A US study claims that not having time to date or find love is no longer an acceptable excuse — you only need four minutes.
Focusing on language, the researchers from Stanford universities discovered what makes couples ‘click’ on a four minute speed-date and found that couples were able to form meaningful bonds.
The study — which proves long courtship is a dinosaur from a bygone romantic era — says it all comes down to conversation when men and women date, and while blokes need to carefully consider what they say, ladies have the power.
“The game is successfully played when females are the point of focus and engaged in the conversation, and males demonstrate alignment with and understanding of the female,” the study authored by professors Dan McFarland and Dan Jurafsky reads.
Men who focused conversation on the lady they were trying to woo were more likely to be granted a second date, especially if they use appreciative language and don’t ask too many questions.
“Women feel disconnected when they have to ask men questions, or when men ask them questions,” McFarland said, referring to habits they discovered mainly in women who would automatically switch to “question asking mode” when conversation was lagging. Both sexes found this a turn-off.
While McFarland’s research indicates men looking for a connection are easier to please, preferring a woman who is shorter than them and more on the thin side, but also found with the right conversation, four minutes is long enough to connect beyond looks.
The research paper notes that successful dates were those where the woman was the focal point of conversation and men demonstrated an understanding of them, and on the most successful dates the pair would find shared stories.
“One of the key features of a community, social network or relationship is the sense that it’s meaningful, that there is some kind of force behind the relationship,” McFarland said.
“We wanted to see is there is anything about the interaction that matter or is it really just what I look like, what I do, what my motivation is. Is it all the things that are psychological or in my head or is there actually something in how we hit it off?”
The longer individuals took to decide on a date, the more they reported having a bonding experience, suggesting communication can change someone’s feelings about another person changing their original judgment based on looks.
Krystal Barter and her daughter (pictured with her daughter Bonnie) had a preventative double mastectomy.
As news broke today that Angelina Jolie had undergone a preventative double mastectomy after discovering she had the BRCA1 gene (a “faulty” gene that increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer), my mind flashed back to the day I found out I also carried the same gene.
I wasn’t altogether surprised when my doctor delivered the news. My greatgrandmother was 68 when she died from breast cancer, and my Nan and mother were diagnosed at 44 and 36 respectively. I had grown up knowing cancer’s name and destructive path, and when I underwent genetic testing at 22, I half expected that their fate would also be mine.
It was — in a sense. Yes, I had the BRCA1 gene, but I also had something my family before me didn’t have — time and the ability to make a life-changing, and saving, choice.
After a few years of screening and surveillance, a mammogram when I was 25 showed changes that, although weren’t indicative of cancer, were well on the way. My time had come to make a decision; let the fates dictate my path, or take my future into my own hands.
I am a mother of three beautiful children and a wife, and I couldn’t imagine living without my family, or them having to live without me.
So I chose the future. On my terms. Of course it wasn’t an easy decision to come to; so much of what it is to be a woman is wrapped up in how we look, and I’d be lying if I said the question of vanity didn’t cross my mind, but at the same time the choice between life or death is pretty simple. I chose life.
I imagine Ms Jolie went through similar emotions to mine the day she had her first surgery. I was anxious, scared, uncertain of how the outcome would leave me feeling. Although I had my incredibly supportive family with me, I also felt alone.
It’s like when I gave birth to my first child; you’re surrounded by loved ones but ultimately what you are going through, you are going through by yourself. The surgery and my recovery was, at times, painful, but I’ve found that waking up and knowing that you’re here to fight another day is great medicine.
Of course I applaud Ms Jolie for coming out and writing about her choice to have a double mastectomy. She said she did it so that other women going through the same situation did not feel alone, and that women in general can understand that they have options and choices. She said she is happy to be able to inform her children that they won’t lose her to cancer. I’m happy about this too, and it is also my aim to ensure women know that they are not alone in their struggles with cancer.
When I was recovering from the mastectomies in 2009, I created Pink Hope, a community dedicated to inspiring, supporting and informing women at high risk of hereditary cancer. I want the 120,000 Australian women at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer to know that I know how they feel. Pink Hope offers support to many families around Australia, and as it continues to grow, so does my hope that we can live in a world ruled by our choosing.
