Patients are being turned away, stuck on waiting lists and put off by cost, BBC analysis suggests.

We’ve been fans of Lizzo for years, and watching her fanbase grow as she hits new strides in her career is endlessly satisfying. We love her openness about mental health and body image. But even Lizzo isn’t immune to internet trolls, as she proved on the latest edition of Jimmy Kimmel’s “Mean Tweets.” And, of course, she flawlessly shut down a body-shaming tweet in a matter of mere seconds.

RELATED: Lizzo Is Feeling Good as Hell as She Flaunts Her Cleavage in This Amazing Strapless Bra

RELATED: Why Tess Holliday Responds to 'Disgusting' Comments With Love

Lizzo read the 2014 tweet in question, which said, “Lizzo. Bus passes and happy meals. Two things that I imagine Lizzo has seen a lot of.” In response, the “Truth Hurts” singer laughed and delivered the most stunning clapback we could imagine.

She said, “Yeah, I’m a big bitch, and I ride a bus. A tour bus, motherfucker. Where’s yours?”

Applause. All. Around.

Check out the clip in its entirety, which features other musicians like Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, Billie Eilish, and more responding to mean tweets by social media trolls in a truly hilarious fashion.

RELATED: Katie Sturino Claps Back at Trolls Who Shamed Both Her and Meghan Markle’s Bodies

Lizzo has made it her mission to shut down narrow stereotypes of beauty and health, hoping to change the conversations around these important topics.

So, we’re not at all surprised to see that Lizzo is totally unbothered by this troll. But her own body positivity was hard won, as she told CBS Sunday Morning back in October.

“When I’m looking at my body and I’m shaming every little thing about it, I have to look at all of those things that I’m shaming, and I have to find love in those things. And I think that is why I’m able to call myself fat.”

She added, "I can also feel healthy and still be fat. I can be healthy and be fat. I can be beautiful and be fat. I can be beautiful and all of those things. And I think it's because I learned to actually look all of my insecurities in the face, call them by their name, and fall in love with them."

To the chart-topper and Vogue UK and Playboy cover model, we say, keep doing what you’re doing, because these are the messages and vibes so many of us need right now. As for the internet trolls, boy bye. Keep it moving.

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This article originally appeared on HelloGiggles.com

Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb revealed their weights to millions of viewers Monday, when they stepped on the scale during a live taping of Today with Hoda and Jenna—but the two actually ended up inspiring women across the internet.

The purpose of their joint weigh-in? An experiment with intermittent fasting—specifically the 16:8 diet, in which you don’t eat solid foods for about 16 hours a day (but can eat whatever you want for the other eight).

After admitting they had been “stressing out” about weighing themselves on live television, Bush Hager and Kotb removed their shoes and weighed themselves while the cameras were rolling.

RELATED: Hoda Kotb: "Suddenly Life's Not So Scary"

“Okay, I haven’t done this in a long time,” the 37-year-old former first daughter confessed. “It’ll be fine.”

The two women held hands, trying not to look down before stepping on the scale. “It’s like jumping off a cliff,” Bush Hager joked. In order to make sure that both the scales were working properly, they switched scales at one point.

The final result? Kotb weighed in at 158 pounds and Bush Hager at 171 pounds. “This is why I don’t really weigh myself,” Bush Hager admitted. “I think I weigh twice as much as my sister. Like, two Barbaras could fit in me.”

RELATED: Savannah Guthrie Discusses Her Journey With Self-Acceptance: 'It’s a Lifelong Struggle for Me'

But here’s the thing: When Today with Hoda and Jenna’s Instagram account posted pictures showing the two sharing their weights with the world, they got an overwhelming amount of support from women praising them for being so brave and honest about women’s bodies.

“Love y’all!! This makes me so happy to see that you are real like the rest of us!” wrote one user. Another shared, “Good luck ladies but you always look beautiful!!! I also applaud you for being so open and honest.

Still others applauded Kotb and Bush Hager for normalizing talking about weight in a public space. “So love this! Thanking [sic] for making us feel more normal with our weight,” wrote one user. Another added that Kotb and Bush Hager “did a good thing for those of us who were weight shamed.”

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In 2011, I heard a statistic that 50 percent of black women are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. It just so happened that I was teaching fifth grade at the time, and those were the women-to-be in my classroom.

