Pregnancy shapewear from Cozy Belly. Photo: Cozy BellyAh, to be pregnant and gorging again… I don’t know about other women out there, but personally, I loved using those nine months as a reason to eat two (or three) desserts without guilt and, finally, to unequivocally love every inch of my body. So it made me totally sad this morning when I received a press release from Cozy Belly touting its “pregnancy shapewear,” reminding me that it is, in fact, a thing.
But really, why?
I tried to block out word of the depressing trend when Kim Kardashian blogged about her love of belly shapers recently. “For any concern that my clothes are too tight, I have so many pieces custom fit for my growing body! They make pregnancy Spanx which are tight,” she wrote. “So this theory sounds ridiculous! I feel my best when I am in heels and chic clothes!”
But then came the clincher, so to speak, from Cozy Belly:
"For pregnant women who want to gain a little extra control over the shape of their body, we offer pregnancy shapewear. If you want to cover up some of
Blog Posts by Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff
Pregnancy Shapewear: The Baby Bump Girdle No One Asked For
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Parenting – 9 hours agoFather and Daughter's Amazing Appalachian Trek to Save Lives
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Parenting – 12 hours ago
Kylie and her dad Bob on the trail. Photo: Courtesy of the Trawick family.In an effort to fight hunger, 13-year-old Kylie Trawick and her dad Bob are going the extra mile in a major way—hiking more than 2,180 miles from Georgia to Maine, at a clip of about 20 miles per day since setting off in late March. And, at 723 miles in, they’ve already surpassed their goal of raising one pound of food for every mile completed. About 4,000 pounds have already been donated in Kylie’s honor to food pantries across the country.
More on Shine: 6 Ways to Create a Father-Daughter Bond That Will Last Forever
The biggest challenge, as it turns out, has been for Bob, a 50-year-old registered nurse, to keep apace with his daughter. “Kylie is a phenomenal hiker, and she’s never quit anything in her life,” he told Yahoo! Shine by phone from Daleville, Virginia, where the two had stopped to rest and refuel for a couple of nights. “So the truth is, she’s wearing me out. She’s just so fit and strong! It’s the Sassafras Express and I’m clearly at the back.”
Muddy father-daughter hiker feet. Photo: Courtesy of the Trawick family.Sassafras is Kylie’s Read More »from Father and Daughter's Amazing Appalachian Trek to Save Lives
Sunscreen Ratings: The Best and Worst for Beach Season 2013
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Healthy Living – Sun, May 19, 2013 10:16 PM EDT
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Photo: Getty ImagesWant to really enjoy your day in the sun? Start by choosing the best sunblock out there so you don't have to worry about getting burned. Luckily, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has just released its 2013 Guide to Sunscreens, which rates more than 1,400 sunscreens, lip balms, and SPF moisturizers and cosmetics for safety and effectiveness. And some of their findings might surprise you.
More on Shine: The Truth About Homemade Sunscreen Recipes: A Beauty Don't
The EWG report found that only 25 percent of products on the market offer both broad sun protection and low-risk chemical ingredients. "Consumers are understandably confused about sunscreens," Sonya Lunder, lead author of the EWG report, told Yahoo! Shine. "And, unfortunately, they are facing some bad choices."
While sunburns are caused mostly by relatively short but intense ultraviolet B rays, longer UVA rays, which penetrate the body more deeply, inflict more insidious damage and may contribute to or cause cancer. But allPregnant Teens Have Bellies Banned from Yearbook
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Parenting – Fri, May 17, 2013 3:29 PM EDT
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Harris, left, and Haney. Photo: WOOD-TVTeenage pregnancy is a fact of life. But it seems more and more high schools want to pretend it’s not when it comes to the pages of its yearbooks. First, a North Carolina school banned a photo of Caitlin Tiller and her infant. And now, a Michigan high school has edited out full-body shots of two pregnant students.
More on Shine: Teen Labeled 'Freak' in Yearbook Amounts to Bullying, Says Mom
“What’s the difference of letting me walk for graduation, letting me walk around the school? It’s the same thing,” Kimberly Haney told a local news station WOOD-TV after explaining that her pregnant belly wouldn’t be allowed to show in any of her White Cloud High School yearbook photos.
More on Yahoo!: A New Campaign Tries to Fight Teen Pregnancy
Superintendent Barry Seabrook admitted to the news station that he agreed there wasn’t a difference but wanted to keep parents from complaining. Allowing the photos to remain would also be “contrary to” the Michigan statewide mandate of abstinence-only basedRetro Marriage Trend Makes a Comeback, for Better or Worse
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Love + Sex – Thu, May 16, 2013 4:26 PM EDT
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Illustration: Corbis“My reason for changing my name is not terribly romantic. I did it for simplicity,” Tracy Robert, née Stientjes, a 28-year-old newlywed told Yahoo! Shine. “My maiden name is super hard for others to say and spell, and my married name is not.” And, though the process of changing it came with lots of annoying paperwork, she added, “I do feel like we are our own little team now!”
More on Shine: 7 Wedding Traditions that Need to Die
Robert is not alone. She is, in fact, in a growing majority, according to the most recent available data on the topic.
“For the married female population, keeping your maiden name is so last decade,” wrote Abby Haglage Thursday in her Daily Beast story “Retro Wedding Craze: Taking the Husband’s Name.” She reveals that, according to Facebook data on 14 million married women recently collected jointly by the social media company and the Daily Beast, 65 percent of women in their 20s and 30s changed their name when they married.
