What’s even scarier than the scariest of Halloween costumes? How about the labor abuses suffered by women and children in third world countries?

This year, little Hannah Montanas and Harry Potters can have a treat up their sleeves as they get out the word about beneficial Fair Trade sales to the homes they visit on October 31st.

It’s called Reverse Trick-or-Treating and allows participants in the U.S. and Canada not just to receive candy from neighbors but also distribute Fair Trade certified chocolate donated by companies. The participants are looking to promote the work they are doing to give poor people a fighting chance to make a living and provide for their families.

A card accompanying the chocolate informs recipients of poverty and child labor problems rampant in the cocoa industry that produces much of the bite-size candy eaten at Halloween and other products consumed throughout the year. It explains how Fair Trade certified chocolate combats that poverty by supporting and creating labor opportunities.

The candy has been generously donated by Equal Exchange, Alter Ego, Sweet Earth and La Siembra. The participating non-profit organizations taking the lead in the effort include:

• Africa Action
• Amherst Fair Trade Partnership
• Ballston Spa Fair Trade Coalition
• Fair Trade Federation
• Global Exchange
• Green America
• International Labor Rights Forum
• Jeannette Rankin Peace Center
• Montclair Fair Trade Coalition
• Not For Sale
• Oasis/Stop The Traffik
• San Diego Friends of Fair Trade
• Taos Fair Trade Steering Committee
• Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
• United Methodist Church (UMCOR/GBC

You can order the chocolate and cards for free from Global Exchange’s Sweet Smarts Network from now until the October 1st deadline and will only be charged $5.50 for shipping and packing supplies. Just fill out the order form and you are on your way.

Let us know how your neighbors responded to the lovely gesture of receiving not just a thank you but also a chocolate from your family this year.

Image: Matt McGee

Imagine a world without women. No, it’s not the tagline for some gloomy successor to Atwood’s feminist dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale – it’s about us. We live in a world where women are dying, frequently, at ages above and beyond expected natural mortality rates. Women live longer and often healthier lives than men but only in Western societies. Elsewhere, that’s simply not the case. Throughout Asia and North Africa, women are in need of our help.

Indian economist Amartya Sen, writing in The New York Review of Books in 1990, called these women – all 100 million of them – the ‘missing women’.

Almost two decades later, the women are still dying. In fact, in  2005  the United Nations put the number of ‘missing women’ at 200 million or higher. And more recently, two researchers looking at population statistics, confirmed that the ratio of women to men in developing countries remains way below the norm.

More importantly, the researchers found that the ‘women’ were not dying, as previously assumed, in the first four years of life. Instead, the majority of the ‘missing women’ were much, much older.

One could argue that it’s simply a result of biological, social, environmental, behavioural, and economic factors. But, more likely, they died and are still dying because they live in a world where they are totally undervalued. A world where they often have unequal access (as compared to men) to medical care, food,  or social services. A world where, to many, it’s acceptable to neglect, abuse, and attack women – emotionally, physically, and sexually.  A world where gang rape of children is rampant.

In this day and age, it’s hard to comprehend that this form of gender discrimination still happens. But, sadly, it does.

Images: babasteve

Osteoporosis is a big deal for women. But there’s more involved in keeping your bones strong and healthy than just eating plenty of calcium. Weight-bearing activity (exercise on your feet that works your bones and muscles against gravity) is crucial to building and maintaining optimal bone mass. Here’s why:

Bone density refers to your reserve of stored calcium. This is what determines the strength and health of your bones.
Bones are living tissue and need to be used to be strengthened.
The best time to start doing weight-bearing activities is during the teen and early adult years when bones are still growing. But it’s never too late to start!
The more bone density you have, the less negative impact there will be after menopause, when bone density begins to thin out with the loss of estrogen.
Higher bone density means stronger bones that are less susceptible to fracture or breakage.

So ladies, listen up: here are some activities you can incorporate into your lives to build up bone mass and stay strong.

