That's Fit

In the past 20 years, cancer incidence in young adults has doubled. The grand total: 70,000 diagnosis each year. Ouch. How about some salt for that wound: Cancer survival rates in young adults have not improved over the past 30 years, mostly due to delayed diagnosis. Want more?

The medical community at large is grossly uneducated about how to effectively communicate, treat, and follow-up with young adults. And the number one social issue faced by young cancer survivors is isolation. In a nutshell, young adults are a critically underserved population whose needs (fertility, education, sexuality, peer support, financial aid, insurance, employment) are so different than the needs of other age groups.

How do I know all of this? Because I just grabbed these facts and figures from young adult cancer survivor Matthew Zachary's website I'm Too Young For This -- or i[2]y -- which happens to offer the latest and greatest information for the under-40 population grappling with cancer health issues. It's a place Zachary hopes sticks around for a very long time.

For seventeen months now, Zachary has been hosting this place where young adults can mix and mingle and improve their quality of life. In order to keep his machine going strong, he needs some help. Some financial help.

If you are willing and able to support this growing organization with a tax deductible donation, check out The Stupid Cancer Fund at http://fund.i2y.com. If you can't donate, then I hope you'll still check out i[2]y -- for yourself, a friend, a loved one, or an acquaintance. Anyone young, and touched by cancer, and wishing to be heard.

I am well past the age when I thought I'd have to worry about major breakouts. I rarely had pimples or zits when I was a teenager and now that I'm pushing 30, I thought I was safe. Not true. I don't know what it is but suddenly I've began to have super, massive under-the-skin, painful zits on a regular basis and am getting other minor breakouts on occasion as well.

In the last week in particular my skin has been revolting -- and I use the word 'revolting' as both a verb and an adjective in this instance. I was afraid that I was alone until I got a text message from a very good friend giving me a quick update on her life. "Things are good but nearly 30 and suddenly breaking out all over".

Pretty much everyone was bullied at some point in their childhood. Whether it was by the dominant kid in a social group who never let anyone else decide what games to play, or the traditional big kid on the playground who terrorized every other child, chances are you've had to deal with some form of bullying when you were little.

Many of us think that all gets left behind when we grow up into confident adults, but unfortunately that's not always the case. Have you ever been to one of your kids' sports matches and seen another parent blow up at a referee? Or perhaps you're a part of the PTA and one of the other parents consistently refuses to listen to your suggestions or ignores you altogether? Maybe you dread going to work every day because a gossipy co-worker tries to belittle you with the information he or she spreads to your fellow workers?

According to this, all of the above constitute adult bullying. Even as a grown-up there are people who will try to boost their own confidence by intimidating others and trying to cut them down. If you think you may be a victim of adult bullying, take a look at the piece for suggestions on how to deal with it. If you know someone at work or in your social circle who is being picked on, stand up for them. Much like when with kids, a bully will often back down if they know that no one else is willing to stand for it.

I'm currently in Australia on an extended holiday and I learned pretty quickly that homesickness isn't just for kids. Whether you're a kid away at summer camp, a new university student away at college or an adult who has recently moved to a new city, it's totally natural to miss your family, friends, pets and old life back at home.

For me, homesickness struck this weekend, as it was Thanksgiving in Canada. Knowing that all of my family was getting together for dinner, and my friends were enjoying a long weekend together, made me feel terribly lonely and sad. Much like any other situation when someone is missing home, it's not that I'm not having a great time here, it's just that I wish everyone I love from home was here having a great time with me!

If you've found yourself in the situation where you're pining away for family and friends, take a look at these tips from the University of Cambridge on dealing with homesickness. While the advice is aimed toward students, much of it applies to pretty much anyone and could really help you feel a little bit less lonely.

If there's one crummy disease that flies in the face of good health, it's cancer. Stupid Cancer is what Matthew Zachary calls it.

Cancer-surviving Zachary, founder and executive director of I'm Too Young For This -- a rockin' place for young adults with cancer -- does all he can to support those under 40 trying to reclaim their health. You name it, he does it. Advocacy? Yep. Excursions, camps, and retreats? You bet. Scholarships and financial aid? Right on the money. This guy hosts his own streaming live Stupid Cancer Show on Monday nights, serves on the Google Health Advisory Council, sports a website TIME calls one of its Top 50, and now this inspiring cancer guru is making a splash in Hollywood.