Krystal Barter lives in Sydney with her husband and three children. She is the founder of Pink Hope, dedicated to inspiring and supporting the community to be proactive and vigilant about breast and ovarian cancer risks and providing information, resources and a support network to those who need it most.
To donate to Pink Hope so they can employ Australia’s first online genetic counsellor to support women like Krystal and Angelina go to www.pinkhope.org.au
From top: Gretel Maltabarow, Krystal Barter, and Emily Clark are all from families with a history of breast cancer.
News of Angelina Jolie’s preventative double mastectomy shocked the world, but to some women, it just makes sense. Like the actress whose mother died of cancer at age 56, these three young Australian women know what it’s like for cancer to interrupt their lives at a young age even though they may never develop it. They’re not careless with their health, but normal women who happen to have a family history of breast cancer.
Emily Clark, 26
Emily believes she is going to get cancer. “I just accept it now,” she says. “I feel like my path is already laid out for me. It’s just a matter of time and it’s up to me to be prepared and take the precautions I can.”
This conviction comes from having a family history riddled with cancer. Her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis came when Emily was four years old, but she beat it, after having a breast removed. Sadly, her mum later developed liver cancer and Emily lost her when she was nine. Combined with a high rate of breast cancer among her eight paternal aunts and, more recently, losing her grandfather to leukaemia, cancer has long been a part of Emily’s life.
Yet it wasn’t until Emily turned 17 and moved away from home and family that she started hearing the term “high risk”, and the fear of getting cancer herself became a part of her life. Emily was suddenly visiting doctors to try and prevent herself from getting sick. “Growing up, I was fine,” she says now. “Then you start getting older and you start getting boobs. You have to have checks and hear this constant ‘You’re high risk’, but I didn’t actually know what that meant.
“It was so overwhelming because I didn’t really know how to deal with that stuff. I mean, I knew that I had to help myself, to get information, but I didn’t know how to do that or where to start.”
Instead of the routine of self-checks, six-monthly ultrasounds and scans she now adheres to, Emily let fear dictate her life and became obsessive about certain behaviours she naively thought would ward off cancer. “I would not eat certain preservatives and not use aerosol cans, and do these things I thought were right,” she says.
“I would not stand near a fridge when it was open and not stand near a microwave. I used to be totally mental about it. I lived, literally, in constant fear of getting cancer.”
After the confronting experience of losing her grandfather to cancer when she was 20, Emily went into “meltdown mode”, pulled her head out of the sand and found the information she needed to keep fear at bay. “For a while, denial would have been easier, but really, it’s excruciating not to know,” she says.
Now, Emily sees specialists at a breast cancer clinic every six months for a scan and ultrasound, attends regular counselling sessions and is a font of knowledge on the risks of getting cancer. She says the prospect of being diagnosed with cancer is far less scary. “I don’t worry about the stuff that’s out of my control now because the stuff in my control I’m taking care of and I trust the people that are helping me with that,” she says.
Knowing she can have some level of control over her high-risk status, Emily realised what she was missing wasn’t just information, but someone to talk to who was going through the same situation.
“There is such a gap in information out there,” she says. “A member of my family is missing and that’s the gap. It’s no one’s fault. That’s why I never really thought there was a solution. It’s such a personal situation that you feel like no one could possibly understand. You definitely feel like you’re going through it alone.”
Krystal Barter, 29
Emily Clark’s story is met with sympathy by Krystal because she’s been through it herself and she, too, thought she was the only one. Krystal’s mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were all diagnosed with breast cancer. After her mum was diagnosed when Krystal was 14, the teenager felt more than high risk — she felt cursed.
Yet, like many young women in the high-risk category, Krystal did not take preventative steps, preferring to ignore the problem. Finally, a life-change forced her to face it.
“When I met my husband, I thought, ‘I can’t keep putting my head in the sand. This is something real. I can make a real difference if I’m proactive’,” she says. “When I held my first baby in my arms, I realised I’m not just living for me,
I’m living for someone else, so I’ve got to be as healthy as I can.”
Krystal’s fear of developing breast cancer was heightened after she had her second son and underwent testing for BRCA1, a gene mutation associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancers. She tested positive. “I suffered from extreme anxiety for a good year,” she recalls.
