Thinking your memory will get worse as you get older may actually be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s according to researchers at North Carolina State University who have found that senior citizens who think older people should perform poorly on tests of memory actually score much worse than seniors who do not buy in to negative stereotypes about aging and memory loss.

In a study published earlier this month, psychology professor Dr. Tom Hess and a team of researchers from NC State show that older adults’ ability to remember suffers when negative stereotypes are “activated” in a given situation.

“For example, older adults will perform more poorly on a memory test if they are told that older folks do poorly on that particular type of memory test,” Hess says. Memory also suffers if senior citizens believe they are being “stigmatized,” meaning that others are looking down on them because of their age.

“Such situations may be a part of older adults’ everyday experience,” Hess says, “such as being concerned about what others think of them at work having a negative effect on their performance – and thus potentially reinforcing the negative stereotypes.” However, Hess adds, “The positive flip side of this is that those who do not feel stigmatized, or those in situations where more positive views of aging are activated, exhibit significantly higher levels of memory performance.” In other words, if you are confident that aging will not ravage your memory, you are more likely to perform well on memory-related tasks.

The study also found a couple of factors that influenced the extent to which negative stereotypes influence older adults. For example, the researchers found that adults between the ages of 60 and 70 suffered more when these negative stereotypes were activated than seniors who were between the ages of 71 and 82. However, the 71-82 age group performed worse when they felt stigmatized.

Finally, the study found that negative effects were strongest for those older adults with the highest levels of education. “We interpret this as being consistent with the idea that those who value their ability to remember things most are the most likely to be sensitive to the negative implications of stereotypes, and thus are most likely to exhibit the problems associated with the stereotype.”

“The take-home message,” Hess says, “is that social factors may have a negative effect on older adults’ memory performance.”

Just because that meal includes a salad doesn’t necessarily mean its good for you, according a Duke University researcher.

“Vicarious goal fulfillment,” is when a person can feel a goal has been met if they have taken some small action, like considering the salad without ordering it, said Gavan Fitzsimons, professor of marketing and psychology at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, who led the research.

In a lab experiment, Fitzsimons said participants possessing high levels of self-control related to food choices (as assessed by a pre-test) avoided french fries, the least healthy item on a menu, when presented with only unhealthy choices. But when a side salad was added to this menu, they became much more likely to take the fries.

Fitzsimons said although fast-food restaurants and vending machine operators have increased their healthy offerings in recent years, “analysts have pointed out that sales growth in the fast-food industry is not coming from healthy menu items, but from increased sales of burgers and fries.”

“There is clearly public demand for healthy options, so we wanted to know why people aren’t following through and purchasing those items,” he said.

Fitzsimons asked research participants to select a food item from one of two pictorial menus. Half of the participants saw a menu of unhealthy items, including only french fries, chicken nuggets and a baked potato with butter and sour cream. The rest of the participants were given the same three options, plus the choice of a side salad.

When the side salad was added, a few consumers did actually choose it. However, the vast majority of consumers did not, and went toward unhealthier options. Ironically, this effect was strongest among those consumers who normally had high levels of self-control.

“In this case, the presence of a salad on the menu has a liberating effect on people who value healthy choices,” Fitzsimons said. “We find that simply seeing, and perhaps briefly considering, the healthy option fulfills their need to make healthy choices, freeing the person to give in to temptation and make an unhealthy choice. In fact, when this happens people become so detached from their health-related goals, they go to extremes and choose the least healthy item on the menu.”

Two other test menus showed the same effect. “We also had participants choose from menus contrasting a bacon cheeseburger, chicken sandwich and fish sandwich with a veggie burger,” Block said. “And we tried chocolate covered Oreos, original Oreos and golden Oreos against a 100-calorie pack of Oreos and obtained the same result.”

“Adding the healthier option caused people with high self-control to choose the least healthy option possible. Even though it was not their first choice before the healthy option was included,” Block said.

The team’s findings suggest that encouraging people to make better choices may require significant effort on the part of both food service providers and customers. “What this shows is that adding one or two healthy items to a menu is essentially the worst thing you can do,” Fitzsimons said. “Because, while a few consumers will choose the healthy option, it causes most consumers to make drastically worse choices.”

Schools and other establishments concerned with promoting healthy behaviors may need to take an extreme approach and eliminate all unhealthy food, Fitzsimons said. “It sounds quite drastic, but because the effect of mixing healthy and unhealthy choices is so powerful, we would suggest that the safest way to get children to eat well is to take the pizza, fries and other junk foods completely out of schools, and replace them with healthy foods.”

The team also suggests that consumers might empower themselves through awareness. “This is one of those human quirks that we may be able to overcome if we are conscious of it and make a concerted effort to stick to the healthy choices we know we should be making,” Block said.

What’s good for Mother Earth is also good for you.

According to a new study from the International Journal of Epidemiology, maintaining a healthy body weight is good news for the environment.

Because food production is a major contributor to global warming, the study found that a lean population, such as that seen in Vietnam, will consume almost 20 percent less food and produce fewer greenhouse gases than a population in which 40 percent of people are obese (close to that seen in the USA today).

According to Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, transport-related emissions will also be lower because it takes less energy to transport slim people. The researchers estimate that a lean population of 1 billion people would emit 1.0 GT (1,000 million tonnes) less carbon dioxide equivalents per year compared with a fat one.