I couldn’t sit by as their futures were threatened by this silent health crisis. And so, I started taking girls hiking on Saturdays. Each time, we walked and talked about things that might be a barrier to them living their healthiest lives. At the same time, my best friend, Vanessa Garrison, was grappling with women in her family dying too early. I knew we had to do something bolder and more transformative.

Read more stories about innovative and inspirational women, check out our Wellness Warriors series 

Vanessa and I set an audacious goal to get 1 million women to walk—to improve their own health, to create a new culture of health for their families, to inspire their daughters, and to take back their neighborhoods. We invited 532 friends on our combined email lists to walk with us.

Walking is the single most powerful thing you can do for your health. Walking 30 minutes a day, five days a week reduces most chronic disease by half. Each time we walk, we also combat loneliness and isolation, and build community, friendship, and culture.

RELATED: Your Walking Speed Can Tell You How Fast You're Aging

This is how GirlTrek was born. And not only do we organize walks but we also audit the needs of our neighborhoods as we walk. “Oh, we could put a garden there.” “There really needs to be a traffic stop here.” Or: “This mother has lost her son. Let’s walk and talk with her while she grieves.”

The more we walked, the more word spread. Today, with more than 270,000 members, we’re one of the largest public health nonprofits for African American women and girls in the U.S., and we aspire to reach 1 million members in the near future.

RELATED: These Are the Best Walking Workouts, According to Fitness Experts

When we are asked who’s in GirlTrek, we say: It’s rowdy college students, it’s the lunch lady, it’s all the women on the church pew—it’s everybody working together.

Our national team walked 100 miles on parts of the Underground Railroad, inspired by the footsteps of Harriet Tubman. But I find it rewarding when women have their own quiet breakthroughs, like a woman who’s gotten up and walked by herself every single morning for a year, and on the 365th day, she tweets about it.

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The leftovers from a spectacular supernova that revolutionised our understanding of how stars end their lives have finally been spotted by astronomers at Cardiff University.

Down syndrome, due to an extra chromosome 21, occurs in 250,000 children and adults in the United States, making it the country’s most common chromosomal disorder. Inherited heart defects, thyroid cancer, celiac disease and developmental disabilities are common Down syndrome complications. Only recently has catatonia, a behavioral condition marked by new onset immobility, mutism, withdrawal and other behavioral abnormalities, been recognized in Down syndrome.

Genetic analyses have revealed remarkably higher species diversity in common red seaweed than previously assumed. It was thought that there were only five related species of the Gloiopeltis genus (known as ‘funori’ in Japanese) worldwide. However, genetic analyses of historic and modern specimens have revealed that there are over ten in Japan alone. The reinstatement of the species Gloiopeltis compressa (new Japanese name: Ryukyu-funori) was proposed by this research. It is found in Okinawa and has previously been confused with other species of Gloiopeltis.

Could your chosen profession determine the health of your heart?

It could certainly have an influence, new research suggests.

Surprising findings

Scientists analysed data from more than 65 000 postmenopausal women in the United States and found that several jobs were associated with poor heart health.

Compared to women with other jobs, the risk of poor heart health was: 36% higher in social workers; 33% higher in retail cashiers; 16% higher in health care providers, especially in the fields of nursing, psychiatry and home health aides; and 14% higher in registered nurses.

“Several of the professions that had high risk of poor cardiovascular health were health care providers, such as nurses and home health aides,” said study author Bede Nriagu, a research fellow in epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University’s School of Public Health, in Philadelphia.

“This is surprising because these women are likely more knowledgeable about cardiovascular health risk factors,” he added.

No cause-and-effect link

“We interpret this to mean that it’s important to look beyond individual factors, such as health knowledge, to better understand the context of health care and other jobs that negatively impact cardiovascular health in women,” Nriagu said in an American Heart Association news release.

The study also found that the risk of poor heart health was 24% lower among real estate brokers and sales agents, and 11% lower among administrative assistants than among those with other jobs.

The findings help pinpoint which women might benefit from workplace health programmes to improve heart health, the researchers noted. They were scheduled to present their findings at the American Heart Association annual meeting, in Philadelphia. Such research should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

The findings do suggest that a woman’s job is an important factor in her heart health, Nriagu said, although the study did not prove a cause-and-effect link. Doctors may want to ask their female patients about their occupation, to identify those at high risk for heart problems, he suggested.

