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Misty Copeland’s New Under Armour Ad Will Hypnotize You

Under Armour’s latest video ad is a mesmerizing reminder that “you are the sum of all your training.”

The latest spot from the activewear brand features NBA MVP Stephen Curry, who helped bring home an NBA championship for the Golden State Warriors; Misty Copeland, the first black principal ballerina at the American Ballet Theatre; and golfer Jordan Spieth, who won the 2015 Masters and the U.S. Open.

It opens with a shot of each athlete, and unfolds to reveal that they are accompanied by thousands of replicas of themselves all working in unison to perfect their skill. The ad finishes with the athletes’ clones coming together as one.

RELATED: The Badass Ballerina Video That Will Seriously Motivate You

In a statement to Adweek, the brand explained that they hope to inspire individuals to pursue greatness, “”Under Armour provides the footwear, apparel and equipment the athlete needs to push through a tough workout. But we also want to give them that extra inspiration to improve every day, to keep building their inner army, and to stay focused on success even when the going gets tough.”

The campaign is also scheduled to release a series of short films this fall, one of which will feature beleaguered New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

RELATED: 10 Inspiring Quotes From The U.S. Women’s National Team




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How to Get a Topknot That’s in Tip-Top Shape

Photo: Getty Images

Photo: Getty Images

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We all have those days where we want to have our hair up and out of our face (because we didn’t wash it? What? Did someone say something? Me neither.) and ideally putting our tresses into a bun resolves any bad hair day situations. If only the actual execution of the topknot could be guaranteed to make you look polished, and not like you just threw your hair up haphazardly. We created a fail proof method to putting your hair up in a topknot, and we have a feeling (if you’re anything like us) you will be obsessed with this look.

Heres the break down:

1. Make sure all your hair is tight and smooth.

2. Create a ponytail at the top of your head with a small elastic.

3. Backcomb the ponytail to create volume.

4. Twist hair into a circular shape around the elastic.

5. Secure with hairpins.

Au revoir messy bun! We won’t miss you!

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.

More from MIMI:

Finally, How to Apply Highlighter Without Looking Like a Human Discoball

How to Look Like You’re Not Wearing Makeup When You Are

Makeup artist: Andreana Ellerby; Shot in Ammon Carver Studio in NYC; Video shot and edited by 811media

popsugarblack_small.jpg MIMI Chatter is an endless stream of beauty content. We bring together the must-knows and the how-tos from your favorite sites, beauty influencers, our editors, and YOU.



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Many Kids Tossing Fruits, Veggies in Trash Since New U.S. School Lunch Rules

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 26, 2015 (HealthDay News) — More fruits and vegetables ended up in the garbage after the U.S. government introduced a rule requiring fruits and vegetables to be included with school lunches, a new study finds.

What’s more, the amount of fruits and vegetable eaten by kids actually dropped since the introduction of the law.

In less than a month, Congress will vote on whether to reauthorize the controversial U.S. Department of Agriculture program mandating healthier school lunches.

For the study, researchers reviewed nearly 1,500 digital photographs of student lunch trays taken during multiple visits to two elementary schools in the Northeast before and after implementation of the USDA program.

Forty percent to 60 percent of the students at the schools qualified for free or reduced-cost lunches.

After the program took effect in 2012, students did put more fruits and vegetables on their lunch trays, as required. However, they ate fewer of them and the amount of fruits and vegetables thrown in the garbage rose 35 percent, the study found.

The study was published online Aug. 25 in the journal Public Health Reports.

“The basic question we wanted to explore was: Does requiring a child to select a fruit or vegetable actually correspond with consumption,” study author Sarah Amin, a nutrition and food sciences researcher at the University of Vermont, said in a university news release.

“The answer was clearly no,” she said. “It was heartbreaking to see so many students toss fruits like apples into the trash right after exiting the lunch line.”

However, Amin thinks students’ consumption of fruits and vegetables will rise once schools fully adapt to the healthy eating guidelines, especially among those who entered kindergarten when the guidelines took effect in 2012 and are used to them.

“An important message is that guidelines need to be supplemented with other strategies to enrich fruit and vegetable consumption. We can’t give up hope yet,” Amin said.

