Table of contents for October / November 2023 in Readers Digest Australia

The Other Pandemic Your story on ‘Obesity: The Other Global Pandemic’ (June) suggests we are environmentally inducing the equivalent of Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) which results in excessive eating that gradually develops into morbid obesity. It’s time we started taking the problem-solving approach in the story. Thank you for not fat-shaming us chubbies. JULIE ELLENDER A Father’s Son I enjoyed your feature on Rod Steward (July). He is a brilliant singer and songwriter. I have been lucky enough to see him perform on stage several times. Rod’s father used to live at the back of my mother’s house in London. She often met Robert Stewart on her walks. She remembers him being a real gentleman. One time she was lucky enough to be introduced to Rod, while he was walking with…

Certain foods are linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. Consistently eating foods that are high in fat and low in fibre, and carbohydrates with a high GI (glycaemic index), can raise your diabetes risk. But by making a few wise dietary choices you might be able to bring down or stabilise your blood sugar levels. SWEET POTATO Cut down on white potatoes and opt for the sweet, orange-coloured variety. They have a much lower GI score and the flesh is also high in fibre. PORRIDGE Oats are a low GI food – meaning they don’t cause sudden rises and dips in blood glucose – and contain healthy fats. Adding milk to your porridge increases the fat content, so opt for skimmed or soy. BLUEBERRIES Most fresh fruit…

FROM REPORTAGEN A blonde woman in her mid-60s walks through an exclusive Zurich neighbourhood. Well-groomed and slender, she is wearing a dark quilted jacket, black jeans, stylish but inconspicuous sneakers, discreet jewellery and fashionable glasses. She doesn’t particularly stand out. People her age tend to fade into the background. She smiles as she squints into the sun. Traces of a curious, sassy girl can be seen in her face – a girl who is pleased because no one can find her during a game of hide-and-seek. Her expression seems to say, If they only knew! The woman’s name is Louisa Erismann, and she has been a private investigator for the past six years. I’ll be accompanying her for the next week as she does her investigative work. “It’s great that…

Doggone It! My husband saw a dog running to and fro by our gate. “That’s the neighbour’s dog – escaped yet again,” he grumbled. He went outside and wrestled with the collarless dog, before bundling it into our car and taking it back to its home up the road. He came back ten minutes later, full of pride about his good deed for the day, and explained that our neighbours weren’t home, so he’d left the dog in a secure part of the garden for them. Later that day, there was a knock on our door. Our neighbours had come to tell us that they had found an unknown dog enclosed in their garden, while their own dog was safely inside the house! SUBMITTED BY LEAH ROTTIER Warm Welcome My…

Have you ever found yourself stuck in a food loop? I have, and it’s very dispiriting. I realise there are worse things in life to be stuck in – lifts, tenancies, sewage – but, if you take plenty of pleasure in food, as I do, then coming to terms with the fact that you are often only eating what you are eating thanks to sheer lack of imagination can be really quite sobering. Let’s turn a blind eye to breakfast. I mean, I’m busy: I’ve got two young kids to get uniformed up, teeth brushed, stuffed with cornflakes and out the door; a puppy, cat, chickens and goldfish to feed; news bulletins to catch up on, showers to take, caffeine to imbibe. It’s a wonder I manage to consume anything…

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES When Eugenie George first heard that her friend passed a financial counselling exam, her heart sank. She’d failed that test weeks earlier, and needed the credential to advance her own career. “My inner child got upset,” recalls George, a financial writer and educator. But then, instead of stewing, she called her friend. “I told her I failed and admitted I was jealous,” she says. George knew that being upfront would defuse her envy, but she was surprised when it shifted her attitude so she could share her friend’s happiness and experience her own, in turn. “I congratulated her and told her she inspired me,” she says. EMPATHY HAS A ROLE IN DAILY LIFE, PROPELLING KIND ACTS SUCH AS HELPING OTHERS Finding pleasure in another person’s…

AS CHILDREN, MY QUADRUPLET BROTHERS AND I HAD A KNACK FOR GETTING COLLECTIVELY SICK WHENEVER ONE PERSON WOULD FALL ILL. GERMS TRAVELLED AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT BECAUSE WHENEVER THE WORDS LEFT SOMEONE’S MOUTH, THE REST WOULD IMMEDIATELY IDENTIFY WITH THE SAME SYMPTOMS. WHO KNEW EXHAUSTION OR HEADACHES WERE SO CONTAGIOUS? Of course, the possibility of getting to skip school might have had something to do with it. But, since the inception of my memory, I’ve felt bonded to my brothers – our existences aligned, and I felt deserving of every item or experience they had. Growing up, we were like four cells crowding around the same nucleus, known as Mum. But happenstance and adulthood cemented our individuality. I always had a tingling about our innate differences, but I fully…

