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If you’re like me, going to bed before 11 p.m. is a thing of fairy tales or reserved for children, and even when you want to go to bed early, it’s like your body thinks it’s missing out on something and won’t shut down. If you’ve been able to somehow be productive despite this lack of sleep, kudos to you, but you should know that staying awake later than you should each night could be a hidden reason why you could pack on pounds.

In a study done by the University of Colorado, Boulder, it says that those who only get up to five hours of sleep at night during the busy work week and find themselves in their kitchen with access to all kinds of food and junk can gain weight. In straightforward terms, by being up late, you might find yourself tempted to eat, and if your food isn’t small and healthy and isn’t digesting, you set yourself up for some extra meat on your thighs (my body’s favorite place to take on new pounds).

Those behind the study had 16 participants, 16 young and lean adults, who lived for two weeks at the University’s hospital and were watched in a sleep suite. For the first few days subjects slept up to nine hours and were given “meals that had the same amount of caloric intake required to maintain their weight,” according to CBS News.

After a while, subjects were broken up into two groups where one was allowed to sleep up to nine hours while the other group only got to get in five hours. Both were given large meals and varying snack options throughout the evening, and after a few days, they switched sleep times. Results went something like this: Those who only slept five hours in the evening gained weight thanks to the after-dinner snacks they were given, and said snacks counted for more calories than any other meal they had in the day. According to the study, published March 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it showed that for women, those who got up to nine hours managed to maintain their weight despite the food they ate.

Study leader Kenneth Wright summed it up like this: “When people are sleep-restricted, our findings show they eat during their biological nighttime when internal physiology is not designed to be taking in food.” And it makes so much sense. I’m a huge cookie and cracker eater (and Tortilla chip snacker) when I can’t seem to sleep, and will even chow down after a hard workout at the gym hours earlier. I, along with many others, probably won’t see the results I want if I don’t find a way to curb my snack cravings at night…duly noted.

Do you find yourself snacking late at night when you should be asleep?

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From Your Tango

You know how you mother always told you first impressions tend to stick? She might have been right — even in ways she was certainly not referring to. According to new research, the tone set when you lose your virginity apparently stays the rest of your love life … forever.

University of Tennessee psychology doctoral student Matthew Schaffer and C. Veronica Smith, Ph.D., University of Mississippi assistant psychology professor, designed a study to observe the ways in which your virginity loss affects your future sex life. The study, published in the Journal of Sex and Martial Therapy, looks at whether or not there are consequences or benefits to how unpleasantly or happily you first had sex.

Check out the results of the study on YourTango.com.

According to U.S. News & World Report’s HealthDay, when it comes to losing fat and weight in general, aerobics exercise might be more beneficial to you than most other forms of exercise–including resistance training. The study, done by the Duke University Medical Center and published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, says that in the never-ending battle for some to lose weight (especially when you’re short on time–à la brides-to-be), if you focus more time on aerobics, you’re more likely to see bigger and better results. While resistance training can do wonders for blood sugar control, toning muscles and improving bone mass, the study showed that if you’re looking to shed pounds mostly, getting your Tae Bo on is your best bet.

The study, led by Leslie Willis, had 234 middle-aged men and women who were struggling with obesity put in one of three groups to be followed for eight months. One was a resistance training group, another was an aerobics class group, while the last was a combination of both aerobics and resistance training. For resistance, participants used a vast array of weight machines three times a week for three hours, while those in the aerobics group used only elliptical machines or treadmills, doing about 133 minutes of work a week, about 12 miles. Of course, the combination group did both things back and forth, three times a week.

In the end, those who did the aerobics courses, as well as the combination group, lost a good amount of weight. But the aerobic group lost more body weight while the combination group saw the biggest change in their waist line circumference. To sum up the results and to clarify everything, Willis says, “If fat mass is something a person wants to target, I would say your most time-efficient method would be to focus on the cardiovascular exercise. Resistance training did increase lean mass, but it doesn’t change fat mass, so the pounds didn’t change.”

Personally, I would recommend engaging in both resistance training, as well as aerobics exercise as the combination group did so that not only will you lose weight, but you will be able to tone certain muscles up at the same time. However, if you don’t have time for all that and only seek to drop the pounds to get your swexy back, focusing more on aerobics can go a long way. But either way, if you’re engaging in any form of exercise at all, give yourself a pat on the back, boo, because you obviously care about your health, and not too many people do these days.

