Other cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure and bad cholesterol, were stable during that period, but remain relatively high.

"This has serious long-term public health implications for this country," said Dr. Vivian Fonseca, president of medicine and science with the American Diabetes Association, who was not involved in the research. "We're likely to see a lot of people get diabetes and have cardiovascular events at a relatively young age over the next 10 to 20 years."

The new data, published online in the journal Pediatrics Monday, includes nearly 3,400 children ages 12 to 19 from the Centers for Disease Control's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, designed to track the health and nutrition of Americans.

The percent of overweight and obese teens did not change significantly from 1999 through 2008, hovering around the current estimate of 34 percent. The prevalence of prehypertension and high blood pressure also stayed relatively stable, at around 14 percent, as did high levels of LDL or "bad" cholesterol, at 22 percent. Low levels of HDL or "good" cholesterol stayed at about 6 percent.

However, the prevalence of prediabetes and diabetes jumped significantly, from 9 percent of teens in 1999-2000 to 23 percent in 2007-2008.

"I am reassured that at least we haven't seen a continuing rise in the rate of childhood obesity,” said Dr. Lori Laffel, chief of pediatrics at the Joslin Diabetes Center and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

“I am reassured that most of the cardiovascular risk factors the researchers looked at have not increased," she continued. "But it is concerning that it looks like the rates of prediabetes and diabetes have more than doubled over that 10-year period."

Laffel said that the results should be validated and raise interesting questions about what, if anything, is driving the change in diabetes rates. For example, she said it is somewhat puzzling that obesity rates have stayed relatively stable while diabetes has increased, given the close ties between the two. Obesity increases the risk of impaired glucose tolerance, insulin resistance and the development of type 2 diabetes in both adults and children.

But overall, the new study does reinforce the link between obesity and heart-health risk factors.

About half of the overweight teens and more than 60 percent of the obese participants had at least one cardiovascular risk factor, a finding researchers call "concerning, given growing evidence demonstrating that cardiovascular risk factors present during childhood may persist into adulthood." The most common combination of risk factors among those teens was bad cholesterol and high blood pressure, or prehypertension, both of which can increase the risk of developing heart disease.

"This really speaks to the need for pediatricians to be vigilant about following screening recommendations, especially for obese and overweight teens," said study co-author Ashleigh May with the CDC's division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity, adding that 35 percent of normal-weight teens also had at least one risk factor. "We do see these risk factors are high for all youth, not just overweight and obese youth."

What the study points to, she said, is a pressing need for better prevention given that even moderate changes can have profound results. Studies have suggested that by eating less fat and fewer calories, and getting the equivalent of around 20 minutes of exercise per day, people can reduce their risk of developing diabetes by nearly 60 percent.

"We do know that we can slow or even halt the progression of prediabetes and diabetes," said Fonseca.

But the new findings raise serious red flags about what could happen without improved intervention and prevention.

"This is telling us that there is a very high prevalence of obesity-related problems in people in the age group 12 to 19. That's something we used to see only in people in their 40s," Fonseca said. "What this really means is that people are going to get serious health issues when they're in the prime of their lives."

-Natalie Merchant

My 11-year-old grandson took his first trip off the diving board tonight. Two weeks previously, he couldn't swim at all.

Seeing an 11-year-old swim is normally not a headline. But, my grandson has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, which is a form of autism.

Seeing him jump in the pool was better than winning the lottery.

Having a grandson who can't swim is a frightening experience. What happens if he falls in water? I have not swum in several years but know I can. Could I get him to safety in case of emergency?

Now that issue is going off the table. He can make it to safety without me.

With a child with Asperger's Syndrome, it's the little things that mean a lot.

When he was first diagnosed, I spent a lot of time reading about Asperger's Syndrome and autism.

A lot of people with Asperger's wind up as Wall Street stock traders, professional gamblers or computer geniuses. There are some who believe that Bill Gates has a form of Asperger's.