FROM THE TYEE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PEOPLE AND THEIR JUNK IS A CURIOUS ONE. A 2022 documentary called Scrap shows just how oddly intertwined these two things can be. When the film’s director, Stacey Tenenbaum, came across a photo of an aeroplane graveyard just outside Moscow, the place’s ghostly quality – seemingly frozen in time – led her to wonder what happens to these kinds of things when they are no longer useful. The film is chock-a-block with visual pleasure. Viewers float alongside retired trams and peer into the rotting husks of muscle cars spotted with moss and lichen. But a harder message lurks beneath the lilting images: the way back from irrelevance and obsolescence demands work – often the hard, dirty and dangerous kind. That humans use and then…

GOTOKUJI TEMPLE, TOKYO One of Japan’s famous cat symbols is the white waving cat known as a maneki-neko. You’ll see these in homes and businesses all over the country, but only at Gotokuji in south-west Tokyo will you be surrounded by thousands of them. Around the 16th century, goes the legend, a feudal lord who was caught in a rainstorm near Gotokuji saw the temple’s cat beckoning him in to shelter. Once he was safely inside, lightning struck the point at which he’d been standing. Feeling that the beckoning cat had saved his life, the lord bestowed his patronage on the temple turning the simple place of worship into a temple of great standing. Today, people place their own waving cat sculptures at Gotokuji for good luck and prosperity in…

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES Alle Pierce knows how to plan a holiday. A few months ahead of time, she goes on a crazy Google spree, constructing a spreadsheet of all the things she wants to do and see. She scrutinises the menus of restaurants she is planning to visit. She uses a picture of the destination as her phone’s locked screen image and downloads a countdown app. “What’s so exciting about a trip is the anticipation before it,” says Pierce, founder of luxury travel company Gals Abroad Getaways. Experts say she is probably right. Numerous studies suggest that having something to look forward to boosts your mood and lowers your stress. “Imagining good things ahead of us makes us feel better in the current moment,” says psychologist Simon A.…

Let’s Head Outside 1. gazebo – A: shelter with a roof and open sides. B: campsite with full amenities. C: inflatable mattress. 2. tinder – A: rainwater. B: dry, flammable material used for lighting a fire. C: straw used as bedding. 3. boondocking – A: travelling by raft. B: parking a recreational vehicle in a remote area. C: foraging. 4. magnetic north – A: direction in which a compass needle points. B: appeal of winter camping. C: Arctic camping region. 5. billy – A: canteen. B: knife. C: cooking pot. 6. potable – A: suitable for drinking. B: lightweight. C: edible. 7. altimeter – A: GPS. B: instrument that measures elevation using barometric pressure. C: tool for determining flatness of ground. 8. bivouac – A: temporary camp under little or…

Improving Lives MUSIC IS ONE OF LIFE’S truly sweet pleasures. The great neurologist Oliver Sacks described music as “a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear”. It has the power to lift us out of depression, move us to tears or just take us out of ourselves for a while. In ‘When Music Is Medicine’ (page 44), we meet people for whom music is not just a luxury – it’s a necessity. From managing movement disorders to making peace with complex emotions, it’s an irreplaceable aid in their everyday lives. And don’t miss: ‘Men In Their Sheds’, our tribute to this unique friendship-building group (page 26); or ‘Small Business, Big Heart’ (page 100), an insider’s perspective about the nurturing role played by family-run shops. Our Bonus Read this month…

FERMENTED FOODS MAY REDUCE STRESS The trillions of bacteria that live in your gut influence how your digestive system communicates with your brain – a fact that prompted scientists from University College Cork to investigate whether our eating habits could influence our mental health. In their recent study of people with poor dietary habits, half the participants received healthy eating advice and used the food pyramid as a guide. The other half adopted a diet high in fibre, grains and legumes, and ate two to three daily servings of fermented foods such as sauerkraut or kefir. After four weeks, the latter group felt less stressed and showed lower levels of chemicals that are produced by gut microbes and have been linked to mental health. REVERSING SLEEP APNOEA Roughly one billion…

There’s one patient that Sarah Rose Black still thinks about. Back in 2019, the nursing team in the palliative care unit at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre asked if she could reach out to a patient who had been there for about a week. The man was struggling, and unwilling to engage with staff or be part of any activities. “They told me, ‘He’s short and grumpy with us, and we wonder if you might have an in.’” Black isn’t a doctor or a nurse. Since 2013 she has played an important role for patients as Princess Margaret’s on-staff music therapist. On any given day, she might see one person who’s anxious about an upcoming procedure, another who’s undergoing chemo and in need of a soothing moment. Or, like the…