Zachary will appear in an episode of Lifetime's Side Order of Life on Sunday, September 30 at 9:00 PM (ET/PT). In this episode, Vivy Porter (Diana Maria Riva) is dealing with cancer treatment and looking for the right kind of support. She finds it, at the hippest support group in town: a Stupid Cancer Happy Hour! Enter Zachary, who is there to greet Vivy when she arrives.

Check out this ground-breaking episode, won't you? Zachary promises you'll witness an accurate and hip portrayal of young adult cancer survivors. And I promise you'll love this guy, who is doing so much for so many. Like me.

Introducing kids to sports is a wise idea. It's steers them away from television and video games, channels their boundless energy, teaches lessons in cooperation and determination and well, it's just good for the body. Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts, herself a life-long athlete, says sports are particularly good for girls.

"If you're a mother of daughters, encouraging them to participate in sports is the best gift you can give them," Roberts says. "Playing sports, feeling the competitive drive, winning and losing -- these experiences build self-esteem and character."

Roberts says even grown women become timid because they get stuck feeling they have to be liked by everyone. Sports shakes that out of you, she says. It's the best training ground for adult life.

How much you weighed at birth may still be having an effect on your life, specifically in how successful and healthy you are as an adult. This information comes from a good sized study that looked at more than 12,000 people over a period of 35+ years. The findings show that people who weighed less than 5.5 lbs. at birth are one-third more likely to drop out of high school, make an average of 15 percent less income each year, and have the health of someone over 40 years old when they're only in their thirties.

There are all kinds of theories out there on why this is, the most popular one linking low-income parents and poor prenatal care to low birth-weight outcomes, which in turn means the child is at increased risk due to being raised in an underprivileged environment. What do you think? Is this true?

My name is Lauren and I am a picky eater. While it's normal for kids to turn up their noses at food, it's much less likely to find adults who still have hang-ups about certain fare. To be honest, I'm much better now than I was when I was younger. I always hated meat, cooked vegetables (raw was ok) and a variety of cuisine from other countries, but while I still don't eat any meat other than fish, I'm now ok with most other foods.

Some people out there never get over their abhorrence of certain things. There are a range of reasons why picky eaters hate the stuff they do. It could be allergy-related, they could have been turned off something if it was the last thing they ate before suffering from an unrelated stomach-bug or it could be something as simple as disliking the taste, texture or look of a certain item. For example, I can't stand the thick white thing (known as a Chalaza apparently) that attaches an egg white to the yolk and I'll meticulously pick it out whenever I make eggs.

So are there any picky eaters out there? If so, are you willing to share the food item(s) that you refuse to touch and why do you dislike it?

Reading the recent blog here on That's Fit about "Why men ignore their wives" prompted me into a little fun research myself. So if men ignore their wives, why do women put up with it? The websites were endless. WOW. It seems that women tolerate a lot of certain behaviors from their spouses like being ignored, being fussed at or looked down upon and even being abused physically because of cultural beliefs, economic factors and personal fears. There is the disgrace of being a statistic, of being a divorcee. With our divorce rate hovering somewhere between 50 percent and 60 percent it is not hard to see that men and women really can not get along. Maybe the high divorce rate can be contributed to being ignored. wink wink...

But one study in particular stood out to me on why divorce rates are climbing. It emphasized that attraction in the work place between men and women has always been relevant but men had always held the dominant jobs in the work force. But that statistic is changing with women bosses increasing and more jobs like doctors, lawyers, police officers, fire fighters, and even politics with many women now leading in congress and the senate. Women are beginning to have equality in leadership roles. Many women who do well professionally find few men who are secure enough to be with them.

Being a man and being masculine are two different things. A man is a boy who has reached a certain age. A masculine man is a boy who has finally matured as an adult. Some men never reach that maturity. So I guess women have to look at being ignored by their husbands the same way they look at their children that ignore them when asked to do their chores.