The Miss Universe Competition~It's easy to trip in heels!

Hey Girls!
I didn’t watch the 2008 Miss Universe pageant last week, but for those of you who did you most likely saw the infamous trip down the stairs of the U.S. entrant, Crystle Stewart from Texas. What I don’t understand is why there was and still is so much media coverage surrounding the incident. Is it really that terrible that she slipped? Who wouldn’t trip in a tight evening dress and ridiculously high heels? Why is it so important to the competition that women be able to walk in tight clothes and heels? What’s with all the obsessive media coverage?

What’s even more interesting is that nearly the exact same thing happened the previous year in 2007 to the U.S. candidate Rachel Smith. Doesn’t this prove that there is a problem with the type of “attire” which is required to be Miss Universe, Miss America, Miss World or pretty much any pageant winner? It’s dangerous to wear high heels and long tight dresses you could trip over because you could sprain your ankle or worse. Why should this be part of the competition? Also besides evening wear, why is there a swimsuit competition? Should candidates really be required to strut around half naked on stage in front of billions of viewers? Why is looking good in a bikini part of the contest?

What do you girls think about this? Should pageants be changed? Maybe the winner should be picked for their dedication to charities, or their volunteer work, or positive plans for the prize money rather than their ability to smile pretty and walk down stairs in ridiculous shoes. What do you think?

NewMoonGirls.com: Testing Will Soon Begin!

It's been in the works a long time, but NewMoonGirls.com, our online community for girls ages 8 to 12 is almost here! It's set to launch September 1st--the office is abuzz with excitement! Every day, we are seeing new parts of the website coming together, and we know you're going to love it! And our girl boards have a whole new reason to be excited too. Testing is about to begin!

Over the next few weeks, members of New Moon Girl Boards will see all the ideas they shared, and all the ideas you shared, in real life in an intense testing period. They'll make sure everything is working properly for the big launch. They'll give their feedback and share new ideas. And we're going to video tape it all! So when the site opens, you'll be able to watch clips of how the testing went!

But our girl boards aren't the only ones getting a sneak peek. Each week from now until the big launch, we'll share a new piece of the website with you on all our blogs--so you, too, can see just how great it's going to be! And here's your first sneak peek: a few of the great avatars that will be on the website, all created by girls just like you! At NewMoonGirls.com, every member will be able to have her own room and portfolio where she can share her writing, artwork, thoughts, feelings, and more! And we've chosen some of the fabulous artwork submitted to New Moon magazine over the years for the avatars that will represent girls on the site.

Do you have a great idea for an avatar that you'd like to share? We'll add to the avatar collection all the time! Create your vision of Luna, a girl, an animal, or whatever you think would be a great avatar on NewMoonGirls.com. Draw it on unlined paper, scan it, and email it with your first name, age, and state or country to newmoon@newmoongirlmedia.com or mail the paper copy to our offices. If you choose to mail your drawings, please don't fold the paper or the image may be damaged and we may not be able to use it on the website. We can't wait to see what you come up with! And while you're waiting for NewMoonGirls.com to open its doors, don't forget to check out our Ask a Girl microsite to share questions and advice! More great sneak peeks coming soon!!!

The Best Foods To Buy Organically!

Hey Girls!

I’ve noticed a lot of you have voiced concern about the environment in some of your blog posts and comments. One great thing to do for the environment and your health is to eat organically. Organic foods are produced with no pesticides, chemicals, or hormones and they often taste a lot better too! However organic grocery shopping is expensive and it’s hard for most families to afford to buy all organic food. So if you have to decide on just a few items to buy, here are the top foods that should be bought organically whenever possible because they are more chemically treated than other foods:

1.) Meat: Animals are often raised with tons of antibiotics to fight disease and hormones to speed up the animal’s growth, so they can be butchered and sold quickly. Buying certified organic meat (when food is certified organic it has the sticker pictured above on the right!) it means that farmers have met USDA standards where animals aren’t injected with anything and only consume organic feed.
2.) Milk: Did you know that pesticides and other chemicals have been found in women’s breast milk? This is proof that foods you consume that are sprayed with chemicals remain in your body! When milk is produced organically cows do not eat grain with pesticides and are never injected with hormones like rGBH or rbST.
3.) Coffee: Probably most of you girls don’t drink coffee yet (I don’t even drink it!) but if you do someday it’s another thing that’s important to buy organically. Buying Fair Trade Certified Organic coffee not only guarantees that chemicals were not used on the plants, but it also means that fair prices were paid to the farmers and that farmers were treated fairly!
4.) Peaches, Apples, and Strawberries: These three fruits have more pesticides than other fruits and are often imported from countries that have less strict regulations for pesticide use.
5.) Sweet Bell Peppers, Grapes, and Tomatoes: All these food have really thin skins that are often heavily sprayed with pesticides more so than other vegetables because they are so prone to insects. So because of the thin skin the pesticides leak through and contaminate all of the food making it impossible to wash off.

6.) Celery: Celery is even worse because it has no skin at all on it, so it's almost impossible to wash off the chemicals sprayed on it.
7.) Lettuce: Believe it or not lettuce is often sprayed with the most powerful combination of pesticides. If you can’t buy it organically, it’s really easy to grow it in a garden.
8.) Potatoes: This vegetable often gets sprayed with a huge amount of pesticides plus lots of fungicides which are added into the soil.

I don't want to scare you girls and tell you not to eat these foods if they're not organic! It's just that it's been proven to be better for you to eat organically because there are no chemicals and often more vitamins and minerals in the food! But even if you can't eat these foods organically, you should still eat them and enjoy them because they're good for you and contain important nutrients. What are your thoughts on organic food versus conventionally grown foods? Do you think organic tastes better?

