—Macleans
For the members of First Place, a weight-loss group that blends dietary advice with lessons from the Scriptures, meetings take place at Houston’s First Baptist Church. The group boasts several hundred thousand members at more than 10,000 churches here and abroad. “Most of our programs are at mainstream Christian churches,” says group leader Terry Miller. “But we’ve had requests for materials from Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and even from Jewish congregations.”
Participants, who pay about $80 for 11-13 weeks of sessions, receive a loose-leaf notebook with recipes, tips on how to read food labels and a diary to record intake—along with inspirational Bible lessons to help get the Lord on board. “We believe that prayer and Bible study are an important part of learning discipline—something a lot of overweight people have never learned,” says Miller.
Each First Place meeting ends with a prayer. Miller leads her group in thanking God, “for all the victories that will come from you. Be with us as we face that refrigerator.” Think of Him as the weight watcher who sees all.
—Newsweek
From friendly hugs to full-fledged passion, physical contact helps keep us healthy. Thousands of alternative healthcare providers—from chiropractors to massage therapists—swear by the healing power of touch. Dr Theresa Crenshaw, a San Diego physician and sex therapist, credits it with a broad range of physical and emotional benefits, ranging from providing a sense of comfort, to boosting the immune system and stabilizing blood pressure. Although the body of scientific evidence proving the benefits of touch is still slim, the consequences of touch deprivation are well documented.
Decades of studies on newborns and the elderly, reaching back to the 1930s, have shown physical and mental suffering from lack of touch, even if all other basic needs were met. “Touch deprivation is just as destructive to health as lack of vitamin C,” says Dr Crenshaw, “and just as easy to remedy.”
—Chatelaine
Liberal Senator Lorna Milne introduced an amendment to a bill that will replace the Narcotic Control Act. If approved, the amendment will make it legal to cultivate some forms of marijuana, or hemp, by adding ‘mature hemp stock’ to a list of approved substances.
Compared with marijuana cigarettes, industrial grades of hemp have only a tiny fraction of the level of THC—the substance that produces a high when smoked. Before it was outlawed in 1938, hemp was used for thousands of years to manufacture a wide variety of products—from ropes and sails, to shirts, shoes, and even salad oil.
Environmentalists say a domestic hemp industry could reduce destructive logging practices by replacing wood-based pulp in the paper-making process. “It’s also a very, very viable alternative crop for tobacco on some of the lands in southwestern Ontario that really can grow very little else,” said Milne.
—The Vancouver Sun