For starters, lift things! No need to go overboard, but carry your groceries to the car and don’t be shy about picking up boxes. Just make sure you protect your back and do it safely.
Jogging is good for building bone, and so is walking uphill, but a regular walk around the block won’t do much for you.
Vigorous gardening and housecleaning – move a lot, stretch and lift heavy things!
Skip the elevator and climb stairs instead.
On your walks and hikes, wear a backpack. Fill it with water bottles and other things to add some weight, as this helps build bone.
Weightlifting is very good for your bones. There are weightlifting techniques that help build lean muscle mass, and plenty of bone while you’re at it. Here are tips to lift weights without bulking up.
For more active types, try jumping rope, team sports (basketball, hockey, soccer), and high impact aerobics.

Image: glitter feet

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) does not see fit to extend the same moral courtesy to human animals, specifically the female kind. In the organization’s latest sexist campaign for vegetarianism, an overweight woman in a bikini is faced with the emboldened slogan: “Save the Whales”. Beneath the words runs a helpful tagline: “Lose the blubber: go vegetarian.”

Come on gals, take a joke. What’s a little fat-shaming in pursuit of a good time?

There’s no shortage of adjectives (or profanities) that come to mind to describe such a mean-spirited billboard. And if you can get through the confusion of it – don’t be a whale! wait, save the whales! don’t be a whale so we can save the whales! whales are great, except you, blubber butt! – it’s also very telling.

A friend of mine, John Haslett, is a professional adventurer and author of the sea memoir, Voyage of the Manteno. In the book, he writes about the behavior of people in survival situations – that is, people under extreme stress. An inevitable few will rapidly decline into paranoia and eventual insanity. Some – many more than you would think, observes Haslett – simply give up. Some rise to the challenge, while others become childish or cheat. I think we can figure out which part of the life raft we’d find PETA hugging.

With admirably relentless energy, PETA has managed to jump from the margins of activism and enjoys frequent mainstream media attention. To the dismay of many vegetarians, when Newkirk speaks, people do listen. A group like PETA has just as much potential to wear at our social fabric as any loudmouth pundit. These are not just crazy tactics; PETA’s stunts are part of a carefully-woven, and unfortunate, strategy. Deliberately divisive, PETA is antisocial in a wide cultural sense. Desperate to win, they resort to the ridiculous and alienate those whom they hope to convert. What a dark, lonely world these small-minded people inhabit! I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anyone this stressed out trying to advocate for anything except another cocktail.

The woman who is concerned with social and environmental justice should be quick to leave PETA to the spiral it’s so enthusiastically sliding down. Sociologists explain that it’s common for oppressed groups to target each other as they jockey for autonomy. PETA abusing using women as a tool to achieve their goals is just one more example in a long history of horizontal violence. Not very original, is it? One can easily imagine that in the hive-mind of PETA headquarters, there is only room for the conflict view of reality: it’s either women for animals or women over animals. I guess PETA can’t conceive of women and animals, or at least not for the blubbery among us!

Any position worth defending can be done with integrity. If you have to take a cheap shot to score a point, you don’t belong in the game. Or put another way, when the end justifies the means, the means become the end.

Recommended reading on this topic: Feministing, Deceiver, Jezebel, Huffington Post, The Frisky, DoubleX

I like life’s special little surprises: a dozen roses mysteriously appearing at the doorstep, some birds nesting right outside the living room window or a phone call from an old friend I’ve been thinking about all week.

But there’s one thing I don’t like to be surprised by: my period. This is something I want to have planned out with the right, comfortable clothes and all my supplies at hand in the secret pocket of my purse. A camping trip, the third date, that beach vacation – not exactly welcome times for that time.

Thanks to My Monthly Cycles, I’ve been keeping track using an online calendar that averages out the lengths of my previous cycles and gives me approximate dates for both my next period and my next ovulation.

And best of all for busy gals like us, you can adjust your account settings to send you email alerts a few days before your next period or ovulation is about to start. It’s like the Google Alert of periods! Now if they just had an iPhone app…

Image: ePublicist

Shop till You Drop, a dead end job mystery is a humorous detective novel about a woman who uncovers crimes while employed at an ultra-exclusive boutique in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But there is much truth to the title of this fiction. It is also the real-life saga of more and more women during the recession.

Conspicuous consumption seems to be the remedy for what ails many money-strapped UK women, as found in a new survey by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire.

Some 700 women were asked about their emotional responses to their grim financial situations and almost half reported they were pretty darn scared. Nealy 80% said they were so concerned about their bank accounts, they would be making cutbacks on spending.