I'm not expecting my grandson to grow up to be a billionaire like Bill Gates. I am hoping that he has a happy, normal and productive life -- the same hopes every parent and grandparent has.

The first thing I learned about autism is that there is no such thing as a "cure." There is a lot of education and special training needed. You don't suddenly flip a switch, or take a pill, and have an autistic child fill in the gaps in how his mind is circuited.

People who have children with autism learn what they can, find all the support and programs available and give love to their child with everything they have.

Thus, it is easy to get excited when a grandson jumps off the diving board and takes a swim.

I was surprised recently to find that my grandson was suddenly "cured" of Asperger's Syndrome.

It didn't come from being struck by lightning or due to the efforts of a faith healer like Oral Roberts.

It came from the American Psychiatric Association.

When the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders comes out, it won't list Asperger's as a diagnosis at all.

On the same day that my grandson made his successful leap off the diving board, the APA confirmed that it would maintain a new definition of autism, which will not list Asperger's as a possibility.

The irony is that for a long time he was unable to swim due to the sensory and motor issues associated with the disorder the APA is saying doesn't exist.

The "re-definition" by the APA came from a perception that Asperger's, and other forms of autism, were "over diagnosed."

In other words, according to the APA, the way to avoid paying for treatment is to suddenly decide that the disease doesn't exist at all.

That is an outrage that will keep thousands of children from getting help.

What happens when the children are 20, 30 and 50 years old and have never been counseled, educated or treated? A simple "change" in APA definition can damage children who could easily be helped.

My grandson is fortunate in one respect. Our family business, McNay Settlement Group, helps special needs children handle their money and plan for the rest of their lives.

His mother, aunt, and uncle are experts who know every financial vehicle and public program available to help children with special needs.

If health care reform is not overturned by the United States Supreme Court, several excellent new programs will be implemented to help autistic children.

There are a number of advocacy groups, such as Autism Speaks and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network , that are springing up to help in this area. Last March I got to spend a few minutes with the AS founders, Bob and Suzanne Wright, when we were both on the CBS Morning News. (I was on CBS to talk about what to do when you win the lottery.)

Like me, the Wrights became committed to the cause when their grandchild was diagnosed with autism.

My grandson and I recently went to a baseball game. He is learning about the sport his grandfather loves. While we were there, he completely reprogrammed my cell phone. He fixed a problem in thirty seconds that Apple's tech people couldn't fix in three hours.

He's a great child with a big heart. With a lot of love, education and counseling, "he will be able."

The jump in the pool was a big step forward.

One that caused his grandpa to leap for joy.

Geisinger Health Systems is looking for more facts on the debate.

"Our concern is getting reliable data so we know what to do for our patients," said David Carey, director of Geisinger's Weis Center for Research in Danville, Pa.

Geisinger serves many patients who live in areas that have seen a recent boom in Marcellus Shale gas drilling. The gas-rich formation thousands of feet underground has generated jobs, billions of dollars and concerns about possible environmental and public health impacts from thousands of new wells.

"There's a real need for reliable information for policymakers," Carey said, yet some of the debate on the issue has been more emotion-driven than science-driven.

"Lack of data has not led to a lack of opinion," Carey noted.

But with state and federal budgets under intense pressure, there hasn't been much money available for serious medical research. Then over the last year, executives at Geisinger realized they had a big head start.

"We have a very long history of caring for patients in this region," Carey said, noting the company serves 2.6 million patients and operates hospitals, clinics, and an insurance program in 44 north central and north eastern counties. That means they have vast troves of health care data, concerning everything from cancer to car accidents to asthma attacks.

"We can map the clinical data in both space and in time," Carey said, meaning they can compare health in areas with gas drilling to similar areas where it isn't happening.

Carey said the company isn't presuming anything about the issue, though it is aware of both concerns and the economic value of the shale boom.

"Our position is, let's collect the data and find out," he said.

It may fall to private companies to do some of the work.