Those percentages rose,Update: Disney's Response To Princess Merida Controversy At Odds With Petitioners
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Parenting – Thu, May 16, 2013 11:50 AM EDT
Uh, here we go: Merida was coronated as the official 11th Disney princess Saturday. Photo: YouTube/DisneyMoms who are celebrating Disney for pulling from its website a controversially redesigned, sexier version of “Brave” princess Merida should hold their horses.
More on Shine: Disney Princess Makeover Sparks Outrage: Merida Petition Goes Viral
On Tuesday, Carolyn Danckaert, the activist behind last week’s wildly popular online petition to “Keep Merida Brave,” announced via Facebook news from supporters that "the new makeover version of Merida is no longer appearing on Disney.com." But the controversially modified version of the princess still appeared on Target's Disney princess website, where new product tie-ins are sold.“From our standpoint, it’s not a victory,” Danckaert, who has garnered more than 200,000 signatures on her Change.org petition, told Yahoo! Shine Thursday morning.
It may not have been a victory from any standpoint.According to a Disney spokesperson who contacted Yahoo! Shine late Thursday, the controversial image never appeared on the company's official website to
Read More »from Update: Disney's Response To Princess Merida Controversy At Odds With PetitionersHow Will the New Definition of Autism in DSM-5 Affect Children? Parents, Advocates Anxious Over Changes.
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Team Mom – Thu, May 16, 2013 8:42 AM EDT
Read More »from How Will the New Definition of Autism in DSM-5 Affect Children? Parents, Advocates Anxious Over Changes.
Photo: Marta Nardini/Getty ImagesWhen Kim Covell’s son Dylan was 6 years old, the Long Island mother of three witnessed a major change in him.
More on Shine: More than My Label: 7 Things I Wish Your Kids Knew About Autism
“Seemingly overnight, my joyful son with the infectious belly laugh was afraid. He was afraid of everything, anxious, nervous and sometimes, I am convinced, did not even recognize me as his mother,” wrote Covell in a 2012 piece for the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
“For months he would cry, alternating between the phrases ‘I am nervous’ and ‘I am sad.’ In desperation, we tried medication, which only intensified his distress,” she wrote. “And then he was quiet. The fear was replaced with emptiness.”
More on Yahoo!: Could a Blood Test Detect Autism? Study Aims to Answer
It was the start of a long road that would lead Dylan, now 14, to be first diagnosed with autism, and, later, with childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD), a much more rare form of autism, marked by a severe loss of socialBreast-Milk Baby Booties: The Latest Thing Brought to You by Lactation
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Parenting – Wed, May 15, 2013 5:49 PM EDT
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The booties. Photo: PA via Daily MailAre these folks milking their talents or what? British sustainable designers Nick Gant and Tanya Dean, of BoBo Design Ltd, unveiled the latest in a growing line of innovative creations today: tiny baby booties made of hardened breast milk, made to promote World Breast Milk Donation Day, which will be celebrated by 24 countries around the world (not including the US) on Sunday.
“Turning waste material like breast milk, which couldn’t otherwise be used, but which is embedded with meaning and personal history, into something new, gives the products created greater meaning and value,” Gant told the UK’s Daily Mail. “We want to show that they can be used to raise awareness and communicate issues about material culture, ethics and sustainability.”
The one-inch booties, which are not for actual wearing, were made through a process that involves gently heating the donated milk, adding vinegar to form curds, and then pressing those curds into silicon molds and leaving to dry over a four-dayTeen Labeled 'Freak' in Yearbook Amounts to Bullying, Says Mom
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Parenting – Wed, May 15, 2013 3:13 PM EDT
Dylan Worthen's yearbook was forever marred. Photo: Fox 5 AtlantaAfter mysteriously being labeled “freak” in a high-school yearbook photo caption, a Georgia teen’s mom wants the school held accountable for bullying—and the yearbooks destroyed and reprinted.More on Shine: Student's Yearbook Photo Banned by her Peers for Being 'Too Sexy'
Read More »from Teen Labeled 'Freak' in Yearbook Amounts to Bullying, Says Mom
“There’s no way to fix this issue. It’s in the book, printed in ink,” a visibly upset Susan Powell told Fox 5 Atlanta regarding what appears to be a cruel joke on her son, Dylan Worthen, a freshman trumpet player at South Paulding High School. In the offending caption, under a school band photo, her son’s name appears as “Dylan Worthen-Freak.”
More on Yahoo!: Bullying Study: It Does Get Better for Gay Teens
More than 900 copies of the yearbook, called "Bold," have just been printed.
“We have not yet determined the person responsible,” Brian Otott, associate superintendent for the Paulding County School District, told Yahoo! Shine. But, he said, “This is a very serious matter, because we’re talking about kids here. WeDisney World Scheme: Entitled Families Hire Disabled Guide to Bypass Lines, Says Report
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Parenting – Wed, May 15, 2013 11:23 AM EDT
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Disney World. Photo: Getty Images.Now this is rich: Disney World is investigating news that a handful of upper-crust Manhattan moms have a pricey, secret way to get their kids to the front of the lines—and it’s not by bribing Mickey Mouse.
More on Shine: Disney Princess Makeover Sparks Outrage: Merida Petition Goes Viral
Instead, according to the New York Post, the moms pay $130 an hour to hire a disabled, “black-market” guide, who uses her position—sitting in a motorized scooter—to help entitled families gain special access to rides.
“On one hand, you can say she’s a great entrepreneur,” disability activist Kleo King, of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, told Yahoo! Shine. “On the other hand, she’s kind of pimping herself out. And it’s outrageous she would help people commit fraud.”
Though the New York Post has no on-the-record sources in its shocking report, Disney is taking the matter seriously, according to spokesperson Bryan Malenius, who told Yahoo! Shine, “We are thoroughly reviewing the situation and