For example, the researchers suggested serving produce with dips, or mixing the healthy foods in with other foods, or serving sliced fruits instead of whole ones.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about child nutrition.





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Only 1 in 5 Gay Teen Boys Get HIV Test

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 26, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Gay teen boys are much less likely to get tested for HIV than older gay males, researchers report.

The researchers surveyed more than 300 gay and bisexual male teens between the ages of 14 and 18 from across the United States. Only one in five had ever been tested for HIV, a rate significantly lower than among older gay and bisexual men, the researchers noted.

For example, a 2008 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-sponsored study of gay men found that 75 percent of those aged 18 to 19 had been tested for HIV.

Major barriers to gay teens getting tested for HIV are not knowing where to go for a test, concerns about being recognized at a testing location, and believing they won’t get infected, the Northwestern University researchers said.

“Understanding the barriers to testing provides critical information for intervening, so we can help young men get tested,” study first author Gregory Phillips II, a research assistant professor of medical social sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, said in a university news release. He is also an investigator in the school’s IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program.

The incidence of new HIV infections is rising among young gay and bisexual men, study principal investigator Brian Mustanski, an associate professor of medical social sciences and director of IMPACT, pointed out in the news release.

“Testing is critical because it can help those who are positive receive lifesaving medical care. Effective treatment can also help prevent them from transmitting the virus to others,” he added.

HIV testing among gay and bisexual teen males can be increased by making it easy for them to find testing sites through text messaging or online programs and by having testing sites in high schools, the researchers added.

“Providing in-school testing would normalize the process,” Phillips said. “If there is a constant presence of on-site testing at schools, testing would seem less stigmatized. It would also increase knowledge about the testing process and make it less scary.”

The study was published Aug. 26 in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about HIV testing.





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False-Positive Mammogram Result Traumatic for Most Women: Study

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 26, 2015 (HealthDay News) — In a finding that won’t surprise many who’ve been through this ordeal, researchers say emotional turmoil is common for women whose mammogram falsely suggests they have breast cancer.

The Swedish study of nearly 400 such cases found that 88 percent of the women said they felt a sense of dejection, such as being uneasy, sad or unable to cope; 83 percent reported anxiety; 67 percent said they had behavioral changes, such as trouble dealing with spare time or work; and 53 percent suffered sleeping problems.

One expert in the United States wasn’t surprised.

“It is well known that false-positive results on a mammogram or ultrasound can cause anxiety and distress,” said Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Unfortunately, she added, women are in a tough spot because “at the current time, these tests are the best methods to detecting cancer at an earlier stage, when treatment can be less aggressive.”

The study was led by Anetta Bolejko of Skane University Hospital in Malmo, Sweden. It included 399 Swedish women who had abnormal results on a screening mammogram but were found to be breast cancer-free after further tests. The women completed questionnaires about their mental health before they finally learned they did not have breast cancer, and then again six and 12 months later.

Compared to women who were told they did not have breast cancer after a screening mammogram, the women in the study were five times more likely to report mental distress before they learned they did not have breast cancer.

Even six and 12 months after receiving the good news, they were still twice as likely to be experiencing some mental strain compared to women who had not received a false-positive result, the authors said.

“The psychosocial consequences of false-positive screening mammograms are common and can persist over time,” Bolejko said in a news release from the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, which published the findings Aug. 26.

Bolejko believes that all “women invited to attend mammographic screening should be informed about the potential benefits and harm of the program, and the risk of long-term psychosocial consequences of false-positive screening mammography should be acknowledged.”

Indeed, in 2009, the influential U.S. Preventive Services Task Force cited unnecessary worry over false-positive results as one factor in its controversial decision to recommend against annual mammograms for women under 50.

But another U.S. expert stressed that the danger of false-positive results may be a necessary evil in the early detection of breast cancer.

“The overwhelming goal is to save lives through early detection,” said Dr. Laurie Margolies, chief of breast imaging at the Dubin Breast Center, part of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City.

“This fact should not be lost and patients’ care should not be compromised [by skipping mammograms] due to fear of inducing anxiety,” she said.

Bernik agreed. “At the current time, mammography is still the best screening tool for breast cancer,” she said. “With time, technology will hopefully provide a screening tool with less false-positives.”