Until a few months ago, Pennsylvania public health officials had expected to get a share of the revenue being generated by the state's new Marcellus Shale law, which is projected to provide about $180 million to state and local governments in the first year.

But representatives from Republican Gov. Tom Corbett's office and the state Senate cut the health appropriation to zero during final negotiations, so now the state Department of Health is left with a new workload but no funding to examine whether gas drilling impacts health.

Many federal and state regulators say hydraulic fracturing is safe when done properly, and that thousands of wells have been drilled with few complaints of pollution. But environmental groups and some doctors assert regulations still aren't tough enough and that the practice can pollute groundwater and air.

The claims and counterclaims have been so extreme that some health experts feel the fear and confusion that's been generated among the public is a problem by itself. Bernard Goldstein, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, said experience has shown that patient trust is a key component in health care.

Goldstein said Pitt is also looking at ways to use health care data to answer questions about gas drilling and possible public health impacts.

Despite all the controversy over the issue, Carey hopes Geisinger can stay above the fray.

"To the extent possible, we're trying to stay clear of any political land mines," he said.

"We see this unfolding in phases. I could see a batch of early studies that might focus on some diseases. Asthma is a good example," he said, since people with that disease would be very sensitive to possible changes in air quality due to gas drilling.

Geisinger hopes to issue some preliminary results of its data analysis within the next year, Carey said, while other aspects of the research will unfold over five, 10 or 15 years.

Parents Heather and Patrick Walker of Memphis, Tennessee welcomed their son Grayson James Walker on February 15, 2012, notes the Daily Mail.

The infant lived only eight hours after suffering from anencephaly, a rare birth defect where a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull.

To share his memory with family and friends, Walker took to Facebook posting the photographs of her deceased son.

Shortly after, the social network deleted the images. When the Walkers encouraged family and friends to contact Facebook in protest, the social network banned the mother from the site entirely, notes the Daily Mail.

Gizmodo explains Facebook's community standards prohibit nine types of content from the site, including the following: Violence and Threats, Self-Harm, Bullying and Harassment, Hate Speech, Graphic Violence, Nudity and Pornography, Identity and Privacy, Intellectual Property and Phishing and Spam.

Facebook has yet to comment on the incident.

UPDATE: 5:00 p.m --In a prepared statement from Facebook the company commented on the incident.

“Upon investigation, we concluded the photo does not violate our guidelines and was removed in error. Facebook is a place where almost a billion people share more than 300 million photos a day. Our dedicated User Operations Team reviews millions of pieces of this content a day to help keep Facebook safe for all ages. Our policies are enforced by a team of reviewers in several offices across the globe. This team looks at hundreds of thousands of reports every week, and as you might expect, occasionally, we make a mistake and remove a piece of content we shouldn’t have. We extend our deepest condolences to the family and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience."

Facebook also explained Heather Walker has never been suspended from the site. Instead, the company said it temporarily blocked her ability to upload photos as a consequence of having a photo removed from the site. This happens automatically whenever a user is cautioned for inappropriate content.

Editors Note: The previous headline for the story stated Facebook banned Heather Walker from the site. However, a response from Facebook said the user was only temporary banned from uploading photos to the site. The headline has been updated to reflect that correction.

Parents Heather and Patrick Walker of Memphis, Tennessee welcomed their son Grayson James Walker on February 15, 2012, notes the Daily Mail.

The infant lived only eight hours after suffering from anencephaly, a rare birth defect where a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull.

To share his memory with family and friends, Walker took to Facebook posting the photographs of her deceased son.

Shortly after, the social network deleted the images. When the Walkers encouraged family and friends to contact Facebook in protest, the social network banned the mother from the site entirely, notes the Daily Mail.

Gizmodo explains Facebook's community standards prohibit nine types of content from the site, including the following: Violence and Threats, Self-Harm, Bullying and Harassment, Hate Speech, Graphic Violence, Nudity and Pornography, Identity and Privacy, Intellectual Property and Phishing and Spam.

