Latest news with #Wheaties
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Study: Breakfast cereal for kids is getting unhealthier
Here's something to consider as you're getting your kids ready for the day: many breakfast cereals are getting unhealthier. A new study in the JAMA Network found that cereals marketed toward kids aged 12 and under had lower protein and dietary fiber content. But they have more total fat, sodium, and sugar per serving. CHECK IT OUT >> How to make a well-balanced meal for toddlers The study's authors said parents should consider other breakfast options like eggs, steel-cut oats, or whole-grain bread with peanut butter. (VIDEO: Man, 99, has eaten Wheaties daily since 1943; now he's on the cereal's box)
WIRED
a day ago
- Health
- WIRED
Is Using a Stair Machine the Same as Climbing Stairs?
May 30, 2025 9:00 AM According to physics, one burns more calories than the other—and the winner might surprise you. Photogrpah:You can get a great workout by walking up the stairs in a tall building. The only problem is that you can't watch TV while doing it—hence the popularity of stationary stair-climbing machines. But is it the same? If your goal is to burn calories, does it make any difference which you choose? That's actually a great physics question, and we can get a pretty good mental workout with it. Shall we? The Work-Energy Principle OK, what is a calorie, anyway? It's a unit of energy, defined as the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 liter of water by 1 degree Celsius. (This is your common 'food calorie': chemists confusingly use a calorie measure that's 1,000 times smaller.) Of course, in physics we prefer to measure energy in joules. Just to give you a feel for this unit, if you lift a textbook from the floor to a table, that would take about 10 joules. Now, the work-energy principle says that in order to change the energy of a system, you need to add energy to (or remove energy from) the system. That seems obvious, but it's actually useful. We call the energy input (or output) 'work.' Work is done on a system by applying a force over some distance. Let's go back to the case of lifting a book off the floor. The first thing we need to do is define our 'system.' That tells us what kinds of changes in energy we're going to deal with. So I'm going to use the system consisting of the book and the Earth. Since the book can move, it can have kinetic energy (K), which depends on its mass (m) and velocity (v). And with Earth in the system, we can also have gravitational potential energy (U). This depends on the mass of the book, the gravitational field (g), and the height of the book above the floor (y). With this, we can write the work-energy principle as the following: Notice that we're dealing with changes in energy—the Greek delta symbol means the change in something. If the book starts and ends at rest, then the change in kinetic energy is zero. That leaves us with just the change in gravitational potential energy. The gravitational field on the surface of the Earth is about 9.8 newtons per kilogram. So, using the formula for U above, with a book mass of 1 kilogram and a change in height of 1 meter, we need a work of 1 x 1 x 9.8 = 9.8 joules (or about 10). Now suppose you are the book, and you go from standing on the floor to standing on the table? In that case, you are part of the system, so there's no external force doing work on the system. How can you have a change in gravitational potential energy without any added work? Well, the simple solution is to add another type of energy—let's just call it 'internal energy.' It's the energy stored in your body by eating your Wheaties for breakfast. It's how humans work. With that, our work-energy equation looks a little different: Since the change in kinetic energy is still zero, this means that the positive change in gravitational potential energy is equal to the negative of the change in internal energy. Let's say you have a mass of 75 kilograms (165 pounds). That means moving up 1 meter would reduce your internal energy by 735 joules. That's called working out. Climbing Stairs vs. a Stair Climber Now we can go back to the original question: What does the work-energy principle say about stairs versus a stair-climbing machine? Well, we already did the physics of stair climbing. It's the same calculation if you get on top of a 1 meter table or climb 100 stories—it's just a different value for the height. But suppose you stay in the same place while the stairs move under you. If someone is measuring your forward motion, they'd say your speed is zero. Your height also doesn't change, so now the work-energy equation looks like this: This says the change in internal energy is also zero, which means you don't burn any calories. I mean, that can't be right … right? Then how do we fix this? I'm going to use a nice example based on this video from Steve Mould. It goes like this: Imagine you are climbing up a downward-moving escalator. Again, an observer on the ground would see you as stationary. However, we could also measure your speed from the reference frame of the escalator, and you would be moving up. In fact, if the escalator had walls and a ceiling, you wouldn't be able tell that you were staying in place. You wouldn't even know the stairs are moving. Since the stairs are moving at a constant velocity (zero acceleration), this would be an inertial reference frame. In