Call of the Cougar

I am sitting at a table in the back of the Jet Fuel coffee shop, hunting a cougar. Not just any cougar, but the cougar, Claudia Opdenkelder: modeling agency owner, 2005 winner of Dean Blundell’s Toronto radio show, Cougar Hunt, and co-founder of the controversial and increasingly popular dating website, Cougarlife.com. Jet Fuel is better known as an uber-cool Cabbagetown hangout for bike enthusiasts, local Toronto writers like Michael Ondaatje and Noah Richler, and its pull-you-through-the-hedge-backward, double-shotted espresso than it is for its wildlife. The staff are friendly and expert; the locals doubly so. I’ve never met Opdenkelder in person, but I’ve seen her picture so I know what to expect--a killer 39-year-old blonde with the body of a 25-year-old and the mind of a woman who knows how to get what she wants. From my perch at the back of the café, I can see her walk in with a guy I can only describe as “holy sh*t”. Her partner, Paul, is 14 years her junior, but somehow, they manage to split the difference. Not surprisingly, he’s also a model.

Posted in Aging on 11/14/2009 - 0 Comments

Getting the healthy glow

Ah, summer. The hot sun. The blue, blue sky. The golden brown tan.

At least that’s the idea. Sun worshippers who shivered through winter reminding themselves that the best season of all would soon return could be forgiven for thinking Summer packed its bag this year, called up the Sun and both headed south.

Looking a bit pasty as a result? No problem—the multi-million dollar tanning bed industry has just the solution for you. At least it did until this week, when the France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and World Health Organization (WHO) announced findings that put tanning beds in specific, and UV radiation in general, on its list of top carcinogens, along with smoking and asbestos. In fact, the IARC’s meta-analysis of more than 20 epidemiological studies found that the risk of developing cutaneous melanoma increases by a mammoth 75 per cent when tanning beds are used before the age of 30.

In other words, step away from the sun bed and pack up your two-piece—it’s not bikini weather anyway. But in a sunless summer, how do you get your glow on?

Start by protecting your skin from the UV radiation that, even on a grey day, penetrates cloud cover and windscreens. “On cloudy and even cool days, the UV index may still be high,” says Dr Ian Landells, a St John’s, NFLD-based dermatologist and president elect of the Canadian Dermatology Association. “It’s really the time of the year that determines how high the UV index is.”

Posted in Aging on 08/21/2009 - 0 Comments