Facebook has yet to comment on the incident.

UPDATE: 5:00 p.m --In a prepared statement from Facebook the company commented on the incident.

“Upon investigation, we concluded the photo does not violate our guidelines and was removed in error. Facebook is a place where almost a billion people share more than 300 million photos a day. Our dedicated User Operations Team reviews millions of pieces of this content a day to help keep Facebook safe for all ages. Our policies are enforced by a team of reviewers in several offices across the globe. This team looks at hundreds of thousands of reports every week, and as you might expect, occasionally, we make a mistake and remove a piece of content we shouldn’t have. We extend our deepest condolences to the family and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience."

Facebook also explained Heather Walker has never been suspended from the site. Instead, the company said it temporarily blocked her ability to upload photos as a consequence of having a photo removed from the site. This happens automatically whenever a user is cautioned for inappropriate content.

Editors Note: The previous headline for the story stated Facebook banned Heather Walker from the site. However, a response from Facebook said the user was only temporary banned from uploading photos to the site. The headline has been updated to reflect that correction.

Here's how my talk went:

I want to tell you a story of how a skinny Haitian chicken and a bowl of beet and cabbage soup turned my world upside down and helped me think differently about how we might deal with the crazy explosion of lifestyle-driven chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes and obesity -- what I like to call DIABESITY!

How can we even think about solving this problem that will cost the global economy $47 trillion over the next 20 years and by the end of this decade kill 50 million people a year, killing more than twice as many people as infectious disease?

How do we think about a world -- where now there are more people who are overweight than are starving?

How do we think about a world where there soon will be half a billion diabetics and almost a billion pre-diabetics and only a fraction of doctors and health care workers needed to take care of them? These are not just diseases of affluence, but are exploding in the poorest countries on earth.

So what does a skinny Haitian chicken have to do with rethinking how we approach chronic lifestyle-driven diseases? My rethinking started on Jan. 1, 2010 -- the first day of the first month of the first year of this new decade. I had just finished a book about Paul Farmer, who successfully tackled the worst diseases in the worst places on the planet.

Paul Farmer successfully treated TB and AIDS -- which everyone thought were untreatable in the face of extreme poverty in places like Haiti, Lima or Rwanda.

Paul realized we didn't need a new advance in science or a new medication but something very simple -- to rebuild community and connection in broken communities.

Paul's genius was his insight that the key to solving insoluble health care problems was each other, was people helping people, or what some call peer support. Paul's genius was the idea of accompaniment -- accompanying each other to health, helping each other build back their communities with clean water, food, going to each other's houses, making sure their sick neighbor knew how and knew when to take their medication.

And it wasn't just a better delivery model for the right drug or the right information. The community was part of the medicine, part of the cure.

That was how I spent that first day in January of the new decade -- an auspicious day. Thinking about how Paul's insight about infectious disease might help us solve our epidemic of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

And as this idea was shaking up my world, disaster happened. On Jan. 12, 2010, just a few days later, that massive earthquake hit Haiti.

Two days after that, I arrived at sunset with Paul Farmer, who I just called out of the blue because I knew he would know where to go and asked him to come with us on a small plane with our small medical team. We arrived into chaos, devastation and overwhelming suffering. We unloaded our plane and went directly to the main public health hospital in Port au Prince.

After a week of 20-hour days amidst amputated limbs and amputated lives, I finally got to sit and eat a meal of rice and some skinny Haitian chicken with the director of the hospital -- Dr. Alix Lassegue. As we had our first meal in days and tried to find some meat on that skinny chicken I asked Dr. Lassegue what was the most common admitting diagnosis here before the earthquake -- here in the main public hospital in Haiti that served 8 million people!

I thought he would say TB, AIDS, or malaria. But here in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere in one of the poorest countries in the world it wasn't TB or AIDS but diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure -- 90 percent of which are preventable and often reversible through lifestyle.

