The dreaded Freshmen-15 is real.

Legend has it freshmen college students gain 15 pounds in their first term. Fact is this is no legend. Going to college doesn’t just mean changing schools, it means changing lifestyles.

Chances are, you’ll be less active than you were in high school. This, combined with bad dining hall food, dorm-room junk food, endless frat parties with bottomless kegs and a slowing metabolism, inevitably leads to one thing — weight gain.

Gaining a few pounds isn’t the only thing you need to worry about, though. Without home-cooking, you’ll probably lack the necessary nutrients your body needs to thrive. On the bright side, it’s possible to stay healthy in college.

By adapting the following tips to your current lifestyle, you can make healthy changes that aren’t so over-bearing you won’t be able to stick with them.

1. You need calcium

Consume about 1,000 mg of calcium daily. Women are at higher risk of developing osteoporosis, a disease which decreases bone density. This develops gradually with age, but adequate calcium intake reduces the risk. Bone density accumulated when you’re young is all you’ll have for the rest of your life, so make sure your bones are as strong as they can be. One eight-ounce glass of milk has about 300 mg, so drinking three glasses of milk a day will provide all the calcium you need. Other foods that are high in calcium include yogurt and cheese. Low-fat dairy products have as much calcium as whole-fat products.

2. You need folic acid

Folic acid is one of the B vitamins. It’s important to intake 0.4 mg of folate a day, especially for women in their child-bearing years. Folate reduces birth defects by regulating DNA synthesis and cell division. It’s also needed for normal red blood cell synthesis. Folic acid can be found in green, leafy vegetables, orange juice and fortified breakfast cereals.

3. Get your daily servings of fruits and vegetables

I know it seems like fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive than other grocery store items, but they really aren’t. Buy the fruits and vegetables that are on sale. Seasonal items usually cost less. Even if they do cost a little more than a bag of chips, ditch out on the junk food because fruits and vegetables are much more nutrient-dense.

4. Be active

Half an hour of moderate physical activity on most days is recommended to stay healthy. However, longer and more rigorous activities can provide greater health benefits. You’re probably paying a fee to use the student recreation center, so you might as well take advantage of that. Plus, it’s a great way to meet people.

5. Lose a pound a week

One pound equals about 3,500 calories, so reduce your calories by 500 each day and, by the end of the week, you will drop a pound. However, instead of dropping 500 calories from your diet, try dropping 250 and working off the other 250 at the campus recreation center. This way you’re not starving yourself and you can get your recommended amount of activity each day.

6. Eat right in the dining hall

Keep these concepts in mind when choosing foods, whether it’s in the dining hall or at home. Developing these habits now will help to continue a healthy life-style in the future.

WASHINGTON — Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation’s health care system stalled on Wednesday — and could be scaled back substantially — as suddenly somber lawmakers struggled to absorb the aftershock of Republican Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate race.

Brown, who upset Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley Tuesday in one of the nation’s most reliably Democratic states, will become the Republicans’ 41st seat when he takes office, probably in about two weeks.

If Republicans maintain their unity — as they have for months — with 41 votes they can block Democratic action on almost anything.

The Democrats’ 60-vote partisan strategy for ramming legislation through thus far now appears dead. Instead, Democrats in Congress echoed a message they heard from President Barack Obama:

“Here’s one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table,” the president told ABC News. “The Senate certainly shouldn’t try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. People in Massachusetts have spoken. He’s got to be part of that process.”

After meeting privately for about two hours on Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats agreed to slow down their health care crusade.

“We’re not going to rush into anything,” Senate Majority Leader Harry ReidNevada said. “As you’ve heard, we’re going to wait until the new senator arrives before we do anything more on health care.” of

Obama also advised Congress to “move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the (health care) package that people agree on.”

Democratic lawmakers, and apparently some Republicans, generally agree on barring insurers from denying coverage or charging more because of pre-existing medical conditions, helping people pay for policies, and ending separate rates for people because of gender.

Flashpoints in the legislation now in jeopardy include how much, if at all, government should get involved in either running an insurance plan or encouraging multi-state private plans to compete with existing insurers. Lawmakers have also been at odds over whether taxes should be raised to help pay for the expansion of coverage.

Liberal Democrats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives also confront two blocs whose political outlook suddenly changed with Tuesday’s election results — moderate Democrats and all Republicans.

Centrist Democrats signaled that they fear that the mood evident in Massachusetts has spread into their states and districts and could boost their opponents in November’s midterm congressional elections. That may make them less inclined to follow Obama’s lead.

“The only way we are able to govern successfully in this country is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates,” Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., told ABC News. “Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Democratic Party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country — that’s not going to work too well.”

Jubilant Republicans feel newly empowered and want to be more active players in shaping legislation. Heretofore Democrats have shut them out, while most Republicans have shunned making sincere efforts to compromise.

