By Chrissa Hardy for HelloGiggles.com

It’s 2012 and finally werewolves and vampires are stale enough to take a step back and make way for humans again. Not just any humans though. Arrow-shooting, bow-wielding, masters-of-archery humans. The Year of the Dragon is apparently also the year of the Archer. This sport has been around for thousands of years and thanks to the ferocity of Katniss, the spunk of Merida, and flash of Hawkeye, it looks like it’ll stick around just a little bit longer.

Katniss is fierce, independent and her focus is unwavering. To keep up with the advanced skill of her character, Jennifer Lawrence trained with US Olympic Archer Khatuna Lorig. Lawrence trained in 15 one-hour sessions with Lorig and continued her practice on her own by shooting 80-100 arrows per day to improve her technique. After seeing the film, Lorig was extremely pleased with Lawrence’s form and hopes to work on the upcoming films in the franchise.
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By Abra Pappa

The landscape of morning cartoons is about to look a lot different, as they will no longer be aligned with ad campaigns for sugary cereals, fast food, or candy. At least on stations owned by Disney. In an announcement made last week the Walt Disney Co will ban junk food advertising on its television channels, radio stations and websites by 2015.

A step in the right direction? Absolutely. Disney is the first company to choose to self-regulate where government standards have failed to exist.

One-third of our nation’s children are obese and the numbers keep rising. Many experts believe that media and marketing influence is contributing to the problem.

Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has been a long time advocate for restricting junk food marketing for children, commended Disney for taking these steps and called on other networks to follow suit.

“Disney’s announcement is welcome news to parents and health experts concerned about childhood obesity and nutrition,” Wootan said. “This puts Disney ahead of the pack of media outlets and should be a wake-up call to Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network to do the same. As a nation, all companies should be working toward promoting only healthy food through all forms of child-directed media.”
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The Walt Disney Company made an announcement today concerning the type of advertising they will allow on their kid-friendly web sites, radio and television stations. The move by Disney is designed to curb childhood obesity and requires advertisers to meet a strict set of nutritional rules. These standards will also be enforced on the Saturday morning cartoons that are run on stations owned by Disney, like ABC.

Disney’s decision will obviously result in some lost advertising revenue, but the company believes that the end outcome is more important. Due to current contracts that are in place, these changes will not take place until 2015. At that time the new standards will apply to programming targeted at children 12 and younger.

Some of the products that will be excluded under the new restrictions include Capri Sun drinks, Kraft Lunchables, candy, sugared cereal and fast food. Disney isn’t just enforcing higher nutrition standards, they are also changing the food served in their parks. They plan to reduce the sodium on all of the children’s meals served at their theme parks by 25 percent.
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It seems that anything with the Disney name is an instant success. However, this week they may have just made their biggest mistake. The new Epcot Disney exhibit, Habitat Heroes, which tackles childhood obesity, has made many critics furious, forcing the exhibit to shut down. Blue Cross and Blue Shield partnered with Disney to create Habitat Heroes. The exhibit is designed to take visitors through sets of interactive experiences that fight bad habits.

The exhibit is being accused of stigmatizing overweight kids as it features animated fitness heroes such as “Will Power” and “Callie Stenics” as your guides through interactive rooms where they fight habits like too much television and junk food. The heroes face off against the villains “Super-sized Snacker” and “Lead Bottom.”

Blue Cross and Blue Shield intended on the exhibit encouraging healthy habits among children so that they would improve their health and thus, lower health-care costs.

The problem the critics had was that Disney attached the worst habits to an overweight kid’s body.
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Hollywood & Vine restaurant; Image via DisneyWorld.com

When it comes to amusement parks, roller coasters and funnel cakes are common sites, but healthy low calorie food is not. Yet, mega-fun spot Disney World is a trailblazer leading the way in offering healthy fare to its millions of enthusiastic guests.

If you’re taking the kids to Disney World for a vacation, you don’t have to derail your diet like a malfunctioning roller coaster. In fact, the Florida park has plenty to offer both health-minded folks and the not-so health-minded kids. Here is a look at how to navigate your way through Disney World so that even if you blow your budget, you don’t have to blow your diet.
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