Those chronic diseases have reached every corner of the globe and touch everyone on the planet -- it is you or someone you know or love. Most of these conditions -- heart disease, high blood pressure, many cancers, and stroke, even dementia -- are caused by the same root problem.

Diabesity: the continuum from a little bit of belly fat to pre-diabetes to full-blown Type 2 diabetes.

I am thinking to myself while sitting in the crumbling hospital building in Haiti where diabetes was the main admitting diagnosis, "How do we deal with this crazy, overwhelming problem of obesity driven disease that's getting worse and worse, and costing more and more despite our best efforts to treat it with medication and surgery?"

How do we deal with the fact that diabesity will soon affect 1 in 2 Americans -- that's every other person in America. And that full-blown Type 2 diabetes affects nearly 1 in 10 Americans and 1 in 5 African-Americans and 1 in 4 Medicare patients. And that 1 in 3 Medicare dollars is spent on diabetes. And that 1 in 3 children born today will have Type 2 diabetes in their lifetime.

And that 80 percent of the world's diabetics are in poor countries, and that one-half all diabetes and almost all of pre-diabetics are not even diagnosed.

So it was in the aftermath of being up to my elbows in blood, pus and broken bones, broken lives and broken hearts that I first understood what I had completely neglected over the last 15 years of diving deep into systems biology and genomics.

I was so hyper-focused on biological networks and systems medicine or network medicine as the answer to solving the puzzle of chronic disease -- on turning the dials on biology for individuals -- that I missed something much more important.

That most chronic disease is very often a social disease and not just a problem of biology!

We know that you are more likely to be overweight if your friend's friend is overweight than if your parents are overweight. That the genetic threads that connect us may be less important than the social threads -- that our social connections and our ancient need to be part of a tribe may be a way out of our epidemic of chronic disease.

That just maybe sociogenomics -- or how social networks influence health and disease and how social networks alter gene expression, are where we need to look for the solution.

In some places, gastric bypasses are being touted as a cure for diabetes. As if you could cut out a poor lifestyle like a wart. Is this really a solution for our 400 million diabetics at a cost of $30,000 per person -- or $12 trillion?

We can't medicate our way out of a bad diet. Taking a statin while downing a double cheeseburger, fries and a soda just doesn't make any sense.

But there has been a new drug discovered that can beneficially modulate thousands of genes and enhance the function of dozen of hormones and regulate tens of thousands of protein networks and can prevent cure and even reverse most chronic disease. And it works faster, better and is cheaper than any other drug discovered and it is available to almost everyone on the planet right now.

It is food. We now know that food is information, not just calories, and that it can upgrade your biologic software. The majority of chronic disease is primarily a food-borne illness. We ate ourselves into this problem, and we have to eat ourselves out of it.

High cholesterol is not a statin deficiency, and diabetes is not an Avandia deficiency. It is not doing the same things better. What we are doing is not really working. It is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Statins increase the risk of diabetes by 48 percent in women. Avandia, the No. 1 blockbuster drug for diabetes, killed nearly 200,000 from heart attacks since it was introduced on the market in 1999.

So statins designed to prevent heart attacks causes diabetes and the drugs designed to treat diabetes cause heart attacks.

This is Pharmageddon.

Even if those approaches worked, we just don't have enough doctors and hospitals and health care workers to deal with the massive number of chronically sick people on the planet.

After Haiti I realized that the answer had to be somewhere else. If social networks can promote unhealthy lifestyles, maybe we can use social networks to create health.

We know how to prevent, treat and even reverse diabetes and heart disease, so why don't we do it, why have we failed so miserably at this?

We can eradicate Type 2 diabetes just like Larry Brilliant helped eradicate smallpox.

But people give up when they try to think about the obesity and chronic disease that's killing most people on the planet.

It's TOO overwhelming. It is TOO big. But I don't think it is -- I think it is a small problem, it's a local problem, a community problem.

After I came back from Haiti I lay awake thinking about how are we REALLY going to deal with this; I thought maybe we need to decentralize and democratize health care.