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You probably could’ve guessed it, but now we have scientific proof: College admissions officers are checking things out online when they consider applicants. And more and more, they don’t like what they see.

Kaplan Test Prep, the well-known company that provides tutoring courses to prepare for standardized tests like the SAT and GMAT, surveyed 350 college admissions officers from among the nation’s top 500 schools. “The percentage of admissions officers who searched Google and Facebook increased slightly from last year to 27 percent and 26 percent, respectively, but the number of searches that turned up something that soured the officers’ attitudes jumped from 12 percent to 35 percent,” USA Today reports. Ruh-roh.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Keep the crazy off the Internets if your accounts are public. Check your Facebook privacy settings so you can better manage who can tag you and where or when those posts appear. And parents, talk with your children about their online presence, reminding them that behavior captured by the Web stays caught in it and is available to the public.

Among the things that are setting off the admissions officers are plagiarism (don’t ever take credit for other people’s work!), drinking alcohol and using profanity.

Jeff Olson, VP of data science at Kaplan said in a press release statement:

With regard to college admissions, the traditional application — the essays, the letters of recommendation — represent the polished version of an applicant, while often what’s found online is a rawer version of that applicant. Schools are philosophically divided on whether an applicant’s digital trail is fair game, and the majority of admissions officers do not look beyond the submitted application, but our advice to students is to think first, Tweet later.

Good advice.

Image: Digital Vision

If you are looking into college soon or are planning your children’s college education, the decision of what to major in is a significant one. In today’s economy, deciding on a major could ultimately lead you to a high-paying career or lead to a profession that’s struggling.

According to a May interview between Payscale’s lead economist Katie Bardaro and Forbes, unless a candidate has attended a top-notch school, today’s employers are more concerned with relevant coursework and a potential employee’s major.

While you are preparing your research into colleges and universities, getting your SAT test scores together, or mapping out your child’s educational future, make sure you take a look at some of the most popular college majors and how they could benefit you or your child after graduation.

Do women feel more social pressure to become mothers?

According to one recent study, it depends. The study, which was conducted from a national survey of nearly 1,200 American women of reproductive ages, but with no children, says women who choose to be permanently child-free perceive more social pressures to become mothers; however, they are also less distressed about their choice than women who are childless from infertility or other reasons.

Well duh! Did we really need a study to let us know that women do not all share the same goals, values and opinions in life?  And better yet, that women who made the choice to stay childless, more than likely won’t feel bad about themselves not being a mother than those women who want to conceive but can’t? Likewise, who are these horrible people knowingly bringing up the “baby issue” with a woman with infertility problems? However, there is one caveat to this study worth noting: Hispanic and African-American women were least likely to be voluntarily child-free and were more likely to have “biomedical fertility barriers” such as infertility. That pattern was the opposite for white women.

In other words, the black and Hispanic women surveyed of reproductive age actually desire children, however because of fertility issues, they couldn’t conceive whereas white women were more likely to voluntarily be childless, thus not concerned about social pressures to procreate. I found this interesting because I have long suspected that black women were more receptive and beholding to traditional gender roles including motherhood.

From my own experience, I do find there to be a kernel of truth to this finding. There is no other deity more revered in the black community than the black mother. If you ask the Afrocentric metaphysic types, she is thought to be the source of life and raiser of the next generation of kings and queens. Thug dudes would probably shoot you dead if you speak ill of her and college educated mommas boys often cite her advice that “Nobody is good enough for my son.” R&B male singers often write songs about her and mom dukes is the first person thanked by male rappers at award shows. And even how we relate to Michelle Obama has more to do with her being a good mother and wife than any of her career and professional achievements. Let’s be real, being a mother is a huge part of our collective cultural identity as black women. And with that kind of social pressure coming from within the community, it is no surprise why motherhood is seen as such an attractive option as well as a dire strait if you can physically produce children.