physics, any inertial reference frame is as valid as any other reference frame—the basic laws of physics remain the same. So, from the perspective of the escalator frame you are moving up and doing work. It's the same as if you were walking up a stationary frame. But Actually, the Stair Climber Is Harder I said that the stair climber and climbing stairs were the same—but they are not. In fact, climbing up 100 stories is easier than the equivalent distance on a stair climber. Does that seem crazy? It is a little crazy. The reason they're different is because the gravitational field (g) is never really constant. Remember, we defined the gravitational potential energy as U = m x g x y? That's not really wrong, but it is a little misleading. Actually, the gravitational potential energy for the Earth-person system would be defined as the following: Let's go over this new equation. First, we have the universal gravitational constant (G = 6.67 x 10–11 Nm2/kg 2). Next, we have the masses of the two objects involved (M E for the Earth and m for the person). Finally, there is the distance from the center of the Earth to the person (r). Since we are dividing by the distance (r), the gravitational potential decreases as we get farther from the Earth. There's a negative sign there, so that if you move farther from the Earth (we usually call that 'up'), the gravitational potential energy increases from some negative value to a smaller negative value. If this is the gravitational potential energy, then why do we use U = m x g x y? Well, that's just a handy approximation. Since the Earth is very big, with a radius of 6.4 million meters, moving up even 1,000 meters doesn't change the value of r that much. So it's OK to approximate the gravitational field as a constant value of 9.8 newtons per kilogram, even though it actually gets smaller. But just for fun, let's do a more precise calculation. Suppose I climb 100 flights of stairs. Let's say each flight of stairs has a change in height of 3 meters, so that the full climb would be 300 meters. If I start at the surface of the Earth (radius R) and climb up to a certain height (h ), the work-energy equation would look like this: For a person-mass of 75 kilograms, I get a change in internal energy of 2.20312 x 105 joules. Now, if I use the stair climber, the change in energy would just be m x g x h. This gives an energy of 2.20323 x 105 joules. That's a difference of 10.4 joules or 0.0025 calories. If a typical candy bar has 200 calories, this would be 0.001 percent of the bar—not even a tiny bite. What I'm saying is, you can get at least as good a workout on the stair machine— and you can watch TV. I call that a win-win.
National Post
a day ago
- Entertainment
- National Post
TUMBLIN' DICE: America's Sweetheart Mary Lou Retton's fall from grace
Article content At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, gymnast Mary Lou Retton won the hearts of America — and the world. Article content With a beaming, ready-made Pepsodent smile, the 16-year-old pixie's life ahead appeared sprinkled with rainbows and unicorns. But sometimes life doesn't turn out that way, and a tumble can become a plunge. Article content Article content Article content Cops say the companion in the passenger seat of her Porsche was a screw-top bottle of wine. Witnesses later said she was driving 'all over the roadway,' court documents obtained by WDTV revealed. Article content Officers at the scene reported that Retton reeked of booze and was slurring her words. Article content The Virginia-born athlete took up gymnastics at the age of 8, inspired by Nadia Comaneci's breathtaking performance at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She then moved to Houston for further, more intense training, and began her remarkable ascent up the ranks of the gymnastics world. Article content Retton captured the all-around gold medal at the '84 games, which were boycotted by the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries. On TV, the world fell in love as she notched four additional medals, silver in the team and horse vault and two bronze medals. She was named Sports Illustrated's Sportswoman of the Year. And she got her Wheaties box. Article content Article content Article content Article content After retiring from competition in 1986, Retton was sucked into the celebrity-industrial complex. The Republican boosted Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. She also got down to making serious money. Besides endorsing everything from shampoo, pain relief creams and insurance, she was the first woman on a Wheaties box. Article content Pint-sized Retton also made a slew of appearances on TV and the movies, including Knots Landing, Scrooged, Baywatch, and others. In 2018, she appeared on Dancing With the Stars. Article content
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mary Lou Retton Ends Up Behind Bars For DUI After Near-Death Pneumonia Battle
