sources that have frequently been overlooked in public discussions about sexual violence rates in Utah. 1. From crime figures to anonymous self-report In the FBI's Crime Data Explorer, Utah in 2023 had 54.4 rapes reported to police per 100,000 inhabitants. Since there are only five states higher, numbers like this have frequently been compared with other states over the last decade. Yet the FBI 'strongly discourages' these kinds of state-by-state comparisons based solely on their official crime statistics. With so many variable influences on both crime and willingness to report crime, higher and lower official figures cannot be simply taken at face value. Instead, we must also ask: Could lower criminal justice numbers reflect gaps in how crimes are revealed, reported, or recorded, rather than a lower actual rate of violence in that area? Are higher official figures potentially reflecting higher objective levels of violence or indications of a community that, for a variety of reasons, has found different ways to encourage more accountability and disclosure? For example, after work in 2017 to 'create a climate where students will report,' BYU administrators were encouraged to see a rise in the number of students reporting sexual assaults — considering this 'a sign that more of them trust changes made by the school and are getting the help they need.' It's this uncertainty around official crime figures that highlights the value of taking into account anonymous self-report measures that we've found offer a uniquely accurate glimpse into especially painful and sensitive experiences. 'If we want to truly understand the scope of who's affected by sexual assault, sexual abuse and rape, our most reliable (sources) are going to be the anonymous surveys,' Valentine said. 'Because for a host of reasons, rape and sexual assault is the number one crime that is not reported.' This nationally recognized expert on rape continued, 'when you have these anonymous surveys, you know your numbers are going to be vastly different from if you're looking at FBI Uniform Crime Reports.' To gather these more anonymous self-report numbers across states, the CDC conducted a National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey first in 2012, then in 2016/2017. Tragically, over half all women in the United States reported some sexual violence (with over 67 million victims estimated nationally). Because this survey of 10,000 American adults carefully samples representative people in each state, its comparisons across locations are more valid. In state-by-state comparisons, Utah had the lowest lifetime prevalence of sexual assault for any state, with approximately 37% of Utah women surveyed reporting an experience with sexual assault at some point in their life. This was six points lower than the next lowest state of Texas (43%) and 17 points lower than the national average (54%). When asked why this figure was so different from other available crime data, CDC researcher Kathleen Basile pointed again to the limitations in reported FBI data. 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In a similar way, if there is something about membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that prevents sexual assault, we would expect to see lower rates of sexual assaults at the Church's universities, compared with other campuses. That's precisely what we find when we look at the latest 2023 data gathered by the U.S. Department of Education on sexual assault on American campuses. Brigham Young University-Provo reports .03 rapes per thousand students, while the University of Utah reports 4.96 per thousand students, and Utah Valley University and Utah State report .07 and .11, respectively. Looking outside of Utah, UCLA reports 1.54, while the University of Nevada in Las Vegas is .19. 3. From umbrella statistics to more precise measures One widely cited finding from the 2021 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey is that 21.4% of Utah teenage girls surveyed reported having 'experienced sexual violence by anyone' in the past year, which was 3.5 points higher than the 17.9% of teenage girls who report some kind of sexual violence in the U.S. as a whole. Like the Utah ACEs data, this YRBS data was administered in fall of 2021 when the pandemic effects were lingering. With more high schoolers learning remotely these years, the sample may be skewed toward those physically present, since remote or at-home administrations didn't occur. The fact that this gap between Utah and the national average reflected in the 2021 survey was sharply reduced after COVID (Utah 17.7,% U.S. 17% in 2023) seems to confirm a potential influence. A research team led by John J. Santelli at Columbia University has also flagged a higher level of missing data in the 2021 CDC survey — with 29.5% of students with missing data on sexual questions in 2019, compared with 7% in 2011. Due to what they call a 'crisis in participation,' Santelli's team highlight the 'possibility of bias' in this survey's estimates of adolescent behavior and 'raise serious concerns about the validity of trends' identified by this study. They go so far as to state openly that 'the 2021 YRBS data should not be used by researchers to estimate changes in sexual experience and other adolescent behaviors in comparison to prior survey years without appropriate age adjustments or explanations.' Even if the 2021 CDC numbers are accurate, it's also the case that the concerning statistic in question is uniquely broad, bringing together under one umbrella a wide range of unwanted behaviors: touching, kissing and intercourse. Clearly, any form of an unwanted romantic or sexual overture is a significant problem. But when this same 2021 analysis tightened the focus to asking specifically about 'sexual dating violence' and 'forced sexual intercourse,' Utah was in both cases