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about breast cancer screening.





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Antiviral Drug May Prevent Ebola, Small Study Suggests

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Antiviral drugs may help protect people from developing Ebola after exposure to the deadly virus, a new case study suggests.

“We are excited to publish the first report of an antiviral-based post-exposure treatment against Ebola-virus infection in humans. We believe this work justifies further study of this postexposure treatment to protect health care workers accidentally exposed to Ebola virus in the field,” lead author Dr. Michael Jacobs, of the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust, London, said in a news release from The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

“What is more, a similar approach to treat household contacts of Ebola cases may work to prevent a major route of spread during an epidemic,” he added.

The new research included eight British health care workers who were possibly exposed to the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone between January and March 2015. After their possible exposure, they were evacuated to the Royal Free Hospital in London.

Four of the health care workers had needlestick injuries and were believed to be at significant risk of exposure to Ebola. They were treated with the antiviral drug favipiravir. The drug is approved in Japan to treat severe flu, the researchers said.

Previous lab tests and experiments in mice suggested the drug could be effective against Ebola, according to background information in the news release.

The other four health care workers were considered to be at lower risk for Ebola. They weren’t given the drug, but were closely monitored instead.

All eight patients remained healthy over 42 days of follow-up, the study authors said. None had any detectable levels of the Ebola virus in their blood and no one showed any signs of disease. There were no serious side effects among the four patients who took the antiviral drug, the researchers found.

The results were published Aug. 25 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

“It is possible that none of these health care workers were infected with Ebola virus. Therefore, we cannot know for sure whether or not postexposure prophylaxis prevented the onset of Ebola-virus disease,” Jacobs said.

“However, two of the workers had needlestick injuries contaminated with fresh blood from patients with Ebola virus disease putting them at very high risk of transmission,” he added.

The researchers noted that health care workers dealing with Ebola in West Africa are at high risk for infection.

In 2014, the largest Ebola outbreak in history began in West Africa. In the three most-affected countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — an estimated 27,900 people have been infected and more than 11,000 people have died in the epidemic, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on Ebola.





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Teens Not the Only Ones Using Cellphones While Driving

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Teenagers aren’t the only ones prone to texting and talking while driving: A new survey finds that the vast majority of adults use their cellphones behind the wheel.

Completed by more than 700 San Diego residents, the distracted-driving survey suggests that public health warnings about the dangerous practice need to reach a wider audience.

“This study was important because it highlighted that this behavior is not unique to only teenagers and young adults,” said study author Jessa Engelberg, a Ph.D. candidate in the public health program at the University of California, San Diego. “Middle-aged adults admitted to using their cellphones while driving, including manual manipulations, [such as] using the phone to text, check email or other apps while driving, and talking on a handheld phone, which is illegal in California.”

Engelberg and her colleagues report their findings in the September issue of the Journal of Transport & Health.

Cellphones are one of several distractions that can prompt drivers to take their eyes off the road, their hands off the wheel, and their mind off the task at hand, the researchers said.

More than one in four car accidents are caused by cellphone use, according to the U.S. National Safety Council. And the researchers added that the risk of a crash is eight times higher if a driver is texting and four times higher if the driver is talking on a hands-free cellphone.

Recent statistics from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) show that more than 3,300 Americans were killed and roughly 421,000 were injured in 2012 due to distracted driving.

With smartphones now in the hands of 90 percent of American adults, NHTSA pins at least 12 percent of all driving fatalities on calling and texting.

And while hands-free calling is legal in most states, it’s not the benign activity many believe it to be, the researchers added. Prior research has indicated that any type of phone conversation behind the wheel diminishes reaction time as much as being over the legal drinking limit.

While exploring other distracting habits such as eating, fixing makeup and hair, or searching for lost objects, the current survey focused mainly on cellphone use.

Those questioned were between the ages of 30 and 64. Three-quarters were women, and nearly 70 percent were white. All drove at least once weekly, and all owned a cellphone, most often a smartphone. About four in 10 said they had children in their household.

