Huge investments, product placements and competitive retail strategies are spurring the wellness industry.

Beauty and India are almost synonymous. With brand India going places, Indian beauty brands are also eyeing the global market and also creating greater demand in the domestic market.

With that in mind, beauty and wellness majors Shahnaz Husain Herbals and VLCC have announced big expansion plans and are looking at investing anything between Rs 150-300 crore within the next three years.

Even though Shahnaz Husain admits to having lost “leader place” in the beauty products segment in India, hers is the only Indian company to find place in UK’s Harley Street where she recently opened the Shahnaz Ayurveda Aesthetic clinic.

With almost 100 overseas centres, she now plans to open a chain of Shahnaz Forever Beautiful lifestyle shops across Britain and with the estimated $100 million turnover a year, that shouldn’t be a very tough task. The company is in talks with three foreign companies for further investments.

The influx of foreign brands and even Indian herbal and ayurvedic brands dismounted Shahnaz Husain Herbals from the number one position in the country. And though the upper crust is still their target market, they now want to address the masses.

“We are going to relaunch Shahnaz Forever by rebranding it as a mass market product. We are also going to launch Miss Shahnaz for the younger generation and another range called Oops 6 to 16 for the same age group as well as a shampoo called KlearOne,” discloses Shahnaz Husain, chairperson, Shahnaz Husain Group.

Meanwhile, VLCC’s expansion is targeting organised retail space, looking at setting up 450 beauty zones across the country by 2010 with an investment of about Rs 300 crore. The beauty zones will be a combination of products and services.

“We may be tying up with a foreign colour cosmetic brand to distribute their products at our beauty zones,” says Sandeep Ahuja, CEO, VLCC Personal Care.

Having already received two fundings of Rs 50 crore each from private equity firms, the company will pitch in the rest from its own pocket.

A major emerging market for Indian beauty products is the GCC including UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. VLCC has already tested waters in Abu Dhabi, where it launched its seventh outlet earlier this year besides the existing outlets in Sharjah and Dubai.

By the end of this fiscal, the company promises its presence in 15 locations across the GCC including Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and even centres in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Shahnaz Husain Herbals is also bringing under its umbrella countries that include the UK, Russia and Korea. Incidentally, the launch of the brand in Korea was preceded by the signing of a $11 million agreement.

Interestingly, while VLCC launched its health foods under VLCC Alive and opened VLCC Alive outlets, Shahnaz Husain is now thinking of opening a kind of mini mall cafe, which she promises will be a unique concept for India.

“The cafes I am planning will sell not coffee alone but coffee, chocolate and tea-based creams, masks and rinses and books, gifts and a line of clothing... similar to what I wear,” smiles Husain.

The national debate sparked by broadcaster Don Imus' use of the term "nappy-headed hos" to describe black players on the Rutgers women's basketball team has raised an unintended, seldom-discussed question:

How have African-American women maintained their femininity and sense of beauty after centuries of dehumanization?

They survived the inhumanity of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the indignity of being separated from their families on slave auction blocks. They endured abuse and rape by slave masters and overcame the injustice of being bred and worked like animals. During segregation and after desegregation, they suffered doubly for being black and female in a culture that esteemed neither.

More recently, the physical attributes historically possessed by black women were deemed undesirable by America's wider society - until women of other ethnic groups began to exhibit them. Cornrows weren't chic until Bo Derek got them, curvaceous derrieres weren't sexy until Jennifer Lopez came along, and full lips were unattractive until Angelina Jolie's kissers showed up and sparked a cottage industry of lip-plumping potions.

Black women are least likely to be perceived as attractive and worthy of respect, some observers say, which may be why groups ranging from black rap artists to black comedians to white radio hosts have no problem denigrating them.

And the darker her skin and the kinkier her hair, it seems, the less she is valued.

"The truth of the matter is, black women in general are almost demonized, both by African-American men and the greater culture," said former fashion journalist Roy Campbell, a book author and celebrity event planner with offices in Philadelphia and Miami. Campbell and others perceive the marginalization of black women in the fashion and beauty industry as a reflection of general lack of appreciation of black women's beauty in wider society.

"Imus showed that regardless of accomplishments and achievements, in the minds of so many whites, we are still nappy-headed black folks, period," he said.

