With more people vowing to get healthier everyday, it's no wonder that new diet trends are popping up every day. NineMSN recently came up with a list of the trendiest diet trends of 2008:

• The Bead Diet. Each bead in your bracelet represents 100 calories, and you wear beads depending on how many calories you want to consume in a day. When you eat a hundred calories, you move a bead. Delta Goodrem and Kate Beckinsale are fans of this approach.
  
• Bench Pressing. This classic exercise is an oldie but a goodie.
  
• Pomegranate. The superfood is so super, it continues to gain popularity.
  
• Skinny Water. This low-cal (?!) water supposedly contains nutrients that will help you burn fat. Jennifer Aniston is known for chugging it.
  
• Marathons. They've been around for a while, but expect everyone and their dog to sign up for one.
  
• The Lunch Box Diet. Armed with a big lunch box, dieters fill it with healthy goodies and much out of it all day.
  
• Workout Shoes. Shoes specially designed to tone your legs are hip this year, even if they look a bit funny
  

Source

Think about it: What did you learn in 2007? For many of us, we learned lessons about ourselves, our lives, our place in this world and so forth. But the world as a whole learned a thing or two as well. The BBC recently compiled this fascinating list of 100 things we didn't know last year.

In particular, there were several interesting things we learned on the health front, like:

• Adding milk to tea takes away any healthy benefit that the tea had.
  
• 99% of bacteria on dishcloths is destroyed by two minutes in the microwave.
  
• Two cups of spearmint tea a day will curb extra hair growth in women.
  
• The average duvet is home to 20,000 dust mites. Ick.
  
• Most crematoriums are having to renovate their facilities to accommodate increasingly obese corpses.
• Anthony and Cleopatra were not nearly as attractive as Hollywood would have us believe (Ok, not health-related but interesting!)

There's lots more (including the astounding fact that there is cell-phone reception on Mount Everest,) so check it out!

Source

There's no doubt about it -- in 2007, our bloggers were working overtime to try to cover all the important health news that happened this year. It was a busy year in the world of health, that's for sure, my guess is that 2008 will be just as hectic.

Here's what made headlines this year:

• Food recalls. From cheese to water to spinach to pet food, it seemed like every day, there was a new item to avoid.
  
• Toys. Toys made using everything from lead paint to the date rape drug got many people talking -- and many parents worried about what was in the toy box at home.
  
• Obesity. Waistlines are expanding all over the world and this obesity crisis is being blamed for many diseases and conditions that are taxing the healthcare system.
  
• Celebs getting fit. Katie Holmes ran the NYC Marathon. Jennifer Garner toned up at the gym. While some celebs have gone off the deep-end into a world of drugs and drink, even more declared their passion for healthy living and did their part to encourage people to get moving.
  
• Exercise Guidelines. New fitness guidelines were released by experts, and no longer is a short walk a few times a week sufficient for a healthy lifestyle. Now you should be getting 30 minutes of moderate activity five times a week, and you should be lifting weights as well.

How many times have you made a big news years resolution, only to fail by the end of January? It happens to us all, and if you ask me, it's because the changes we resolve to make are too sweeping, and we're not ready for such a big change. So this year, resolve to take it slow, to make small changes and gradually increase them.

Here are my suggestions for achievable new year's resolutions:

• Resolve to ... eat a fruit or vegetable at most meals. You might not be able to do this at every meal, but do your best to have something healthy --if only a couple of carrot sticks--every time you eat.
  
• Resolve to ... do something active for 10 minutes each day. This could mean taking a walk around the block at lunch, taking the stairs instead of the elevator or going to the gym and sweating it out on the treadmill. You can increase this if you want, but make sure you're doing something active for just 10 minutes each day.
  
• Resolve to ... write it down. Keep a journal of some sort, and write in it when you have time -- but at least once a week. It could be a diary of your deepest thoughts, a food journal chronicling what you ate that day or simply a log of what you did that day. It will come in handy in the future -- I promise.
  
• Resolve to ... be patient. Slow down your life -- eat slowly, drive slowly and enjoy slow weekend days with your family. Take time to savour everything, and you'll see everything change for the better.
  
• Resolve to ... not beat yourself up if you mess up. Forgive yourself, and get back on the wagon. Move on. It's as simple as that.