And as an option, there is nothing wrong with becoming a mother – if that is truly what you really want. I can share from first-hand experience that the suspicious glares you receive once it is discovered that you don’t have baby pictures and tales of bad-a** Kwami to share with the rest of the girl group is enough to send any woman running anxious to the first s***m donor. In fact, that’s almost what happened to me. I was 27 years old at a friend’s family BBQ. The men were outside grilling while we ladies were running our mouths in the living room. As usual, the group of women began sharing anecdotal stories of being wives and mothers.  While not being able to totally relate, I laughed and smiled with the rest of them, because even childless and ringless, I can appreciate a good story. Anyway, the host of the BBQ turned to me and said, “What about your kids?” I smiled graciously but told her infatuatedly, “Yeah I don’t have any children. Don’t plan on having any children. Bu I do have a cat though.” My host genuinely looked perplexed. “You don’t want children? And how old are you again?” I told her my age. “Well, I always believed that you can’t trust a woman who doesn’t have any children or a husband.” And I always believed that you can’t trust a woman who doesn’t know how to properly make potato salad. I mean, the potatoes aren’t suppose to be crunchy you know. I didn’t say that because at the time I didn’t think of it, but hindsight always brings out the better quips.

But what I did think about was that if I wasn’t much stronger in my conviction, or had really wanted children but couldn’t physically produce them naturally, this – being shunned by my peers – would probably break me. If I wasn’t strong, I would worry myself sick about why I lacked the maternal instinct to desire the joys of motherhood and make bad decisions with men all in the hopes of fitting in. But fortunately for me, my biological clock never was a loud ticker. In fact, I’m pretty sure it is broken because while most people look at baby pictures and coo, I look at baby pictures and think about the cost of baby clothing and doctor visits and having to come home from a long day of work to make them well-balanced meals, when really I would be content crashing on the couch with a Lean Pocket and a Capri Sun juice box. And I’m pretty sure of that despite the assurance of some distrustful women, who have told me over the years, “You’ll feel differently when you have them.” Yeah, right.

The good news is that there is some change in public attitudes toward childlessness, with 59 percent of adults disagreeing with the assertion that people without children “lead empty lives.” Moreover, the rates of childlessness among nonwhites has been rising, with black women and Hispanic women increasing their childless ranks by more than 30 percent, which probably means that we are exercising our choices to construct our own identities, whether it be as mothers or childless aunties, in our own image without heeding to, or even being distressed over, social pressures of what it means to be a real woman.

Image: Darren Baker

While the politicians are catering to the middle class for votes, others have proclaimed the middle class dead; that it has been squeezed beyond financial recognition. But The New York Times has reported on a new study that says two in three Americans actually achieve a middle-class lifestyle by middle age.

According to The Times, “The study breaks life down into stages (for instance, adolescence) and gives benchmarks for each of those stages (in that case, graduation from high school with a grade-point average above 2.5, no criminal convictions and no involvement in a teenage pregnancy).” Next, the children were studied over time, seeing if they met those benchmarks and projecting whether they would make it to the middle class by the age of 40.

“The researchers found that …a child who meets all the criteria from birth to adulthood has an 81 percent chance of being middle class. A child who meets none has only a 24 percent chance,” says the article.

Of course, there were other factors that determine who makes it into the middle-class. The Brookings Institution also looked into why some children grow up and make it into middle class and others don’t. The researchers — Isabel V. Sawhill, Scott Winship and Kerry Searle Grannis — examined how race, gender and family income were factors.

The study found that—what a surprise—“children born to rich families have a 75 percent chance of being middle income or better by the time they reach their 40s. For children born to poor families, the chance is just 40 percent.”

According to the study, only about two in five black adolescents met the benchmark of graduating from high school with a decent grade point average, no children and no criminal record by the age of 19. (You can read this story about disconnected black youth for more info on that.) Compare this to white teens — two in three white adolescents met those benchmarks.

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The  National Newspaper Publishers Association (aka Black Press of America) and Nielsen have released a new report, “African-American Consumers: Still Vital, Still Growing 2012 Report,” finding that black consumers turn to black media outlets to find items of relevance to them. This may seem like a no-brainer, but the report also found that advertising in black media only represents a small portion of the amount spent on advertising as a whole. So there are great opportunities for companies to reach out to this market in places that they’re turning to for information.

“Marketers underestimate the opportunities missed by overlooking Black consumers’ frustration of not having products that meet their needs in their neighborhoods,” NNPA chairman Cloves Campbell says in this story on Politic365. “And companies that don’t advertise using Black media risk having African-Americans perceive them as being dismissive of issues that matter to Black consumers.”