Yet 79% also confessed they would go the material girl route to cheer themselves up – splurging on clothes and other items to release those endorphins. Hey, chocolate only goes so far.

The survey results, published by Life Science, also found 40 percent of the women cited depression as an excuse to overspend, while 60 percent claimed “feeling a bit low” was a good enough reason.

Karen Pine, Professor University of Hertfordshire

“This type of spending, or compensatory consumption, serves as a way of regulating intense emotions,” observes Karen Pine, Aussie professor and author of  Sheeconomics (Headline Publishing Group, 2009).

Pine likens the splurge mentality to an addiction such as drug dependency in which people self-medicate, but instead of drugs, the high is retail therapy: a new dress, eye shadow and a few pairs of summer sandals. Ironically, it all adds up to more credit card debt and feeling even worse after from pangs of guilt.

“If shopping is an emotional habit for women, they may feel the need to keep spending despite the economic downturn,” figures Pine. “Or, perhaps worse still, if they can’t spend we might see an increase in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.”

I guess it’s true. The shopping avenue has always served as a huge distraction for me, something that allows me to flex my creative eye, even if the wallet is not quite as limber. In fact, one of my favorite haunts is Retail Therapy, a designer outlet in San Francisco. I’m guaranteed to get my fix there when my bank book gets me down.

Who says affluenza ceases just because your portfolio goes south?

Apparently, women are not the only victims of the shopping addiction during hard times. A 2006 study by the Stanford University School of Medicine found 5.5 percent of men label themselves compulsive buyers.

So what is the cure for the cure?

In the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic, the compulsive shopper finds relief by attending a self-help group and purging her stuff. Maybe that also works in the real world. There sure would be a lot of takers among the most serious victims of the recession, those struggling just to buy food.

2008 Robert Zuckerman / Walt Disney Pictures

I never in my life thought I’d have a baby. Seriously. I was always one of those people who spouted about overpopulation and my own independence – motherhood was just not on my list of things to do.

But when I found out I was pregnant, and in a stable relationship and a good place in my life, I was overjoyed. The timing was perfect. And as I approach the final month of my pregnancy, what I’m struck by most is how regular an occurrence this whole pregnancy thing is (after all, we all came out of our mothers’ wombs), and yet what an incredibly miraculous thing it is each and every time.

Yes, calling it “miraculous” is cliche, but I’m actually creating another human being inside my body! How else can I describe it? Here’s my story so far.

Discovery – “Ohmigod! I’m pregnant!”

I am at a music festival in Washington state, camping for the weekend, expecting my cycle to show up at any minute and make my weekend just a little less fun. I’ve got no energy and tender, swollen breasts. Come on, I tell my body, hurry up and get it over with! But this is getting weird. My cycle is always regular, like clockwork, always 28 days.

But by day 30, 31…I begin to suspect…my husband and I are giggly and excited by the prospect and although we had not been trying to get pregnant, we were not taking precautions against it, either – happy to allow it to happen if it did. We decide to wait a week before taking a pregnancy test, just to be sure.

And yes, I get the little plus symbol: positive. I begin to tell my closest friends but decide not to tell my family until a few months have passed. I’ve always felt more comfortable sharing my life’s intimacies with my friends than with my relatives.

These first few weeks of knowing I am pregnant are a bit surreal. After all, I don’t feel different. I’m just me, my normal self, but with the knowledge that a tiny, invisible life is forming way deep down inside me. I smile a lot.

And So It Begins – The 1st Trimester

Then one evening, right around the one-month marker, a wave of nausea hits and I have to lie down to let it pass. Uh oh. Now the pregnancy is real. Morning sickness? Ha! How about midday and evening sickness, too? My entire life begins to revolve around my stomach. What can I stand to eat today? How many hours will this wave of nausea last? Will I actually be able to throw up (and subsequently get some relief)?

I throw up once a day, sometimes twice, and keep a barf bowl handy wherever I am. Vomiting is actually a relief because it gives me a brief respite from the nausea and that’s the time when I can scarf down a meal and a prenatal vitamin. Holding down my food is never a problem – just getting the appetite to eat in the first place is!

My vitamin of choice is New Chapter Organics “Perfect Prenatal” because it’s made completely from food and herb extracts – there’s nothing synthetic about it and it doesn’t make my nausea worse.