Olympic icon is making headlines once again, this time for all the wrong reasons. Mary Lou Retton's arrest comes just two years after she survived a terrifying, life-threatening health scare. On May 17, the 57-year-old former gymnast, who became a national treasure after her gold-medal win at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, was arrested in Marion County, West Virginia, and charged with a misdemeanor for driving under the influence of alcohol, controlled substances, or drugs, according to court records. According to "Good Morning America," Retton was released the same day after posting a $1,500 bond. As of now, she has not entered a plea. In 2023, she was hospitalized for nearly two weeks in the ICU with what she described as a "rare form of pneumonia," a condition that left her dependent on supplemental oxygen and struggling to regain her strength. In a candid May 2024 interview with "Entertainment Tonight," Retton revealed she was still dealing with lingering health issues. "I still have a hard time breathing and getting breath to speak," she shared, adding that her condition had kept her from returning to the motivational speaking circuit. "That's frustrating. It's been hard, I have to say." Pneumonia, a lung infection that varies in severity, can be triggered by multiple sources, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and even parasites, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While it can affect people of all ages, the infection tends to pose a greater risk for young children, older adults, and individuals with underlying health conditions such as diabetes or chronic heart, lung, or liver disease. Additional risk factors include smoking and excessive alcohol use. At the time of her illness, her daughters launched a fundraising campaign to help cover medical expenses, sparking controversy online. "My amazing mom, Mary Lou, has a very rare form of pneumonia and is fighting for her life," one of her daughters wrote in the fundraising description. "She is not able to breathe on her own. She's been in the ICU for over a week now. Out of respect for her and her privacy, I will not disclose all details. However, I will disclose that she is not insured." The daughter added, "We ask that if you could help in any way, that 1) you PRAY! and 2) if you could help us with finances for the hospital bill. ANYTHING, absolutely anything, would be so helpful for my family and my mom. Thank y'all so very much!" At the time, one anonymous donor went viral after giving $200. "Watching you perform and win in the Olympics was a gift!" they shared alongside their donation. "As a young girl, seeing someone so humble and gracious when you received your medals was inspiring. We are holding you close in our hearts and prayers." Critics, however, questioned why a former Wheaties cover star needed financial help, but Retton didn't waste any time defending her daughters' actions. "The bills were and are still coming in," she said, making it clear that she did not have health insurance at the time. "I didn't even know that was happening until I came to a few weeks later." "They were just trying to take care of me," she explained. "You're welcome to your opinion. But you weren't in that situation. My daughters stepped up to the plate and they saved my life." Retton's storied legacy as a trailblazing gymnast includes five Olympic medals: one gold, two silvers, and two bronzes, making her the most decorated athlete of the 1984 Games. Her perfect 10s in Los Angeles made her a household name and the face of American gymnastics. Now, fans are left shocked by this latest turn in her story as the former sweetheart of Team USA navigates a very different kind of spotlight.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
US Olympic gymnastics legend Mary Lou Retton arrested for drink driving
Legendary US Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton is facing charges of driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs after she was arrested in her West Virginia hometown earlier this month. According to court records, Retton was arrested in Fairmount in Marion County on 17 May. She was released the same day after paying a $1,500 bond (£1,100) and has not yet entered a plea. Retton, 57, shot to global fame after becoming the first American woman to win the all-around gold for gymnastics at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Her arrest come almost two years after she survived a rare form of pneumonia. Retton refused to take a breathalyzer test or blood test after her Texas-registered Porsche was pulled over by police, according to the criminal complaint. She allegedly failed a sobriety test and was slurring her words. Officers say they observed a container of wine in the car and she smelled of alcohol. The BBC has contacted the lawyer listed as her representative in the court documents for comment. Retton is from the city of Fairmount and there is a street there named after her in the northern West Virginia city. After winning multiple medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Retton was nicknamed "America's Sweetheart". She appeared on Wheaties cereal boxes and was named Sports Illustrated magazine's Sportswoman of the Year. She was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2022, former gymnast spent nearly two weeks in hospital intensive care after a rare form of pneumonia left the her fighting for her life. At the time, her daughter posted in an online fundraiser that Retton did not have health insurance and needed money to fund her treatment. More than $500,000 was raised, leading many to question why the famous athlete was uninsured. In an NBC interview last year, Retton said she was struggling financially after a divorce in 2018 and the Covid-19 pandemic. She said she was still using supplemental oxygen to breath. Olympic legend 'blessed' to survive rare pneumonia