In nearly every country in the world, average body mass index (BMI) is rising. Between 1994 and 2004 the average male BMI in England increased from 26 to 27.3, with the average female BMI rising from 25.8 to 26.9 (about 3 kg – or half a stone – heavier). Humankind – be it Australian, Argentinian, Belgian or Canadian – is getting steadily fatter.

‘When it comes to food consumption, moving about in a heavy body is like driving around in a gas guzzler’, say the authors. ‘The heavier our bodies become the harder and more unpleasant it is to move about in them and the more dependent we become on our cars. Staying slim is good for health and for the environment. We need to be doing a lot more to reverse the global trend towards fatness, and recognise it as a key factor in the battle to reduce emissions and slow climate change’, they conclude.

On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases “may endanger public health or welfare.”

On this issue, the science is sound. Whether it’s a manmade phenomena, a natural phenomena or a combination of both, the reality is the climate is changing and the consequence of inaction could be devastating to millions of people on the planet.
While there’s a global recession going on, fighting the effects of global climate change isn’t something people do when economic times are good. It’s something that must be accomplished — good times or bad times.
The findings that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare were the results of the EPA conducting a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The proposed finding, which now moves to a public comment period, identified six greenhouse gases that pose a potential threat.
“This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.  “This pollution problem has a solution – one that will create millions of green jobs and end our country’s dependence on foreign oil.”
And the creation of those green jobs is good news for Nebraska’s economy as the state can be one of the nation’s leading energy states with ethanol production, wind energy and solar.
According to the EPA, the proposed endangerment finding states, “In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem. The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”
EPA’s proposed endangerment finding is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis of six gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of intensive analysis by scientists around the world.
In a world where both ends of the political spectrum insist on “sound science”, the EPA scientific findings clearly show “that concentrations of these gases are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions, and these high levels are very likely the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate.”
We can haw and hem all we want to about this, but around the world, the signs are there and the consequences are very real.
The EPA scientific analysis also confirms that climate change impacts human health in several ways.
Findings from a recent EPA study titled “Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone,” for example, suggest that climate change may lead to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone, a harmful pollutant.
Additional impacts of climate change include, but are not limited to:
— Increased drought.
— More heavy downpours and flooding.
— More frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires.
— Greater sea level rise.
— More intense storms.
— Harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems.
In proposing the finding, Jackson said EPA also took into account the disproportionate impact climate change has on the health of certain segments of the population, such as the poor, the very young, the elderly, those already in poor health, the disabled, those living alone and/or indigenous populations dependent on one or a few resources.
In addition to threatening human health, the EPA analysis finds that climate change also has serious national security implications.
Consistent with this proposed finding, in 2007, 11 retired U.S. generals and admirals signed a report from the Center for a New American Security stating that climate change “presents significant national security challenges for the United States.”
Those 2007 findings found that as a result of global warming escalating violence in destabilized regions can be incited and fomented by an increasing scarcity of resources – including water. This lack of resources, driven by climate change patterns, then drives massive migration to more stabilized regions of the world, according to the military.
According to Jackson, the proposed endangerment finding now enters the public comment period, which is the next step in the deliberative process EPA must undertake before issuing final findings.
Jackson said the proposed finding does not include any proposed regulations. Before taking any steps to reduce greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, she said EPA would conduct an appropriate process and consider stakeholder input.
But there’s always unintended consequences from changes in government policies. It only makes sense that some of the same industries contributing to the problem of global warming will be the ones hurt most from any government program dealing with greenhouse gas emissions.
Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., is concerned that ruling will allow EPA to make future regulations of such emissions under the Clean Air Act that could financially hurt agriculture and other industries.
That’s especially true with the biggest segment of Nebraska’s billion dollar agricultural industry — livestock production.
According to Johanns, the EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act “… would have a devastating impact on livestock producers because cattle emit methane, one of the gases the EPA proposes to regulate.”
If you want to rally public support for something, all opponents have to do is say that the ruling will raise taxes. That what Johanns called the EPA regulations, “a steep tax that would result is commonly referred to as the “cow tax.”
Johanns said the legislation he’s co-sponsoring will “prevent this regulation from adversely affecting producers by amending the Clean Air Act to preclude regulation of naturally occurring livestock emissions, including methane and carbon dioxide.”
“For a state like Nebraska, which ranks first in the nation in commercial red meat production, this EPA proposal could have devastating consequences,” Johanns said. “This ‘cow tax’ could cost farmers and ranchers tens of thousands of dollars per farm per year.”
He said with the rising costs of production, “… this could put family farms at risk of going under.”
“The legislation I am co-sponsoring applies some common sense to ensure the Clean Air Act isn’t stretched to far-reaching applications that it was never intended to cover,” Johanns said.
Similar arguments can be made for each of the six  greenhouse gases the EPA wants to regulate. But the time has come for action. New regulations have to be flexible because jobs will be effected.  Business can’t be put ahead of environmental concerns.
But environmental concerns can also create more business opportunities and jobs that those regulations will impact. Things just shift a different way. That’s the power of a free market system. It can still operate rather efficiently regardless of the barriers imposed upon it. (And that is where government regulation would really hurt.) One thing for certain, business stagnates if there’s isn’t change of some kind. It’s opportunities that create commerce. Like life, business finds a way to survive.