The MyPyramid~A Great Way to Stay Healthy!

Hey Girl Bloggers!
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I worry that I’m not eating the right foods to stay healthy. That’s why I find the MyPyramid (pictured above) to be incredibly helpful! You can go to the online interactive MyPyramid Plan to help you choose the right foods and amounts for you. You just enter your age, gender, and how often you exercise to find out what you should be doing. It helps you to make healthy choices and find a balance between food and exercise.
If you don’t already know about the MyPyramid it’s an updated version of the old U.S. Food Guide Pyramid. The different colors stand for the different food groups and how much you need from each of them. Orange stands for grains, green for vegetables, red for fruits, yellow for oils and fats, blue for dairy, and purple for meats, beans, fish, and poultry.
Also you can tell from the picture that all the colors are different widths. For example green is a lot wider than yellow because you need lots of vegetables every day, but you should limit how much oils and fats you have. The reason why all these colors are there is because you need to choose a variety of foods from each group. Also the figure going up the steps alongside the colors is a reminder to get daily exercise. Teen girls should get at least 60 minutes of exercise every day. I like riding my bike, taking my dogs for walks, and playing badminton. Do any of you girls have fun exercises you like to do?
Sometimes I find it hard to get enough fruits every day. If you have a blender at home making a smoothie is a great way to get your “red” colors! This is one I particularly like:

Strawberry Smoothie:
2 cups ice cubes
3 cups fresh strawberries
3 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup cranberry juice

Be sure to use 100% real cranberry juice, not the sugary cocktail kind. Real cranberry juice is great for your urinary tract and helps keep you healthy. Strawberries are rich in Vitamin C and in phenols and antioxidants which protect the cell structures in your body.
Do you girls have any great healthy recipes you’d like to share?

Classic Cartoon Characters Revamped!

Hey Girls!
Have you heard about how some old cartoon characters are being redesigned for the 21st century? The cartoon character Strawberry Shortcake from the 1980s now looks quite different with tighter clothes, longer hair, bigger eyes, and lipstick. She also appears to be older than her past self, and instead of carrying around a calico cat she sports a cell phone. The pictures above show how incredibly different she looks from her 1980s character!

The Care Bears are going to be changed too. American Greetings is going to be putting out a new line of bears this fall which have less belly fat and longer eyelashes. But aren’t teddy bears supposed to have big bellies? Why are they promoting "thinner" bears?

Probably most of you don’t know the character Angelina Ballerina, but if you check out the pictures on the right you’ll notice what a different look she has now then she did in the 1980s. It seems to me that she has slimmed down a lot!

Even the teenage mutant ninja turtles will be changed by their creators, 4Kids Entertainment, so next year they will have bigger muscles in video games.

Walt Disney Company is even planning on changing Mickey Mouse! According to Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive, Mikey "needs to evolve to be relevant to new generations of kids."

Corporate owners of these fictional stars seem to think that their characters will sell more if they have an updated look for children of today, but still remind parents of the characters they grew up with. They think it will appeal to parent’s nostalgia to see the characters from old shows they used to watch and lead them to buy the character's products for their children.

What do you think? Will this marketing plan be a success? Was it a good idea to change these classic characters or should corporations have kept them as they were? Are corporations putting too much emphasis on slimness and looks? Let's here your thoughts on this girls!

New Moon Editor Julia guest posting here...

I just got word from our friends at 5 Resolutions that Claire Mysko's book for girls is out this week!

Claire writes:
"You're Amazing! A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self is based on the Girls Inc. "Supergirl Dilemma" study, which shows that girls are feeling increasing pressures to be perfect and please everyone. Perfectionism is a major source of girls' stress (60% of girls in the study reported that they often feel stressed), low-self-esteem, and poor body image. That's the bad news. The good news is that with the right tools and support systems, girls can learn to give up the quest to be "super" and start celebrating what makes them amazing. My hope is that this book will help to kick-off that celebration.I would like to say a big, big thanks to you, dear readers! Your support and kind words have meant so much to me. Speaking of amazing...you all fit the bill."

To kick things off, Claire is doing a book giveaway on her blog! She says: "Everyone who posts a comment about what makes them amazing is entered to win an autographed copy of the book. The contest runs through July 7th and you can enter here."

Awesome! We'd love to hear what you think of the book and your "what makes me amazing" comments on the New Moon Girls blog too!! :)

Video Contest with a Cash Prize for Kids!

Hey Girls! Do any of you enjoy making home videos? If you do check out this amazing opportunity! MeetMeAtTheCorner.org is a website dedicated to kids (ages 7-13), and is offering a two hundred and fifty dollar prize to whoever creates the best short video of a special summertime event or activity that happens in their hometown! This could be a festival, or a parade, or any kind of summer happening! You can click on the link above to watch a video podcast on how to make a documentary and get more instructions on the contest.

When you make your video it’s a good idea to use “voiceovers” once you’re done filming. In the voiceover you’ll be explaining what is going on in the video without actually being on camera, sort of like being the narrator of a story. There are tips on how to do voiceovers at the website. You need to have five voiceovers at the end of your footage which include:

1.) What and Where your event is.
2.) What the event is like and what kind of people attend it
3.) Why the event is held in your hometown
4.) What your favorite part of the event is
5.) And just anything else you can think of to say about the event!


The video you send in must be postmarked by August 31st, and it must be ten minutes or less. Also the video has to be submitted on a MiniDV tape. In addition to the two hundred fifty dollars the winner gets their video podcast added to the website, so everyone can view it! This is a great way to learn about documentaries and the community you live in. Go to summerinmytowncontest to read more about this exciting competition!