Me in winter: I don’t do well with the lack of sun and cold. Me in spring: I don’t do well with allergies while things around me thrive. Me in summer: I suffer in the heat and humidity like a dying hog. Me for the two weeks of autumn: Nice. @THEREALCBRAD The weather is warming up so now the kids can finally go outside and get some fresh air while they play on their phones. @RODLACROIX “Rain, rain, you can stay. You’re getting me out of a soccer game!” A parent’s lullaby. @KSUJULIE How different species deal with winter: Birds – fly south; Bears – hibernate; Humans – complain. @INTERNETHIPPO On the one hand I am excited for summer. On the other, there are so many people I don’t want…

PEOPLE CAN BE LIKE, “OH, IT [THE UNIVERSE] MAKES ME FEEL SMALL”, BUT I THINK FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE IT ACTUALLY MAKES YOU FEEL UNIFIED, CONNECTED, PART OF SOMETHING THAT’S SO GRAND AND SO BEAUTIFUL.JOE DEPASQUALE, SPACE IMAGE DEVELOPER FOR NASA I think some things are just meant to happen; you can’t change your fate. Maybe we have a small amount of control. SARAH SNOOK, ACTRESS Kids are really smart. And I think they’re underestimated all the time.R.L. STINE, CREATOR OF THE GOOSEBUMPS SERIES Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.SØREN KIERKEGAARD, PHILOSOPHER Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden. CORMAC MCCARTHY, WRITER Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts.BILLY JOEL, MUSICIAN…

FROM THE GLOBE AND MAIL I GREW UP IN AND AROUND a department store. It was run by my maternal grandmother, Mrs Sharp, and when I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, I was one of various family members who occasionally worked there. I learned the difference between nylon and metal zippers, which fabrics should be cut and which needed to be torn, and how to sort patterns and match colours of embroidery floss. I also learned something much more important: the place of a family business in the community. Mrs Sharp knew her customers. She heard the rumours of domestic violence; of women who had little money to buy essentials; of families struggling to care for sons who had returned from war suffering with what was then…

1. Which soccer team suffered the worst loss in World Cup history in 2001 by losing 31-0? 1 point 2. What fruit was Mark Twain referring to when he wrote, “When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat”? 2 points 3. What country pioneered the first F1 night race? 1 point 4. Who was the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes? 1 point 5. William Moulton Marston, an early polygraph developer, wrote stories about what fictional superhero and her ‘Lasso of Truth’? 1 point 6. At 21 metres, the world’s tallest sandcastle was created in Denmark in 2021 to symbolise what recent global event? 2 points 7. In what country can certain prisoners shave time off their sentences by writing book reviews? 2 points 8.…

It might be in yoga class when you first feel it – when did downward dog start getting so hard on the wrists? Or it could be at your weekly squash or tennis game that you notice your knees screaming back at you whenever you pivot. Chances are, it’s arthritis, which isn’t just an ‘old-people’ problem: It usually kicks in between the ages of 40 and 60. By far the most common type of arthritis is osteoarthritis. It’s usually the result of decades of physical activity that wears down the cartilage in our joints. That’s the rubbery, frictionless tissue that acts as a shock-absorber between bones. After years of wear and tear, or an injury such as a fracture or dislocation, that cushion can harden and fray like a dried-out rubber…

Why did the genuine leather sofa cross the road? To get to the other hide. The furniture store salesman told me, “This sofa will seat five people without any problems.” I said, “Where on earth am I going to find five people without any problems?” My wife didn’t want to buy a bed from the local furniture store because of their motto: ‘We stand behind every bed we sell.’ Never embarrass your mattress. Otherwise, you’ll make it plush! I lay down on the couch and my fiancé said, “I thought you said you were interesting!” I said, “No, honey, I said I was into resting.” Bought a new recliner sofa. Apparently if I don’t like it, I can take it back. SOURCES: LIVINGSPACES.COM, UPJOKE.COM, EASYFAMILYFUN.COM…

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST It was hard not to notice the eight-year-old boy across the street who stormed in and out of his own house. He did it often enough that a neighbour, William Dunn, wondered what was going on in his life. So Dunn asked him. “He told me that he didn’t have a father,” says Dunn, now 58, “and I realised there might be something I could do for him.” That something was fishing, a passion Dunn’s father had shared with him. “Fishing always brought me peace and it taught me how to be patient. When you’re on the water, you can forget about your problems and just appreciate the moment.” So, Dunn, who has three children of his own, got permission from the boy’s mother to take…