^{Image credit: iStock}

Poorly run meetings can be an intensely negative experience. They also cost companies millions of rands in lost productivity annually. There’s enough research to prove it – yet little is being done to change the situation. Ask anyone how they really feel about work meetings, and most would say they’re miserable, dreadful, annoying, and basically just a waste of time.

However, according to ground-breaking claims by researchers from the University of Malmö in Sweden, the true purpose of meetings is to provide an outlet for employees to express what’s on their mind.

Professor Patrik Hall, a political scientist and one of the researchers, said that work meetings have become increasingly frequent in recent years, because of an increasing emphasis on “management” and “strategy”. But more meetings don’t actually generate more decisions – which prompted Hall to investigate the apparent contradiction.

Poorly planned

According to Hall, the larger number of meetings is due to a general increase in managerial positions, whose functions are sometimes vague, and where “the hierarchy is not that clear”.

“Many managers don’t know what to do,” Hall added, and when there’s uncertainty, they simply respond to it by arranging more meetings. It boils down to people enjoying talking, as it helps them define their role.

According to online meeting service provider Fuze, unproductive meetings are costing the global economy an estimated $37 billion (± R547 billion) each year. Fuze further notes that people spend up to four hours per week preparing for status update meetings, while executives consider more than 67% of meetings to be failures.

In another survey of 3 164 workers, meetings were found to be the number one time-waster at the office, with employees reporting feeling drained and fatigued, and that little or no work was actually accomplished during the rest of the day.

This is largely due to employees multitasking during meetings, or being ill-prepared, with a lack of structure and planning. Some remote attendees of meetings can also find it difficult to remain engaged when connected by telephone.

Opportunity to complain

Although it’s a concern when employees end up spending half their working hours in meetings and that these meetings essentially “arouse feelings of meaninglessness”, Hall says many people are missing the point.

The true function of meetings, particularly long ones, is that they’re “almost therapeutic” and give employees an opportunity to complain, and also be acknowledged by colleagues, argues Hall.

Stop the negative attitude

Most people sitting in meetings that drag on can lose patience – and as a result, meetings can end up becoming unnecessarily “maligned”, with employees questioning why they have to be endured, says Hall.

If regular meetings seem pointless to you, your negative attitude could be as a result of a lack of understanding of their real purpose. It’s not about decision-making, but asserting the authority of the organisation, so that employees are reminded that they are part of it, explains Hall.

Doing it right

All companies rely on meetings as an essential component of business, and a world without meetings would be seriously problematic. But when attendees have no idea why they’re really there, it ends up making everyone feel miserable. It is only a well-planned meeting that can yield really positive, actionable results.

In the words of Steven Rogelberg, Professor of Organizational Science, Management, and Psychology at UNC Charlotte: “The elimination of bad meetings is the true goal.”

To get this right, Hall suggests booking rooms for shorter periods and to focus on the equality of all participants.

“When you have meetings with colleagues at the same level, as professionals, you get to discuss different issues that interest you,” he said.

Meetings done right are incredible opportunities for inclusion, but when they’re dominated by different levels of status, the situation isn’t improved and can potentially lead to “power struggles”, leaving participants feeling frustrated and irritated.

The mind is a very powerful tool in our arsenal, and it can either heal us, or destroy us. In an effort to protect us, it can disconnect (called ‘dissociation’) experiences of traumatic events so that they cannot be fully accessed. And these disconnected, unconscious memories can, in the long run, be detrimental to our health.

Thankfully, there are various methods different types of experts can use to analyse and treat ailments of the mind, with certain approaches working better for some people than others. Psychotherapy is one of these approaches, but what exactly is it?

Psychotherapy, also known as ‘talk therapy’, involves a psychotherapist using a range of techniques to help a client overcome chronic discomfort, gain insight, and achieve personal growth.

There are numerous approaches to this type of therapy, and Spontaneous Healing Intra-systemic Process (SHIP®), a South African product, is one of them, Dr Jo Steenkamp, author of the SHIP® Foundation, explains.

This form of therapy that facilitates a space of trust, respect, validation and patience, focuses on psychobiological (emotional and physical), as opposed to psychological, healing when dealing with trauma. 

Trauma, Steenkamp says, is when something happens that becomes an experience at your expense, and you can’t do anything to change or stop that.

“It’s a sense of powerlessness or defencelessness to change the outcome of the extremely uncomfortable situation. Your normal ‘fight/flight’ brain-stem reaction, at the expense of the experience, cannot complete its cycle, and so, this incomplete psychobiological cycle becomes frozen and stays on hold inside of your neural system, and does not disappear until you allow it to complete its cycle.