“I had vision problems, headaches, shallow breathing. I had them rush me to the medical centre because I thought I was having a heart attack and they put me on an angiogram, but there was nothing wrong with my heart. I just wasn’t dealing with the decision that I had to make and kept on really putting it off.”
The decision Krystal, then 25, was facing was whether or not to undergo a preventative double mastectomy, in order to decrease the risk of breast cancer by about 90 per cent. “It took me a long time to realise preventative mastectomy was an option for me,” she says. “It’s not easy for a young woman to decide to have her breasts removed.”
Only making Krystal’s decision more difficult was a lack of support while she was going through the decision-making process. “I just wanted that reassurance that what I was going through was normal,” she says.
“As much as my mum could say it’s all going to be okay, I just wanted someone I could lean on. The fact that there wasn’t anything out there for a woman like me who was high risk didn’t seem right.”
When a scan indicated a change in her tissue which could lead to the early stages of breast cancer, Krystal’s decision was made for her and she went in for the mastectomy. It was from her hospital bed after the operation that Krystal reached for her laptop and started Pink Hope.
“Sitting there, having had my breasts removed, I thought, ‘You know what? I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. I’m going to feel sorry for the women out there who can’t chat to me, who can’t connect with someone who understands’.”
Now Krystal connects with women at high risk of breast and ovarian cancers through her online Pink Hope Community, offering support and information. When Krystal went to the National Breast Cancer Foundation with her idea, they agreed to help Pink Hope by directing some ongoing funding towards it.
Since the mastectomy and starting Pink Hope, which is now her full-time job on top of looking after three children under five, Krystal’s life has changed for the better.
“I didn’t like my breasts,” she says. “Not only because they’d had the life sucked out of them after breastfeeding. They just felt like a ticking time bomb. I felt that there was this burden, this big dark cloud. Once I had them removed, I’m happy every day.”
Though Krystal stresses she doesn’t recommend preventative mastectomy for everyone, it was the right decision for her. Her hope is to provide the means for support and communication between women in a similar position and create better awareness of the risks and preventative measures available.
Above all, what Krystal wants is instead of her daughter Bonnie going in for testing at age 18 to discover if she too is BRCA1 positive, she can book in for a vaccination. “We’ve got 18 years to make it happen. That’s ideally what I’d like,” Krystal says.
For more information on the Pink Hope Community, visit pinkhope.org.au.
Gretel Maltabarow, 21
No doubt, Krystal Barter would be happy if her daughter, Bonnie, grew up to have as sophisticated and realistic an understanding of being at high risk of breast cancer as Gretel. When she was only 10 years old, her mother, Amanda, survived her battle with breast cancer and went on to become an NBCF ambassador. Along the way, she equipped her three girls with a strong understanding of breast cancer and what their family history might mean for them.
Amanda comes from a long line of fighters, getting her indomitable spirit from her own mother and other close female relatives who have been affected by and survived breast cancer. And Gretel seems to have inherited her mother’s strength, too.
“When I think about it, I don’t think I’m going to get really sick from breast cancer or die from it,” Gretel says.
“I think if I get breast cancer I’m going to deal with it and I’ll be a survivor like my mum and grandmother, my aunty and my whole family.
“It’s in our genes and I’m sure when I’m at the age where I could get it, the technology is going to be better and there might even be a cure. It might happen to me, but I wouldn’t say I’m overly worried about the consequences of it.”
Gretel has grown up in a supportive and open environment when it comes to talking about breast cancer, and she counts herself lucky. “It’s so important to have that kind of education,” she says.
“I can only imagine what it would be like for people who have had mothers who have had breast cancer who don’t talk about it, or who don’t have a mum around any more. It’s not their fault if they’re ignorant.
“If my mother wasn’t involved with charity work, I probably wouldn’t know a lot about it. It would be quite scary if you were in the dark about breast cancer, but that’s what’s so good about these charities working towards greater awareness, so people can talk about it.”
Like Emily Clark and the hundreds of young women who have found a valuable resource in Pink Hope and other support options, such as Cancer Australia’s website myparentscancer.com.au, Gretel sees a need for a platform to discuss the issues and provide a support network for those forgotten victims of breast cancer.
“For me, it’s not about cancer itself,” Emily says. “It’s about giving people the information they need to have a bit of power over what happens to their body. The biggest thing for me is you can’t control it. You work hard, you get the jobs you want, you study the things you want and you have the relationships you want, but you can’t control this, so it’s scary when you think about it like that.
