Obesity in Africa?!  It seems that not all South African children are necessarily those starving, emaciated children we’ve seen on ‘pennies a day’ infomercials to feed the poor.  According to a 2005 report (Steyn, Labadarios et al., 2005) there is a prevalence of overweight South African children (19%) under the age of 9 years.  As if Africa doesn’t already suffer from the well-documented HIV/AIDS epidemic, tuberculosis outbreaks, and other infectious diseases, now some parts of the continent suffer from the once Western-now-global public health issue of obesity. 

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 IMIN is changing the image of high school after school programs. If you are thinking of latchkey and detention that sounds nearly impossible, right? First off, you have to stop saying after school. IMIN is slang for “What I’m in” because no teenager says, “I participate in an after school program.” An IMIN is anything formally know as an after school activity and is a used as a noun, as in IMIN Dance or IMIN Photography.

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So New Yorkers aren’t exactly strangers to the freaky/crazy/scary, being that, you know, we live in a city where we can listen to a diatribe about the government testing anthrax on children from a guy with pieces of food in his beard and a “Mom of the Year” shirt on without batting an eye.  But recently, Mayor Bloomberg’s dedication to reducing the number of New York smokers has lead the Department of Health to create a series of ads that can best be described as a “f@#ing horror show.”

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If you take a shower before you have sex, are you less likely to get pregnant? Do I love her or do I love the sex? I like boys but I also like girls. What should I do? These are just some of the questions that curious and hormonal teenagers are texting to the new Birds and the Bees text line.

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HAVOC is the newest young adult tobacco prevention brand for TUPAC in New Mexico, and for the Partnership for a Tobacco-Free Maine.  The brand targets young adult partiers in these two states who identify as being social and outgoing with positive, party-seeking attitudes. HAVOC launch parties were held to introduce the brand and establish its identity in the cities of Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Farmington, New Mexico and Portland, Maine.  At all of the events, HAVOC proved that there was a new, hot partier in town.

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And it was raining, and then my best buddy…he comes along and he’s like, you okay man? I’m like so, really choked, depressed. And he had a bunch of heroin on him. And he used to give me something to smoke too, right? But all this heroin was in one rig. He had a rig full… you know like it was a clean rig […] So I guess it was just meant to be. And I was like, man I need some kind of a drug […] “but, it’s all liquid man.” He had a shitload, he had all the supplies and everything like that. He did a little shot for me, and, as he was about to poke me right, and he looks at me he says, “God, strike me with lightening if you don’t want me to do it.”, but I was like “ just do it, fxckin’ hurry up.” But I couldn’t look, holy fxck...needles! - Male Participant age 24.

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You wouldn’t think that dipping Cheetos in peanut butter is a good call, but it’s surprisingly enjoyable. Besides, you already went through all the M&M’s so you’ve got to dip SOMETHING in that jar and the Cheetos were already on the coffee table. The new episode of Dancing With The Stars just started and you’ll be damned if you’re going to get up and put this stuff back in the pantry until it’s over, so you might as well grub down.
    
As technology progresses, life gets easier. It’s a digital world and we prefer instant gratification. Who needs to go outside and find something to do for entertainment? You’ve got everything you need inside the house. Why brave the heat to shoot hoops when you’ve got NBA 2K9 for your PS3? Why go to a movie when you can order pay per view? Why even get dressed? It’s much easier to rock sweat pants, order a pizza, crack a soda and pop in that VHS copy of Adventures In Babysitting.
    
It goes without saying but Americans are getting fatter. Our lifestyles have become increasingly sedentary, and as we discover ways to make life easier there become fewer and fewer things that we need to do. Being that youth are traditionally among the first to access new technologies, it’s no surprise that obesity in youth is growing faster than in adults.  Have no fear, though, because the government has got it under control (thank you, Uncle Sam). So, what’s the big plan to lower youth obesity levels?

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Social norm interventions are youth health promotion strategies that aim to reduce the perception that it’s popular and normal for young people to use certain substances by informing people of actual prevalence rates. You may recognize these efforts from posters, like the ones above, commonly found doctor’s offices and exam rooms on college campuses.  

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