I know my body is doing a lot of work, creating a heart, a brain, a nervous system – but a few times I cry and say “I don’t want to be pregnant anymore!” I don’t really mean it, of course, but 3 months of nausea, heartburn, spaciness and exhaustion will make you wish for any escape.

I’m experiencing some existential introspection, too. There’s something about creating a new life that makes me very aware of my own mortality. Not to be dreary, but it’s very clear to me that I’m bringing in a new person who will live a life and also, one day, die. I see my future death with a clarity I’ve never had before. It’s not depressing – it just makes me want to appreciate each day of living even more.

The Good Part – The 2nd Trimester

And then, it starts to clear up. Those difficult months of exhaustion are behind me and I am energized! Whoa! Right around month four I start to feel better than I ever have in my life. I feel like my superpowers are activated and I’m the most beautiful woman in the world! Of course, hardly anybody can tell yet. My belly is popping out, but right now it just looks chubby.

I’ve known since before I got pregnant that I would want a homebirth, and after meeting with a few midwives I choose the one I like the best. She makes home visits and always spends at least an hour with me at each appointment.

After taking care of the clinical stuff, we chat about life in general, health issues, even sexuality and husband stuff. Her physical advice for me is to go for a walk everyday and have plenty of sex (not just for the intimacy, but because semen contains prostaglandin, which softens the cervix and will help it dilate when I’m in labor).

She instills in me a great deal of confidence about my body’s ability to bear a child and is impressed by my healthy diet. I’ve been vegetarian for years, and am basically sticking to it for the pregnancy, but I’ve craved and eaten meat a few times so far – antibiotic-free, of course. I listen to my body and give it what it wants, which mostly turns out to be good stuff, anyway.

At about 4 1/2 months I decide to join a health club so I can make use of their saltwater pool. Turns out they have bellydance class, too, which is a lifesaver as my pregnancy progresses. I get a few aches and pains, mostly an achy left hip, but hip circles and other bellydance moves help relieve it. I take it a little slower than the other women in the class, but I know I’m healthy and the muscle isolations are excellent for my changing body.

People ask me if I’m having any weird cravings. Honestly, no. Sure, there have been a few times I’ve wanted to eat foods I don’t normally eat, like spaghetti with meatballs, or raw tomatoes. Or the time I wanted lime yogurt – it absolutely had to be lime, no other flavor would do! But nothing out of the ordinary or bizarre. Never, ever have I wanted pickles and ice cream. Not at the same time, anyway.

As the baby moves inside of me, I become more and more aware of its presence. When it first started to move, I thought perhaps I was having gas bubbles. Everybody said I’d feel flutters, but it feels to me more like little bubbly bounces. Nevertheless, it’s a good feeling, and I’m getting more excited.

I’ve chosen not to have an ultrasound because I don’t want to know the sex until the baby is actually born. I’d rather find out for myself rather than be informed by a machine. And the reality is, ultrasounds and amniotic testing may be able to point out developmental problems or diseases in my baby, but at this point in my pregnancy, there is absolutely no way I would terminate. I will find out everything when the child is born, and we will take it as it comes.

The Home Stretch – The 3rd Trimester

I definitely look pregnant now, and I love it! It’s fun to weigh myself at the health club and actually get excited about putting on another pound. Plus the big mirrors there allow me to admire my rounding belly. Thankfully I’ve not put on any excess weight – just what’s normal, and I thank my healthy diet and regular light exercise for that.

The baby’s kicks and movements are getting more defined. I’m not as light on my feet as I was just a few months ago – I have to walk a little slower and I don’t feel like going out dancing anymore. I need to rest more often – bouts of tiredness are taking me over again. But still, I feel great and very, very beautiful. My cheeks are rosy and my husband says he’s never seen me look so cute or so happy. I agree!

We’re thinking of names, but have agreed not to make a final decision until after the baby is born and we’ve had a few days to meet and greet the little person. Since we’re having a homebirth, we won’t have to turn the birth certificate in right away. Every checkup with my midwife is a confirmation that things are going great and progressing normally. She recommend I take digestive enzymes to help me digest protein and other nutrients better (it also relieves the gas and belching associated with pregnancy), but otherwise I’m in optimum health.