lower than the national average in 2021 (and has been for most of the other years measuring each of these variables). None of this is to argue that everything is OK in the state. Like elsewhere in the country, Utah continues to grapple with the growing consequences of sexualization online and its real-life impacts. The University of Utah's Julie Valentine is leading a case review analysis to understand more about the increase in strangulation taking place during sexual violence (with choking a frequent theme of modern online pornography). And the Utah's Commission on Criminal & Juvenile Justice's updated 2024 figures confirm a 97% increase between 2022 and 2024 when it comes to prison admissions for sex offenses in the state. Better data, more improvement Utah State professor, Susan Madsen, has spent a decade exploring ways to further elevate women and girls in Utah, culminating in the ambitious 'Bolder Way Forward' initiative. In an interview for this Deseret News in-depth series on sexual violence in Utah, she described her efforts to 'pull in every piece of data in our reports.' With so much data out there, Madsen expressed appreciation for the scope of this broader investigation into prevalence numbers. 'Thank you for digging in as deep as you have.' When significant problems have been identified in Utah, real change takes place. For instance, a 2016 analysis by Valentine found only 61.8% of rape kits being submitted by law enforcement to the state crime lab for testing. Legislation was passed the next year ensuring that close to 100% of rape kits move along to testing, according to Valentine. That kind of swift systemic improvement arose directly from Valentine and her colleagues' more comprehensive look at available forensic data between 2010 and 2022. Her team is currently facing barriers in creating a similar database for sexually abused children in the state, which she says could 'really have a huge impact in the field.' One nonprofit that monitors reform in this area now calls Utah a 'Model of Bipartisan Cooperation on Rape Kit Reform' and reports on their website that 'Utah has achieved all six pillars of rape kit reform.' Better data, more unity A deeper appreciation of data could invite broader unity in fighting abuse — one that recognizes variable rates of sexual violence are inherently complex, influenced by a wide array of different, interacting vulnerabilities. Liliana Olvera-Arbon, executive director of Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault, emphasizes the importance of holding onto the 'hope that we can eliminate sexual violence. I do believe that.' But in order to do that, she added, everyone in the community — not just 'one entity' — will need to work together as a more unified 'collective.' 'We don't want to blame,' cautions BYU professor Leslie Miles. When her team finds something law enforcement can improve in a particular county, they work individually with that police department in a productive way. 'The only ones that have any blame are the perpetrators,' she added. Once research highlights a concerning pattern, her focus becomes: 'How can we do this better?' 'If we're not doing something right as a public or as mental health or as medical providers,' she adds, 'then just tell us what we're doing, and then let's come up with a plan to improve.'
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Bodybuilding champion Hayley McNeff dead at 37 in ‘unexpected' tragedy
Bodybuilding champion Hayley McNeff died last Friday, with the news confirmed on Wednesday. She was 37. According to an obituary published on the death of the Concord, Mass., native was 'unexpected but peaceful.' 'Hayley was like a beam of light in this world. She had boundless energy and was very determined to achieve whatever she set out to do,' Hayley's dad, Dave, told People in a statement. 'She set her sights on bodybuilding and fitness and achieved the highest success that sector offered. She loved us and we love Hayley very much, we miss her madly.' McNeff's family is set to hold a service on Saturday and has asked for attendees to make a donation to the National Alliance on Mental Illness in McNeff's honor. Per the obituary, McNeff graduated from Concord-Carlisle High School and University of Massachusetts Amherst, and was an accomplished bodybuilder in the 2000s with state titles in Maryland and Delaware. She was also part of the 2005 documentary 'Raising the Bar,' which highlights the world of the sport. 'The quest for getting huge will never end,' McNeff said about her career in the documentary. 'There's no limit. I hope there's a day that I'll be able to look in the mirror 100% of the time and be like, 'Yeah man, I'm huge.'' After retirement from the sport, McNeff decided to pursue a graduate degree in psychology. 'She had a gift for making those around her laugh and feel welcomed,' the obituary reads. 'Her energy and determination was a constant in her life and she always accomplished what she set out to achieve. She treasured her friendships and nurtured strong, lasting relationships with those who knew her best. Hayley will be deeply missed by her parents, siblings, extended family, and friends.' Upon hearing the news of McNeff's death, bodybuilding coach Dave Palumbo posted a tribute message on Instagram. 'I'm sad to hear of the passing of former woman bodybuilder @hayleysmash (HAYLEY MCNEFF) … she left us way too soon,' he wrote. 'She was a good soul, super intelligent and had tremendous potential as a bodybuilder. She appeared in @dave_pulcinella RAISING THE BAR videos back in the day and I was proud to be able to call her a friend. Prayers to her family and friends. R.I.P. @official_rxmuscle.' McNeff is one of many bodybuilders who have recently passed away. Zunila Hoyos Mendez died at 43 in June after she was killed in a hammer attack. A month prior, Gui Bull died at 30.
