• I’m honestly not sure what to think about this. The New York Times recently ran a story (that was subsequently picked up and snarked about by Jezebel, of course) about how single women in their 30s are having their eggs frozen at the behest of their mothers, who are footing the bill for procedure. Why? Because their mothers want grandchildren, and they’re nervous that their unattached daughters might wait too long to try and then—poof!—it’ll be too late. I’m fortunate enough to have a mother who doesn’t meddle (she does, however, read this blog—hi, Mom!), so I honestly don’t know what I’d do or say if my mom took me aside and laid out this sort of plan. Would I be offended? Outraged? Relieved? The New York Times managed to find a surprising number of women who’ve been in this boat. On the whole those women say they were happy and grateful that their parents approached them, saying it alleviated some of the pressure to find Mr. Right. What do you think? Weird boundary-crossing, or nice gesture? I’m on the fence.

• Red wine as probiotic? Looks like it. The New York Times lays out the research.

• Fact: Americans eat on average 40 pounds of high fructose corn syrup a year. Possible fact: High-fructose corn syrup might rob you of brainpower, according to a new study.

• If you can dream it up, there’s probably a petition about it (and if there’s not, you can start one in three easy steps!). Case in point: A group of doctors and activists banded together recently to circulate a petition urging President Obama to cut out campaign stops and photo ops where he might be photographed eating unhealthy food, like burgers, fries and hot dogs. Their rationale? That showing the President eating junk food sends a bad message to the public. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the group behind the petition, argues that the President is a role model, even when it comes to healthy eating. “The White House would never set up a photo op showing the president buying cigarettes, so why is it okay to show him eating a hot dog?â€� says PCRM dietician Susan Levin. The group is worried that images showing Obama eating junk food sends mixed signals about health and nutrition and provides de facto endorsement for the fast food establishments he dines in. It makes sense in theory, I guess, but I think the most people are smart enough to read between the lines and understand that a burger, even if the president eats it, is not a healthy choice. Besides, there’s something to be said for someone who’s in good shape like Obama enjoying a burger and fries every now and then: those foods are a treat, and ones that can be enjoyed once in a while when you balance them with healthy choices otherwise. It’s actually a smart approach to a healthy diet—everything in moderation, no deprivation, etc. How’s that for a role model?

• Does your kid watch a lot of TV? New research found that TV watching influences a child’s eating choices around the clock, whether the tube’s on or off. The New York Times reports that a child’s TV habits correlate to unhealthy eating across the board, so what he learns on TV he brings to the dinner table, school cafeteria, snack time and beyond.

• Add this to your grocery shopping list: a nutritionist. One study found that in-store nutrition education leads to healthier choices at the supermarket.

• If there’s one thing everyone knows about sleep, it’s the concept of sleep debt, the idea that as you scrimp on hours spent in the sack your body accrues all that lost sleeping time, like a silent tally, and eventually makes you pay for it. To help pay back this sleep debt, many of us log extra hours of sleep on the weekends, sleeping in until 10, 11, or sometimes even noon or later (aaahh, the good days of college). A new study shows that this kind of sleeping pattern—where you wake up to an alarm, exhausted, during the week and sleep in on weekends—might actually be doing more harm than good. It’s been dubbed “social jet lag,” because, as TIME puts it, “your body’s basically shuttling back and forth between time zones each week while you’re becoming increasingly sleep-deprived.” Researchers found that those with different weekday and weekend sleeping habits were three times more likely to be overweight than those who woke up at the same time each day. Even scarier, the greater the difference between the rise-and-shine times, the fatter people were. While the research doesn’t prove a causal link between the two, it shows a definite association, and one worth exploring further. Your best bet? Get your 7 to 9 hours of sleep at the same time every night, abolish the alarm, and wake up feeling refreshed.

• Should doctors chart your BMI at checkups, in the same way they do your height, weight and blood pressure? New recommendations for tackling obesity encourage MDs to treat BMI as one of these critical vital signs, reports the Washington Post.

• Only 37.1 percent of young women and 15.6 percent of men in the 18-to-29 age range report using sunscreen. It’s no wonder half of young adults say they got sunburnt in the past year. What people probably don’t realize: “Each time a person burns, his or her risk of skin cancer goes up,” reports TIME.

For the uninitiated, this is Foreverware.

• Okay, I’m going waaaaay back in the Obscure TV Archives here, but did anybody else ever watch that show, Eerie, Indiana, when they were kids? It was sort of like the Twilight Zone and took place in this town called Eerie, Indiana (duh) where all this cooky, made-for-kiddie-sci-fi stuff happens. Wikipedia informs me that Eerie lasted for only 13 episodes in the early ’90s, so chances are you missed it (in which case you really missed out because it was awesome). There was this one episode with this creepy family that never ages, and it turns out (spoiler alert!) that they sleep in these containers every night called Foreverware, sort of like giant Tupperware containers that keep them fresh and young, well, forever. I couldn’t help but think about Foreverware today when I heard about Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’s bizarre high-altitude sleeping pod. He talks about it in a recent 60 Minutes interview (skip to 7:13), but declines to let the contraption be shown on video, adding another layer of Eerie-like mystery to the whole thing. The chamber is supposed to simulate high altitude in order to improve his endurance. Phelps describes it thusly: “Once I’m already in my room, I still have to open a door to get into my bed … It’s like a giant box. It’s like a boy in the bubble kind of thing.” So … yes. Michael Phelps is sleeping in Foreverware. You heard it here first, folks.

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