I realized that if you were sick, the best place to create health might NOT be the doctor's office or clinic but your own community with a little help from your friends.

I realized that getting healthy is a team sport! Click here for Part II of the story.

Let's all do this together!

To help facilitate your journey to health, click here to join my online community.

Now I'd like to hear from you...

Do you think community is an effective cure for chronic illness?

Have you joined with friends or family to take back your health; how has that worked for you?

Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, MD

Mark Hyman, M.D. is a practicing physician, founder of The UltraWellness Center, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and an international leader in the field of Functional Medicine. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on YouTube, become a fan on Facebook, and subscribe to his newsletter.

For more by Mark Hyman, M.D., click here.

For more on personal health, click here.

Which would you rather have: good sleep or good sex? This is the dilemma that many couples are facing when it comes time to buy a new mattress. It seems that sales of those super-plush mattresses are on the rise, and with good reason -- we sleep better on them. But, according to a recent Barron's report, they also have a serious downside -- bad sex.

More from Blisstree:
6 Foods To Help You Sleep
When 5 Ingredients Or Less Isn't Good For You
5 New Movies That Tackle Health

New York sex therapist Sari Eckler explained it best to Barron's:

There's a lack of resistance for the knees and feet. And whoever is on the bottom is sinking into the bed.

Or, as an owner of one of these plush mattresses wrote on an Internet message board:

It's like trying to do it in quicksand.

Ah, point taken.

The type of mattresses, in particular, that are the culprit for bad sex are memory-foam mattresses. And regardless of what happens -- or doesn't happen -- on them, they continue to be the fastest-growing segment of mattresses out there. In fact, their market share has gone from 14 percent to almost 20 percent in the past eight years.

Meaning, those of us in the market for a new mattress value sleep over sex. Or at least sex under the sheets. But who can blame us? Insomnia sucks, and roughly 60 million Americans suffer from it.

As Gayle Greene, author of "Insomniac", explained to NPR, few people realize just how debilitating sleep deprivation can be:

Sleep is the fuel of life. It's nourishing; it's restorative. And when you are deprived of it, you are really deprived of a basic kind of sustenance.

She went on to explain that people who suffer from insomnia or any sleep disruptions will do whatever it takes to keep it away:

I don't manage this beast. I live with it. I live around it. I bed down with it every night, gingerly, cautiously, careful not to provoke it. I do my best to placate it, domesticate it, dull its claws, avoid its fangs, knowing that at any moment it can pounce on me and tear me to bits.

And for many of us, that means choosing a plush mattress. Even if that means sex needs to take place elsewhere. Kitchen table, anyone?

There are phrases using fear as an acronym, such as: F*ck Everything And Run, or False Evidence Appearing Real, or Failure Expected And Received. I like some of those, but over the years I have developed a FEAR strategy kit designed to help me live... well, if not fearlessly, at least without the constant threat of fear fogging my vision. These are the things I've found help the most.

Admit I'm feeling fearful. I must "out" it. Say it out loud. I cannot allow it to sit, twisting and churning in my gut, while pretending it isn't there. Pretending it isn't there doesn't help and never makes it go away. On the other hand, allowing myself to describe it in intricate detail often makes it worse, like feeding a dragon, or adding fuel to a fire (pick a cliché), so it seems there's a balance needed. It's about feeling the fear, acknowledging it, and then trying to trudge along anyway. One of the sayings regarding fear advises, "Feel the fear and do it anyway." The "it" is often a moving target, particularly as this morning's fear was all around future thinking involving Emma.

Which leads me to the two most detrimental things that propel me into fear and despair faster than anything else when it comes to my daughter: future thinking and comparing her to others. "Compare and despair," they say. It is deadly, and it doesn't matter whether I am comparing her to another autistic child or to a neuro-typical child. It is deadly.

Recently, I came upon a blog written by a mother of two autistic boys whom she described as being "on the severe end of the spectrum." As I continued reading, I found myself saying silently, "But Emma cannot do that. Emma doesn't read at that level, Emma doesn't... Emma can't...."