The troubling survey results: 56 percent said they made handheld calls while driving, while 75 percent said they made hands-free calls. Less than 30 percent knew that hands-free calling was as risky as drinking, and nearly 90 percent expressed confidence that they remained “capable” or “very capable” drivers while making such calls.

Three in 10 said they had sent messages while driving down the freeway, while 70 percent said they never did so or would only do so in an emergency. Two-thirds said they had texted while stopped at a red light.

More than a third said their calling habits were driven by a need to be available for work. Overall, cellphone behavior did not appear to be influenced by whether or not drivers were parents or whether or not children were passengers in the car.

What can be done?

“A very promising finding was that the majority of respondents [said they] would be open to using an app that allowed a customizable text to be automatically sent to the person who sent the original text, informing them that they were driving and would contact them when they reached their destination,” Engelberg said. “It is a promising avenue to explore.”

Jonathan Adkins, deputy executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, described the new findings as “a good news, bad news scenario.”

“The bad news,” he said, “is that the distracted driving problem is more pervasive than just teens and young adults. As a culture, all age groups have become conditioned to stay in constant contact with family, friends and co-workers, and unfortunately that includes when they are behind the wheel.

“The good news,” Adkins added, “is that these middle-aged drivers are still teachable. Strong laws and the enforcement of these laws will help deter their behavior.”

Adkins even suggested enlisting teen drivers to “put pressure on their parents to hang up and drive. It really boils down to culture change, which requires a multifaceted approach and takes time.”

More information

There’s more on the dangers of using cellphones while driving at the U.S. National Safety Council.





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Pippa Middleton Is Actually a Serious Athlete

Photo: Getty Images

Photo: Getty Images

Pippa Middleton is currently taking some well-deserved time off, vacationing in St. Barts and showing off her slamming bikini body—ah, the rough life of a “nearly royal.”

Yes, our first reaction was a bit of sarcasm, too. But it turns out, Middleton is in between competing and training for a number of downright badass fitness challenges.

Sure, naysayers may still balk at her accomplishments, throwing out things like, “she has all the time in the world to train—does she even work?” (For the record, she’s the editor of The Party Times, a blog from Party Pieces, the party supply store founded by her parents.) Or, “she can hire anyone she wants to whip her into shape!” But the thing is, you can’t pay someone to cross a marathon finish line for you or swim from island to island in Sweden…more on that later. These are the kinds of things that take grit and determination—something the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister seems to have no shortage of. Here are five things that really impressed us, including what she’s doing next.

RELATED: 7 Tips for Running Your First Race

She ran a high-altitude marathon in Africa…a week after a 54 mile bike race

What do you do after you bike 54 miles for charity? If you’re like Middleton, a week later you head to Kenya and compete in the Safaricom Marathon. Because of the high altitude on this course (5,000 ft.), the air is much thinner, making it that much harder. Despite the tough conditions, she crossed the finish line this June in less than four hours. The event raised money for Tusk, a wildlife protection and sustainability charity in Africa. (Prince William is a “royal patron.”)

She biked across America

Plenty of folks have a cross-country road trip on their bucket list, but they usually mean driving it, not biking it. Last June, Middleton participated in the Race Across America, a 3,000-mile relay ride from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland. Her team, which included her younger brother James and friend James Matthews traversed the Rockies and Appalachians to raise money for the Michael Matthews Foundation, which builds schoolhouses in countries that may not be able to afford them.

She keeps competing in the winter

Back in 2012 Pippa completed a whopping 56-mile cross-country ski race in Mora, Sweden (her brother also skied with her), facing sub-zero temperatures, and finishing the race in just over 7 hours. That was her first introduction to cross country racing, and so naturally a year later she did another race, ticking off the Engadin cross-country ski marathon in Switzerland, and finishing the 26.2 miles in under three hours.

RELATED: Cycling for a Cure: 10 Bike Races for a Good Cause

She ran a “fell” race

You’ve got to be in hella good shape to run a fell race (“fell” is the term for rugged, remote terrain in the U.K.). So no doubt, Pippa competed in one—the Highland Cross in Scotland, just a couple of months after her sister’s wedding. The race includes a 20-mile rocky, muddy off-road run, followed by a 30-mile bike ride, which she completed in a little over five hours—finishing an impressive 12th out of 150 women.