“This is a way not to be scared, to have people around you who think it’s normal. Because it is — it is normal.”
Angelina Jolie stunned the world when she revealed she had undergone a preventative double mastectomy today.
The actress had her first surgery to remove her breasts on February 2, completing the process with a complete reconstruction, including implants, on April 27.
She has described her new breasts as “beautiful” and says she is relieved her six kids won’t have to worry about her succumbing to cancer.
“I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer,” she wrote.
Angelina Jolie.
Angelina in September 2012.
Angelina in February.
Angelina in March.
Angelina in April.
Angelina in April.
Angelina in April.
Angelina in 1997.
Angelina at the Golden Globes in January 1999.
Angelina in 2001.
Angelina in 2001.
At the Golden Globes in 2001.
Angelina in 2003.
Angelina in September 2004.
Angelina shortly after getting together with Brad Pitt in 2004.
Angelina Jolie has revealed she has had a preventative double mastectomy because she has the breast cancer gene BRCA1.
Writing in the New York Times, the actress, whose mother died of cancer at 56, said she had both breasts removed in a series of surgeries over three months.
“My doctors estimated that I had an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer,” Jolie wrote.
“Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimise the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.”
Jolie’s surgery was complete on April 27, and she initially kept it a secret until for privacy reasons.
Now, she has decided to reveal all to help other women who might be going through the same thing.
“Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness,” she wrote. “But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action.”
Jolie has now had breast reconstruction, having implants inserted, and says the result is “beautiful”.
She is glad the operation is complete and loved telling her six children they didn’t have to worry about her dying of cancer.
“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy,” she wrote. “But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 per cent to under 5 per cent.
“I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer. It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars and that’s it.
“Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can. On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.”
Jolie also praised her partner Brad Pitt, saying going through the surgical procedure together made them closer.
“I am fortunate to have a partner, Brad Pitt, who is so loving and supportive,” Jolie wrote. “So to anyone who has a wife or girlfriend going through this, know that you are a very important part of the transition.
“We managed to find moments to laugh together. We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has.”
Overall, Jolie’s message was to women who might have the cancer gene and be considering a preventative mastectomy.
“For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options,” Jolie wrote. “I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.
“Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.”
Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith aren’t your average parents. When their kids do something wrong, there are no punishments handed out, no scolding or docking of allowances.
The superstar couple instead chose to let their children – Jaden, 14, and Willow, 12 – make their own mistakes.
“We generally don’t believe in punishment,” Will told The Sun
“From the time Jaden was five or six we would sit him down, and all he has to do is be able to explain why what he did was the right thing for his life.”
Will and Jada’s different style of parenting has prompted their actor son to ask for a house for his 15th birthday this July.
“He says, ‘Dad, I want to be emancipated.’ I know if we do this, he can be an emancipated minor, because he really wants to have his own place,” Will said.
The couple’s parenting style is completely different to the one that Will himself experienced as a child. His father, who ran a refrigeration installation business in Philadelphia after leaving the US Air Force, was extremely strict and believed in children being seen, but not heard.
Will said he certainly wanted to bring up his own children differently. “I was brought up with, ‘You don’t even talk to your parents about what your opinion is, you are not allowed to have an opinion. When you pay some bills, you can have an opinion.’
After dropping four dress sizes in six months, the singer says she feels unstoppable.
Mahalia Barnes laughs out loud as she looks through a rack of rock-star frocks, ranging from size eight to 10, all designed to hug her incredible new figure and show off her tiny waist and shapely calves.
“I really do feel like I’m half my size,” beams Mahalia, daughter of rock legend Jimmy Barnes. “It’s been amazing. People actually stop me in the street and compliment me.” Since starting Weight Watchers last October, Mahalia has dropped an impressive 19.5kg. Losing 19cm from her bust, 12cm off her waist, 19cm off her hips, 8cm off her thighs and 7cm from her arms, her body has transformed. The singer now weighs 69.9kg.
“I do feel really proud of myself because it hasn’t been without its obstacles,” says the 30-year-old. “There are hard days and hard weeks. There have even been a few when I didn’t lose and even had a gain.