“Think of a wave that’s crashing as it develops into the process of its formation, and halfway through it freezes. And so, what we do in this particular type of psychotherapy, is create a space where that wave can complete its intended motion.”

Dealing with trauma

There are two main types of trauma, Steenkamp explains, namely developmental trauma that is mainly associated with the first nine years of childhood, and current or shock/acute trauma which is mostly related to current experiences, such as an armed robbery or an accident. 

“Both of these traumas can be part of the formation of a trauma-chain in your system, where different incomplete overwhelming experiences link into each other. Incomplete experiences imply that they are ‘on-hold’ and you cannot live your life completely,” Steenkamp explains.

When it’s in its frozen state in the neural system, one way it manifests is when it starts giving you chronic discomfort, or ‘chronic dis-ease’, which can manifest in the form of migraines, ulcers, anxiety, etc.

“The second way the dialogue manifests is through interpersonal interactions, especially in work and intimate relationships. The dialogue creates an awareness in you through recurring feelings of discomfort, such as you not feeling good enough; or that things do not work out the way it’s supposed to. It can also cause chronic isolation and finding it hard to trust people,” Steenkamp adds.

‘Humans have a natural spontaneous healing’

According to the SHIP® philosophy, everyone has a natural ability to be “whole” and “in flow”, which is the result of an internal process of autonomic regulation.

“For example, when you breathe or digest food, you’re not thinking about it, because it’s autonomic,” says Steenkamp.

“And your system is always in process of returning you to your flow state. Should you go out of that flow, the dysregulation manifests as a short-term spike pattern that is again regulated through the brain-stem towards your natural flow.”

With trauma, however, you’re continuously dysregulated out of your flow, says Steenkamp, and unfortunately the person tries to stop these spike spontaneous healing reactions. This ‘moving away’ from such reactions is mainly because the person feels a sense of out control when the release happens.

Essentially, it’s non-education that causes people to remain dissociated from their spontaneous healing process, Steenkamp says. “It’s because we’re taught to smile and show our ‘coping face’ to the world, that we are dissociated from a natural process, and therein lies the problem.”

How trauma is addressed

There are different stages of psychotherapy and in SHIP®, the psychotherapist is a mere facilitator of the client’s healing process, Steenkamp says.

“The focus is to hold clients in a healing space wherein the psychobiological spontaneous healing reactions release of their own accord. Spontaneous healing is the opening of the dissociated memories through the telling of the untold frozen story of trauma, so the previous frozen wave ‘unfreezes’ through such spontaneous healing reactions and completes its natural sequence. 

“Once the complete psychobiological dialogue of the previous disconnected memories is released (it is not a cognitive management technique), the therapy concludes with an integration phase to ensure that there are no longer activation triggers,” says Steenkamp.

Is psychotherapy for everyone?

“The best person for psychotherapy is a motivated person,” says Steenkamp.

“It is someone who wants to get their life into flow again, free of those uncomfortable dis-eases that negatively affect their quality of life.“

The Foundation’s website indicate that it can be helpful in the following scenarios, problems and chronic dis-eases, among others: 

Psychotherapy and medication 

Steenkamp says that about 50% of clients are on some or other prescribed medication for their psychobiological condition, but that this is not a problem for psychotherapists as they understand that it plays a role modulating the client’s flow pattern so that they can adapt to the stressful life they are experiencing. 

It only becomes problematic when the client is so over-medicated that the therapist can’t get through to them, adds Steenkamp. 

Becoming a therapist

To apply for training at the SHIP® Foundation, candidates must be registered as either a Clinical, Counselling or Educational Psychologist with the HPCSA. 

Is there evidence on the effectiveness of psychotherapy?

According to the American Psychiatric Association, about 75% of people who enter psychotherapy show some benefit from it. 

Steenkamp’s latest book, An Integrated Theory & Psychotherapy for Trauma-spectrum Manifestations is a compilation of 34 years of research and practical experience in the field, and includes international research that confirms the work.

However, it’s important to note that, in the words of Steenkamp, “There are certain kinds of psychotherapies for certain kinds of people under certain conditions.”

For it to be successful, you have to be prepared to look your inner trauma-demons in the eye – if you are unwilling to be actively engaged, it will not benefit you.

^{Image: Lorenzo Antonucci/Getty}

Zakiyah Ebrahim