I do feel the need for more protein as the baby hits its growth spurt in these final months. I eat eggs for breakfast almost everyday and plenty of nuts. For superfood nutrition I’ve been drinking orange juice with spirulina as well as goji juice daily. I also crave meat more often in these final months and – always listening to my body – seek out the best meat I can find and eat it. I get my greens with huge salads almost daily and when I crave sweets, I’ll usually go for Coconut Bliss ice cream (made purely from coconut milk, agave nectar and cacao). That’s not to say I haven’t had some cookies or Cheetos too, but I keep that to a minimum. So far, no backaches unless I’m on my feet too long and no swollen ankles. Pregnancy is, so far, an incredible experience!

Nesting is kicking in big time and it’s harder to stay focused on blog posts, graphic design or any other kind of work. Sometimes I get all spaced out and have a hard time concentrating. This is all normal, of course – just the hormones. All I want to do is clean house, clear the clutter and prepare some space for our new little roommate. I’m given a sewing machine and take some time to applique’ birds and other cute designs onto the baby clothes I’ve accumulated. Our cat, normally detached, is becoming more affectionate. Does she know what’s to come? We hope she won’t be jealous.

Sometimes I get kicks and movements in my belly that are so vigorous, they take me by surprise. I talk to my baby but don’t always know what to say, since I haven’t met him or her yet. Still, it’s important to talk and sing. Once, my husband was talking to my belly and I could feel the baby move towards the sound of his voice. Incredible! I even started keeping a journal of thoughts just for the baby, something I’ll give to my child when he or she is old enough to be interested.

I’ve made a skin cream out of cocoa and shea butters and coconut oil. I melt them all down on light heat and mix them together and rub this mixture on my belly and breasts almost everyday. So far no stretch marks (although I hear sometimes they don’t appear until after you’ve given birth and your skin is trying to go back to normal). Sometimes I’ll get my husband to rub the cream on me because I still feel really sexy and enjoy being touched!

My belly is big and impossible to ignore, but I feel more like a goddess than ever, and being full with another life makes me want to show it off. I’m not shy to wear tighter clothes and I’m definitely not shy to initiate sex with my husband. This is a great time since, well, we don’t have to worry about getting pregnant! Positioning is awkward, true, but we find a few that work and enjoy.

I’ve been reading voraciously throughout my pregnancy, particularly focusing on books with a positive outlook towards a natural birth. These are the books that inspired me and showed me how beautiful and powerful a woman’s body can be. Even if you plan a hospital birth and conventional OB care, I recommend doing a lot of reading about your choices to make your pregnancy and birth the very best it can be.

Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin.

Ina May is the country’s foremost midwife and her story, and the other birth stories included, opened me up to what a beautiful rite-of-passage birth can be, and how genuine medical emergencies are not nearly as common as we think.

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin.

This book speaks to the realities of homebirth vs. hospital birth and what every woman needs to know to educate herself about her options, risks and consequences.

Birthing From Within by Pam England.

This book educates about your birth options and natural pain-coping methods, the father’s perspective, if and when drugs are the right thing to use, and how to get deeper into yourself to recognize and release your fears and have a beautiful birth.

Journey Into Motherhood edited by Sheri L. Menelli.

An entire book of natural birth stories, both at home and in a hospital. Yes, there is some pain and fear, but there is also a lot of empowerment and ecstasy. I always felt great, inspired and strong after reading the stories in this book.

Sacred Birthing by Sunni Karll.

A spiritual perspective on the powerful energies present during pregnancy and birth and the subtle, spiritual needs of the mother, father and newborn.

Perfluorochemicals (PFC), found in many common household items, have been linked to female infertility in a recent Danish study. Research has shown that PFC is toxic to the liver, immune system and reproductive organs. In this case, it looks like infertility is nature’s way of saying “Your environment is way too poisonous to sustain healthy life – this is not the time or place to reproduce the species.”

The most common PFC-containing items are nonstick pans, the grease-resistant coating on microwave popcorn bags, and water and stain repellent products – namely Teflon, Scotchgard, Gore-Tex and Stainmaster.

Cosmetics, moisturizers and even dental floss contain PFC, too. Look for ingredients containing “perfluoro” or “fluoro.” Of special concern is the fact that the most toxic type of PFC has a very long half life and will be in our environment (and absorbing into our bodies) for years to come.