I finally had to stop reading. I felt a surge of anger, and then after my anger had abated, I felt tremendous sadness. What did this mean for Emma? If these two boys were severe, Emma was barely maintaining a foothold on the severe end of the spectrum.

Compare and despair. The insidiousness of comparing is that it feels so right, so reasonable, and yet is based on very little actual fact. We cannot know what anyone else's life is really like. We get snippets and snapshots, but that is all. It's not a complete picture. It's one small part of something. Yet when comparing I am basing my assumptions on that one tiny piece while convinced I'm seeing the whole person.

On the heels of comparing comes future thinking. If Emma isn't able to tell time by X age, isn't able to understand the concept of money by X, isn't able to shower and wash her own hair by X, then A, B, and C will happen. The future, far from holding the promise of subject matter that will transport and engage her, deepening friendships and career opportunities, instead becomes a wasteland of frightening scenarios, one more horrific than the next.

Fear has a way of sliding in through the back door, oozing between my thoughts, thrusting itself into any and all thinking if I allow it to. So I've learned I have to cut it off at the pass. If I see it coming I try to turn my back. "Don't go there," I tell myself. Sometimes I have to sit and hope the fear will wash over me and leave. I hope I'll be able to stay upright. I hope I'll be strong enough not to cave under the weight.

That's the thing about fear: It can be so all-encompassing, so random, so... sprawling.

Make a list. This is the step I take when I feel as though I can't breathe. Make a list. Prioritize. What needs to be done? This past month I have not been as diligent with Emma's reading and writing, and as a result, she has not been progressing as rapidly as she had been. I'll need to figure out how to manage my time better to get back to that. Emma's literacy program is one that continues to fill me with hope and gives me energy. Seeing her progress has been the single most helpful thing in keeping the fear at bay.

I make a list of the things she's done showing tremendous forward movement. I print out her drawings, samples of her writing. These are the things I cling to like so many scraps of wood in the middle of an ocean of fear. Just keep my head above the water, just hold on, keep treading, keep breathing, it will be okay. It will be okay.

Make a list. Check.

Don't pretend I'm not feeling the fear. Out it. Check.

Feel it. Check.

Keep moving forward. Check.

I know these things won't completely eradicate the fear, but they are the things I know to do that will help, if not in this next moment, then in the next few hours, the next few days. The fear will dissipate. It always does.

Take a deep breath.

FEAR = Feel Everything And Remain.

For more by Ariane Zurcher, click here.

For more on autism, click here.

For more on becoming fearless, click here.

For more on Emma's journey through a childhood of autism, go to Emma's Hope Book.
Emma's Hope Book has been nominated as one of the Top Autism Blogs, vote for it by clicking this 'link' and clicking on the "like" button opposite Emma's Hope Book.

A 2011 study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association showed that less than 10 percent of participants looked at the calorie content of a nutrition label. Understandably so. There are so many confusing terms; who can be expected to keep up? In this article, I've provided you with a dictionary of the top seven common nutrition terms and exactly what they mean. Print this out and take it with you next time you're out shopping. You'll never second guess your choices again!

High

In order for a food label to claim that their product is high in a nutrient (e.g., high in fiber) one serving must provide 20 percent of the Daily Value. If the food contains 10-19 percent, then it's considered a good source.

Low Carb

Surprisingly, there are no set guidelines for this claim. FDA? This leaves a lot of room for misleading labeling and frivolous purchasing. Often, when a high carbohydrate food is modified to become a low-carb food, the fat and calorie content goes up. It's better to choose foods that are naturally low in carbohydrates such as nuts (in moderation), tofu and of course, vegetables.

Low Sodium

Foods that claim to be low sodium must contain 140 milligrams or less per serving. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend fewer than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day to prevent hypertension and risk for stroke. Needless to say, this is an important label to pay attention to!