Her next challenge: the Ö TILL Ö Swim-Run Race

In just a few weeks Pippa will compete in the Swedish Ö TILL Ö Swim-Run race, where teams of two people swim between 26 islands, and then run over them (!). No big deal. The course makes for a total of 75 kilometers of action—with 10 kilometers of open-water swimming, and 65 kilometers of running, according to the event web site. And all of that must be completed from dusk till dawn. On top of that, Pippa will be fundraising once again for the Michael Matthews Foundation.

Now off to start Googling fell races—or see if that Swedish swim-run is still accepting entries for 2016. (Just kidding, no way we’re ready for that yet.)

RELATED: You Got a Running Injury During Race Training…Now What?




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Seniors More Likely to Wind Up in Hospital After Outpatient Surgery: Study

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Seniors are much more likely than younger people to find themselves in the hospital after outpatient surgery, a new study finds.

“These seniors were supposed to stay out of the hospital since the procedures were performed in the ambulatory setting, but they were admitted to the hospital within 30 days,” corresponding study author Dr. Gildasio De Oliveira Jr., an assistant professor in the Center for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a university news release.

“Age was the biggest factor associated with readmission and complications. It’s not because they are sicker, it’s because they are older and have trouble understanding their discharge instructions and medication dosing, which often are not clearly explained,” he said.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 53,000 Americans who underwent outpatient surgery in 2012, and found that those aged 65 and older were 54 percent more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days than those younger than 65.

Patients’ health before outpatient surgery was not a factor in the higher readmission rate for older patients, according to the researchers.

The study was published in the August issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

To prevent hospital readmissions after outpatient surgery, seniors need to be given more understandable discharge instructions and they need to be evaluated for their ability to care for themselves after the procedure, De Oliveira said.

Over the past decade, outpatient procedures in the United States have increased 300 percent. About 9 million outpatient surgeries a year are performed on patients aged 65 and older, the study authors said.

“When patients are sent home on the same day, a lot is required of them to take care of themselves, and it’s beyond the capability of a lot of older individuals. They have to administer opioids [narcotic painkillers] and monitor themselves for emergency problems such as bleeding or infection,” De Oliveira said.

“Before allowing patients to get ambulatory [outpatient] surgery, surgeons also should verify if patients are able to take care of themselves at home, and if they have support. If not, patients should be admitted to the hospital after surgery or have some type of formal support by a nurse to help them at home,” he concluded.

More information

The American Society of Anesthesiologists has more about outpatient surgery.





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After Heart Attack, Quitting Smoking Boosts Mental Health, Quality of Life

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A new study offers more evidence that quitting smoking after a heart attack is a no-brainer: Researchers found it reduces chest pain and boosts mental health and quality of life.

The study looked at more than 4,000 American adults who were assessed one, six and 12 months after suffering a heart attack. It included patients who were smokers at the time of their heart attack (37 percent), smokers who quit before their heart attack (34 percent) and people who never smoked (29 percent). Forty-six percent of current smokers quit smoking within a year after their heart attacks, the researchers found.

Patients who had never smoked had the best health by the end of the follow-up period. The health of smokers who didn’t quit after their heart attack continued to decline. They were more likely to have chest pain, poorer physical functioning and quality of life, along with worse mental health, the study revealed.

Levels of chest pain and mental health among smokers who quit before their heart attack and of smokers who quit within a year after their heart attack were similar to that of patients who never smoked, the study found.

The study was published Aug. 25 in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

“Health care providers should counsel patients about how smoking cessation not only reduces the risk of death and having another heart attack, but also reduces the risk of having chest pain and may likely improve general mental health,” study author and psychologist Donna Buchanan said in a journal news release.

The findings offer more evidence about the harmful effects of smoking and the need for more education for heart attack patients, added Buchanan, a researcher and manager with Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute’s cardiovascular outcomes research group.

Buchanan suggested that the results might give current smokers more motivation to quit.

“Current educational efforts tend to focus on how continued smoking increases the risk of recurrent heart attack and death, but health-related quality of life is often equally or more important to patients than longevity,” she concluded.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians offers recovery and health tips for heart attack survivors.





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