Better living through chemistry?

Image: mahalie

Fuller breasts, a smaller tush, flatter tummy – all without a diet or breaking a sweat. That’s what cosmetic surgery can do, and mainstream magazines are happily filling pages in their publications with information about it.

A recent issue of  Women’s Health Issues, a Canadian-based medical journal, took a closer look at what the media is sharing with their readers. The study, entitled: “Representations of Cosmetic Surgery and Emotional Health in Women’s Magazines in Canada”, examines how popular women’s magazines portray cosmetic surgery and associated emotional health.

Five English-language women’s magazines were selected on the basis of their 2005 Canadian circulation rates: Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan, Flare, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Prevention.

While the content analysis showed that the articles did in fact tend to present readers with detailed physical health risk information, only 48 percent of the articles discussed the impact that cosmetic surgery has on emotional health. Most often the stories linked cosmetic surgery with enhanced emotional well-being regardless of the patient’s pre-existing mental state. Articles also tended to use male accounts to provide defining standards of female attractiveness.

According to the Canadian Society for Aesthetic (Cosmetic) Plastic Surgery (2007), the term “cosmetic surgery“ refers to invasive surgical procedures such as breast implants, liposuction, or facelifts. Distinct from reconstructive surgery, which aims to fix body disfigurement, cosmetic surgery is used to alter “normal” and physically healthy bodies.

A 2007 Canadian consumer survey revealed that 20.35% of respondents had undergone cosmetic surgery and 46% would consider surgery to change some aspect of their appearance.

The findings were consistent with arguments in research literature that women’s magazines contribute to the medicalization of the female body; that cosmetic surgery is generally portrayed as a risky but worthwhile option for women to enhance both their physical appearance and emotional health.

According to the study, some research has found positive correlations between cosmetic surgery and emotional well-being, suggesting that cosmetic procedures increase body image satisfaction and produce psychological benefits that improve one’s overall quality of life. However other studies have shown that emotional health problems, such as anxiety and depression, may arise or become amplified in some patients as a consequence of cosmetic surgery; that body image dissatisfaction may increase after surgery, and that breast implant recipients are at increased risk for psychiatric admission and suicide.

Implications for future research and public education strategies were discussed.

Image: Bitter Jug

I’m a pretty sore loser at tennis, especially when my husband rockets those serves toward my face and I want to throw my racket at his head. But my arm never aches after as it does with the Wii tennis video game.

I notice I emulate the real motion of the swing with my remote while my daughters execute abbreviated swipes at the screen to place shots, serve and return. They’re so aggressive, if it were the real thing, I’d take them out of school and put them on the circuit to support our family. But truth be told, I fear too much time spent with this year’s holiday gift will result in those Wii-related sports injuries on the rise- everything from tennis elbow to sprained ankles and severe eyestrain.

This week on Good Morning America, GiGi Stone coined the phrase “Wii-habilitaion” in her piece featuring a woman whose shoulder injury from boxing sent her to an orthopedic surgeon. A doctor told ABC News he is seeing 10 to 12 new Wii injuries per month and attributed the epidemic to “exuberant overuse.”

In other words, both kids and adults get hooked fast and play for several hours at a time. Gone are the days of exercise in the great outdoors. Since the virtual sports aren’t as strenuous as playing for real, you don’t feel the fatigue that signals it’s time for a break. The strain results from repetition. (As with any exertion, doctors recommend stretching before and after playing.)

A condition called Wii-itis first surfaced in a report by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 when the Nintendo game was gaining popularity. This holiday season it sold out nationwide (reports of the Wii being bad for the environment have yet to score big points). Nintendo says it provides plenty of guidelines with the equipment to prevent injuries.

At a site called Wiiinjury.com, victims from unstrapped remote accidents share their sob stories: black eyes, bruised cheeks, shattered wine glasses. There was even a bogus class action lawsuit in 2006 in which the plaintiffs argued the remote straps were faulty and caused injuries. Nintendo says when used properly, the remotes stay affixed to the wrist and don’t go flying into faces. The company’s precautions also suggest how far to stand from your opponent and from the TV screen.

Apparently, Wii humans aren’t the only ones who can take a beating from ignoring guidelines. The most reported accidents involve smashed televisions.