BPA-free

BPA-free products have become a hot topic right now. BPA stands for bisphenol A, which is an industrial chemical used to make certain plastics, particularly those used in the food industry. The American Chemistry Council stands by their claim that products that contain BPA pose no risk to consumers, yet other associations feel differently. There are various products that are BPA-free including cans, baby products and beverage containers. I'm addicted to my Bobble, which is a completely green, self-filtering water bottle free of BPA! You'll need to replace the filter from time to time, but one filter is equal to 300 single-serve bottles.

Non-GMO

Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are crops that have been modified in a lab to remain resistant to herbicides and increase nutritional content. Often referred to as Franken-food, this experimental farming practice represents 80 percent of the North American crops, yet 53 percent of consumers claim they wouldn't buy something that's been genetically modified. To be absolutely certain about the status of your favorite food, check out the Non-GMO Project, which provides a complete list of foods that have gone through their rigorous verification process. Large food companies are also taking the guesswork out of GMOs. Recently, Kashi released a promise that by 2014 all of their existing cereal products will be non-GMO verified if they are not already.

Enriched

Not to be confused with fortified, enriched means that the nutrients have been added back into a food that may have lost them during the refining process. People often think that this means the food has additional vitamins and minerals, but that's not the case. Food companies simply put back what was once there. The most common example of this is enriched flour. During the refining process, essential B vitamins and iron are lost; therefore, they are added back in.

Fortified

The fortification process means that an item has added vitamins and minerals in addition to the ones that are naturally-occurring. Plenty of foods are fortified to ensure adequate nutrition for the general population. For instance, milk is fortified with Vitamin A and D and pasta and bread with folic acid, an essential nutrient in preventing neural tube defects in infants.

My belief is that healthful, wholesome products belong in your kitchen cabinets as much as they belong in mine. That's why I created Bestowed, a monthly membership service designed to introduce you to the best, most healthy products on the market. Each month, my team and I select five products that we love and send them to you by mail. Find out more on bestowed.com.

For more by Heather Bauer, RD, CDN, click here.

For more on diet and nutrition, click here.

Week One
Love yourself. Every morning tell yourself how great you are. Really lay it on thick. Say, "I love you," out loud in the mirror while smiling.

Week Two
Switch to eating only real food. Yes, factory food is everywhere, but I have been in the most horribly toxic food environments and have managed to find something real, or close to it. Many diet books such as mine, Weight Loss Made Easy, have several weeks of breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes. Cook a bunch of things at once. Pick the recipes you like and can whip together.

Week Three
Start exercising. All you have to do is break a sweat every day. You can exercise for 10 minutes before you take a shower. If you can do more, great, but if that's all you can do then be consistent. You can jump rope, do sit-ups, get some free weights and learn how to use them. Do a little yoga.

Week Four
Commit to getting enough sleep. Don't stay up till all hours. Your body needs repair time.

Week Five
Be mindful. If you can't formally meditate, then tie a red string around your wrist. Every time you notice it, remind yourself to be in the present moment.

Week Six
Find and an enlightened hormone doctor and make an appointment to see where you are hormonally. I believe bioidentical hormones have saved me. I have been on them for 16 years and would never, ever give them up.

Week Seven
Now it's time to start weeding toxins out of your life. Get rid of all chemical self and home care products. Buy chemical-free cosmetics. Toss out weirdly coated pots and pans (you can buy affordably-priced stainless steel at TJ Maxx), get rid of your microwave, have a water purification system put in (reverse osmosis, not the cheapie counter ones -- they don't filter much). Be mindful of the toxins you expose yourself too. Toxins age you!

Week Eight
Face off with your addictions: smoking and caffeine (sodas, coffee, tea, energy drinks) are two biggies.

Throughout your transformation, express gratitude. Research has demonstrated that gratitude is a powerful force that can radically alter your life in a good way. Be sure to direct some of that gratitude to your physical self for all of your efforts. You deserve it!

For more by Nancy Deville, click here.

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