Your Health: See fit, be fit

Quick take

Did you know the average dermatologist spends 4:08 minutes with each patient.

Body basics

If you see yourself as fit, you are more likely to become fit. Researchers found the more closely you tie physical activity to your identity, the longer you worked out. Tips for improving your mental image: post workouts in public forums, like Facebook, and buy workout-specific clothes.

FSA changes

Starting in January, you no longer will be able to pay for over-the-counter drugs, like cough medicine and aspirin, with your flexible spending accounts.

Tightening up the tax break on over-the-counter purchases will generate an estimated $5 billion in federal revenues through 2019, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The IRS has posted further details at www.irs.gov; type “over-the-counter medicines” into the search box.

Start the day right

Women's Health magazine recently compared various cereals to see which is the healthiest. The surprise? A bowl of Cheerios is healthier than one of Cracklin' Oat Bran, which has more sugar, fat and saturated fat. A lot of cereal packaging can hide the truth so make sure you look at the ingredients. Fiber, protein and vitamins are the good-guy ingredients. High amounts of sugar, fat or impossible-to-pronounce fillers give away the killers.

Food before sex

Women in the Philippines rank food a lot higher than their sex life among the main things that make them happy, according to a government survey.

Both Filipino men and women ranked family, health and religion in that order as the three most important things that made them happy, the National Statistical Coordination Board found in a poll.

Female respondents, however, put food in fifth place, just ahead of work. Love life came 10th and sex life at 18th, just one rank above the bottom. For men, love life figured in sixth place and sex life 10th, with food at ninth, Agence France-Presse reported.