“Now I’ve lost 19 kilos and in my head my weight is heading towards 65 kilos – I know nothing will stop me!” Mahalia says when she looks through old photos – including her wedding album – she had no idea that her weight had crept up to a dangerous level.
Read more about Mahalia’s amazing weight loss success in this week’s Woman’s Day on sale Monday May 13, 2013.
The TV starlet brushes aside the cruel taunts, confidently baring her bump in Greece.
Throughout her very public pregnancy, cruel internet trolls have pummelled Kim Kardashian with every fat jibe they can muster from behind their keyboards. And for the first two trimesters, their callous remarks appeared to be getting under her skin, with the reality star hiding her growing body beneath kaftans and floaty dresses.
“She likes wearing tighter clothing, but the reaction was universally negative and it began to influence her,” says a source close to Kim. “So she’d wear more flowy clothes.” But not anymore. Entering her eighth month of pregnancy, the 32-year-old bravely peeled off the layers to reveal a baby body that is nothing short of sensational.
Enjoying a family break with the Kardashian crew in the sunny Greek islands, the star’s siblings Khloe, 28, and mum-of-two Kourtney, 34, were quick to hit the beach in tiny two-pieces – and Kim followed suit. Parading around their luxury villa in a series of skimpy bikinis, she showed no sign of insecurities.
“Kim is feeling very confident in her body,” says a source who spent time with the family on holiday. “She had no second thoughts about wearing bikinis on the trip.” Flaunting toned arms and a gorgeous bump, Kim’s stuck to a strict exercise regime through her pregnancy, reportedly gaining just 13kg.
Read and see all of Kim’s baby body pics in this week’s Woman’s Day on sale Monday May 13, 2013.
The head of anti-smoking authority Quit Victoria has echoed calls to breath-test pregnant women to check if they are smoking after Britain’s healthcare body successfully introduced the scheme.
Carbon monoxide breath tests, enforced by Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, are proposed to be administered by midwives at antenatal appointments.
The new measures follow the shocking revelation that 21 per cent of British women smoke during pregnancy, The Times reports.
In Australia, more than one in ten women who were pregnant smoked during some or all of their pregnancy in 2010 according to data from government body Tobacco in Australia.
In the period before they knew they were pregnant, 11.7 per cent of pregnant women smoked and 7.7 per cent reported that they smoked after discovering they were pregnant.
Quit’s executive director Fiona Sharkie says the number of women smoking could be much higher than reported as women don’t want to disclosed the fact that they are smoking.
“We think around 30 to 35 per cent of women who smoke who are pregnant might not disclose that they are smoking,” she said.
“They’re fearful of being criticised because they know that it’s bad, they know that they’ll be told they shouldn’t do that.”
In addition to those who conceal their habit, Ms Sharkie said that while around 40 per cent of women will quit immediately on finding out that they are pregnant, many will relapse and start smoking again after spontaneously quitting and this may not be revealed when expectant mothers are asked by midwives, as enforced by government requirements, when they present as pregnant and again at 20 weeks.
A government-implemented scheme similar to Britain’s mandatory monoxide tests, Ms Sharkie says, should be implemented in Australia to confirm and reduce the number of women who smoke during pregnancy and curtail damaging effects of the habit on their unborn children.
But introducing tests would likely spark backlash from midwives and patients as it has in the UK.
“Midwives are very fearful of compromising a very important relationship,” she said.
“Some are very uncomfortable with the idea because they fear that the woman will feel railroaded into it and get the impression that the midwife doesn’t trust her, it compromises the relationship.”
Though most women know that smoking while pregnant is bad, many continue smoking because it’s very addictive, and due to myths that abound about women who smoked through pregnancy with little effect on their children — contradictory to facts about the health of children of smokers.
“We’re now seeing that children of smoking mothers later in life have more behavioural problems, more incidents of ADD and other disorders, and they do less well at school largely because there’s more cases of respiratory illnesses and childhood illnesses which means more days off school,” Ms Sharkie says.
While becoming pregnant is a huge motivator for women to quit smoking, health effects on children of women who smoke before becoming pregnant combined with the known effects on smokers’ own health provide a strong case for quitting at any time.
“Women’s shouldn’t just quit smoking because of their baby, for a woman who smokes, the best thing a woman should do is quit — we want to protect both the baby and the mother,” Ms Sharkie said.
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