When Sudan-born model Alek Wek emerged on the international fashion stage in 1995, many Americans beheld her Hershey complexion and short, kinky hair and pronounced her ugly.

Although Wek still enjoys a successful modeling career, black models with her skin tone and hair texture seldom get high-profile work and are not the cover subjects for mainstream U.S. fashion magazines or the faces in fragrance and cosmetics ads.

On the other hand, the black women who enjoy the greatest prominence in the industry - Beyonce, Halle Berry, Liya Kebede, for example - nearly always are fair-skinned with smooth hair.

Washington Post fashion editor Robin Givhan, who last year became the first journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for fashion criticism, described a "weird display" at the Givenchy fall 2006 fashion preview in Paris.

The show opened with six black models wearing black outfits and black accessories, some carrying black luggage-like bags. They were followed by white models and were not seen again in the show.

"I joked with someone about the black girls, saying, 'Were they the porters?' " said Givhan, who is black. "My guess is that the designer, Riccardo Tisci, wanted to separate those pieces, the little black dresses that are so iconic to the label. He also, I'm guessing, wanted to show the accessories. Honestly, I don't think it got much more complicated than that in the designer's mind. I guarantee you that the designer didn't for one second think that what he was doing could be seen as offensive."

Routinely at New York Fashion Week, many womenswear designers hire only one black model, or none. BCBG's Max Azria is among a handful of designers who never send black models down their runways.

A conversation in Paris with a black booker for a modeling agency helped Givhan understand one of the reasons black models have trouble getting highly visible gigs.

"He said he was trying to get more black models work in Paris," she recalled. "The problem, he said, is that (magazine) editors and designers will say that if they put the clothes on black models, people don't notice the clothes, they notice the girl - as if the sight of a black model is so rare and distracting that people will gawk."

Even as they grapple with social obstacles and cultural oppression, black women revel in their beauty. From hair and makeup to clothes and accessories, everything is meticulously maintained to present an image of loveliness that time and adversity have been unable to erode.

Many of the high-profile groups and individuals who successfully pressured NBC to fire Imus are turning their outrage toward the hip-hop music industry and rappers who persistently denigrate women.

Oprah Winfrey, who has verbally sparred with black rappers about the issue in the past, recently devoted two days of her hugely popular talk show to the topic. And in the May issue of Essence, author Jill Nelson criticizes how black comedians - Flip Wilson, Jamie Foxx, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Tyler Perry - have donned drag and presented demeaning images of black women for decades.

"I will not, I repeat, I will not, pay my $9 to see 'Norbit,' Mr. Murphy's latest movie, in which he portrays an obese, dark-skinned, boorish black woman," said eBay style director Constance White, a former fashion journalist who has dark skin and wears her hair naturally kinky.

"How can we see as funny a man - a black man, at that - playing a black woman as ugly, vulgar and just a huge joke? What the Imus debacle has brought about, whether permanent or temporary, is a look at what roles blacks themselves play in depicting black women as less than beautiful, less than alluring, less than sexy. Racism is systemic and systematic in America, but that doesn't mean we should be perpetrators."

Families victimized by tainted spinach and peanut butter put a human face Tuesday on a recent string of high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illness, urging lawmakers to strengthen federal oversight of the nation's food supply.

"I can't protect them from spinach _ only you guys can. I can't," said Michael Armstrong, as he and wife, Elizabeth, cradled daughters Ashley, 2, and Isabella, 5.

The two girls fell ill _ Ashley gravely _ in September after eating a salad made with a triple-washed bag of the leafy greens contaminated by E. coli.

That and other incidents of contamination have raised questions not only about the U.S. food supply but efforts by the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies to keep it safe.

"I hope these hearings will help alert the American people, Congress and the administration to the seriousness of this issue. If it is not taken seriously, these kinds of poisonings can, and will, happen again. Food poisonings will happen to you, to me and to our children and our pets," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. "The American people expect and deserve better from its government."

Also testifying was Gary Pruden, whose 11-year-old son Sean was seriously sickened in November by E. coli after eating at a Taco Bell restaurant. Pruden said a key element of trade and commerce is trust _ whether placed in accountants, airline pilots or auto mechanics.