Democrats acknowledged Wednesday that they need to show more sensitivity to the concerns of a public battered by the worst recession in 70 years, as ordinary Americans still routinely see foreclosures in their neighborhoods, a financial system where banks don’t seem to be punished for irresponsible behavior and a government perhaps too eager to inject itself into their health care decisions.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., urged giving new attention to a jobs-creation package, a view echoed by other moderates who returned this week from a winter recess saying their constituents are more worried about the economy than overhauling the nation’s health care system.

“The time for doing health care has narrowed substantially,” Casey said. “We’ve got to get back to jobs and come up with a specific short-term strategy to create jobs.”

Republicans, who have rarely cooperated with Democrats in this Congress, said they are ready now to do business with Democrats.

“What we ought to do … is stop, start over, go step by step and concentrate on fixing the problem, which is rising costs,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “They (American people) don’t want the government taking over health care.”

The new Senate math is likely to affect health care legislation most. Legislation to create jobs or tighten financial regulation traditionally has drawn some GOP support, as long as it doesn’t involve higher taxes.

But Republican leaders have made opposition to the Democrats’ health care overhaul a virtual litmus test of party loyalty. When the House and SenateJoseph Cao — voted yes. voted on their versions of the legislation late last year, only one Republican — Louisiana Rep.

Some Democrats accept that rethinking is in order.

“The size of this (health care bill) troubles people,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “It’s worth taking some time and having the president go out there and go over it piece by piece. Right now he’s only talking in general terms.”

Alternatively, the House may simply vote on the health care version that the Senate passed Dec. 24. If the House approved it without changes, Obama’s signature would enact it into law.

Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that accepting the Senate bill would be better than doing nothing.

“I think it would be devastating not to make some progress,” Davis said. “I’m certainly of the idea that some is better than none.”

However, liberals object to the Senate’s proposed tax on high-end insurance policies, and anti-abortion Democrats dislike the Senate’s less restrictive policies on federal funds.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she would resist having the House vote up-or-down on the Senate measure, though she might support tinkering with it.

“It’s clear we’re not voting for the Senate bill straight up without fixes,” she said. “Why did we work our fannies off to put together a compromise House bill to throw it away and vote for the Senate’s?”

MCT

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve reported a side benefit to its massive intervention into the financial system — a record profit of $46.1 billion last year on the central bank’s investments.

But experts said that gain, which will be paid to the U.S. Treasury, could be offset by losses in the future when the central bank starts selling the Treasury bonds and other assets it has purchased in unprecedented amounts to try to stabilize the economy. Continue Reading

This is a breaking news story. Updates will continue throughout the week.

Domestic partners will receive the same benefits as heterosexual married couples beginning January 2010.
The new policy will cover both dependent adult and sponsored dependent child insurances.
“Effective Oct.1, 2009, UAB faculty and staff were able to enroll eligible sponsored adult and child dependents in medical, dental and vision plans. The university made the decision to expand its benefit eligibility categories in the context of one of our strategic goals,” a UAB spokesperson said.
University president Carol Garrison said last week UAB is striving to maintain excellence in the fields of academics and research, but to do this the university had to modify employee benefits to attract a better pool of faculty applicants.
“We strive to create a positive, supportive and diverse work environment in which faculty and staff can excel. We believe this change will help us remain competitive from an employee recruiting standpoint,” the spokesperson said.
Other universities across the nation competing with UAB in many fields such as medicine have adopted similar policies to acquire faculty members.
“We were not able to offer the families of potential faculty, staff and researchers access to the same sorts of benefits packages comparable to those of our top NIH-funded medical school peer group, which includes Vanderbilt, Duke, Johns Hopkins and others.
Jade Delisle, director of “One Closed Door After Another,” a film that addresses the lack of availability of domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian employees at UAB has spent time talking to UAB faculty who cited personnel losses due to the old policy.
“A lot of people left for this reason,” Delisle said.
Delisle also notes that UAB is one of the top 20 universities on the list of the American Research Universities. Of the top 20 only three of them did not offer domestic partner benefits.
“UAB was one of those three universities,” she said. “UAB employees did not have access to the same healthcare for their partner and children even though they paid the same money.”
The plan outlines an eligible partner as someone who “shares a primary residence, not as a renter, tenant or employee, with the covered UAB employee, and has lived with UAB employee at least 12 months prior to effective date of coverage, is at least 19 years old, the age of majority in Alabama, is not a relative and is not married,” according to the university’s human resources benefits website.

For more information visit http://www.hrm.uab.edu/main/benefits. To watch “One Closed Door After Another” click here.

Lindsey Little
Staff Writer
lklittle@uab.edu

Alyssa Mitchell
Editor in Chief
editor@insideuab.com

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