The report found that an overwhelming majority, 91 percent, of blacks think black media is relevant to them. Another big majority, 81 percent, think products advertised in black media are relevant to them. And brand name items represent 82 percent of the purchased in black homes.

However, 2011 advertising in black media outlets was $2.1 billion. In the same year, $120 billion was spent on general mass media advertising. The report predicts that black buying power will total $1.1 trillion in 2015.

The study also highlights the importance of social media and online engagement to the black community. And notes that black consumers, especially older ones, tend to make more shopping trips, spending less than the broader population during each trip.

“As is true among non-Black households, the younger generation of Black households offset fewer overall shopping trips with higher per-trip spending than their older counterparts. But, in all instances, Black households spend less per trip than non-Black households,” the Nielsen blog writes. The black population is 14 percent younger than the broader population with a media age of 32 years old.

This report was timed to release during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference. We also wrote about the roundtable discussing the link between small business ownership and the wealth gap, which took place during this conference.
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A federal housing program, Moving to Opportunity, was launched in the 1990s with a twofold goal — give low-income families better access to education and income by moving them into mixed-income neighborhoods and study the effects of that move on the 2,000 participating moms and their kids.

According to The Wall Street Journal, while the financial and educational fortunes of these families didn’t really change, there was a marked improvement in their health.

“Participants had significantly lower rates of diabetes, extreme obesity, anxiety and stress than those who stayed behind. They were also much happier with their lives overall—something researchers said was particularly important,” the story says.

The story points out that while racial segregation has decreased in recent times, economic segregation has not, creating an “increase in poverty concentration” that’s having averse effects on the people who live in these disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Critics argue that the amount of money given to families to move to these new neighborhoods wasn’t enough to have an impact on the other factors being tested. Moreover, they were moved to neighborhoods where the poverty level was still at one-third. In their previous neighborhoods, poverty levels reached one-half.

“Nearly three-quarters of the families who signed up for the program said they had done so to get away from violence in dangerous neighborhoods,” The New York Times reports. In both an interesting and shocking twist, the study also found that the good feeling was higher in neighborhoods that were more racially segregated when compared to those that were integrated.

The significance of the findings aren’t lost on Barbara Samuels, an ACLU lawyer quoted in the WSJ story, who says the “hopelessness, of being literally almost physically oppressed by your surroundings” is common. Certainly, someone who’s worried and depressed, then encircled by those same feelings of desperation is going to experience a negative effect on their physical and mental health.

Image: Shutterstock, Jeff Cleveland

It isn’t a myth that black youth are being left behind. It is a reality and a new study, “One in Seven: Ranking Youth Disconnection in the 25 Largest Metro Areas,” has the evidence. The study looked at the number of youth who are disconnected in America. We aren’t talking hi-tech disconnected, but socially disconnected. The government defines a disconnected youth as one who is not in school or working.

“One in Seven” found that youth disconnection is highest in the largest metro areas of the U.S., meaning that African-American teens are the most impacted. According to “One in Seven,”  5.8 million young adults or one in seven young adults, ages 16  to 24, are socially adrift.  The study was conducted by social scientist Sarah Burd Sharps, who said in a press release for the study she co-authored with Kristen Lewis, “One in Seven is a wake-up call to this country. Disconnection can affect everything from earnings and financial independence to physical and mental health, and even marital prospects.”

AOL reports, that the study discovered “African Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 have the highest rate of youth disconnection at 22.5 percent, a figure that holds significant monetary implications beyond any one racial or ethnic group. Last year alone, youth disconnection cost taxpayers $93.7 billion in government support and lost tax revenue.”

The study didn’t just leave it at presenting the statistics; it also gave recommendations for stopping youth disconnection. It suggests providing  “meaningful support and guidance both to young people aiming for a four-year bachelor’s degree and to those whose interests and career aspirations would be better served by relevant, high-quality career and technical education certificates and associate’s degrees.”  Lewis concluded in the press release, “In today’s economy, everyone needs some education beyond high school, but as a society, we need to rethink the ‘college-for-all’ mantra that devalues and stigmatizes career and technical education. Instead, we should provide robust pathways to postsecondary certificates or associate degree programs for those who choose this route.”

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