"That is also extended to the trust in the food we order or buy from the grocery store _ that it's edible and safe. Without that trust, commerce cannot work. And where failure occurs, oversight is required," Pruden told the subcommittee.

The safety of food raised domestically was questioned anew last fall when officials traced a nationwide E. coli outbreak to contaminated spinach processed by Natural Selection Foods LLC. Three people died and nearly 200 others were sickened.

Testing put in place by the company since the outbreak has found 35 lots of spinach contaminated by E. coli, said Stupak, suggesting the problem is ongoing. Company president Charles Sweat later corrected Stupak to say despite those initial positive results, testing of finished spinach and other leafy green products did not find E. coli or salmonella.

"I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know what the wrong answer is: It is to continue doing what we're doing, when it's not working," Michael Armstrong later told Stupak when asked how the food safety system should be changed.

The popular Peter Pan brand of peanut butter was the subject of a nationwide recall in February after a salmonella outbreak. More than 400 people were sickened, and the recall cost manufacturer ConAgra Foods Inc. between $50 million and $60 million.

Terri Marshall said her mother-in-law, Mora Lou Marshall, has been hospitalized or in a nursing home since early January, after she became seriously ill from eating Peter Pan. The elder Marshall, 85, had kept a jar of the peanut butter on her nightstand to supplement her diet _ and had unwittingly continued to eat it, even after she fell ill.

"The very food she thought would improve her health had begun to ravage her body," Terri Marshall said.

Pet food has also had its problems. In March, Menu Foods recalled 60 million cans of dog and cat food after the deaths of 16 pets, mostly cats, that had eaten products contaminated with the chemical melamine. Other companies have since recalled pet foods also tainted by melamine, mixed in with ingredients imported from China.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, called on the Chinese to allow FDA inspectors visit the plants where the tainted ingredients were made. The agency has awaited letters from the government needed to obtain visas for its inspectors.

"My message, and I think the message of this subcommittee on a bipartisan basis, to the Chinese government is plain: stop these shenanigans," Barton said.

Later, Sweat, joined by officials from ConAgra, Menu Foods and importer ChemNutra Inc., expressed their sympathy, sadness, sorry and support for victims of the outbreaks.

"I don't see the latest string of incidents as aberrations. It's become a systemic problem and it calls for systemic solutions," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. Degette has introduced legislation that would give the FDA and Agriculture Department the authority to mandate recalls.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Canadians are opting for fast food instead of fruits and vegetables and generally don’t have a balanced diet, according to a new study.

Statistics Canada released the Canadian Community Health Survey: Nutrition on Thursday, the first national survey of dietary habits since the early 1970s and the largest survey ever conducted of what Canadians are eating.

Not only are Canadians skipping out on fruits and vegetables, they aren’t consuming enough milk products, and many are getting more than the recommended share of their calories from fat, the study found.

In 2004, 35,000 people were asked what they had eaten in the previous 24 hours, when they ate and where the food was prepared.

Overall, one-quarter of Canadians reported they had eaten something from a fast-food outlet in the last 24 hours. Among teenagers 14 to 18, the proportion was one-third. Men ages 19 to 30 were the most likely to get food on the go; 39 per cent of them had done so on the day they were interviewed.

To be fair, those who frequented a fast-food outlet could have ordered a cup of coffee or even a salad, but the survey found 40 per cent opted for a pizza, sandwich, hamburger or hot dog and a quarter of the respondents had a regular, not diet, soft drink to wash it down.

Those numbers support the indication that Canadians seem to be ignoring the advice of the Canada Food Guide, which separates food into four groups (fruits and vegetables, milk products, meat and alternatives and grain products) and has an added "other foods" category that covers fats, oils, sugar, snack foods, beverages and condiments.

The Food Guide recommends that "other foods" be consumed in moderation, but the survey found that after grain products, "other foods" ranks second as the top energy provider, supplying 22 per cent of daily calories for both children and adults.

Canadians are supposed to have a minimum of five daily servings of fruits and vegetables according to the Guide but about half of adults are falling short of meeting that target. Only 20 per cent are eating four to five servings and seven out of 10 children aged 4 to 8 are not meeting the five-serving standard.

When it comes to drinking milk or eating milk products, children and young teens are doing well. However, as Canadians age, that consumption appears to drop according to the data. A majority of seniors—about 80 per cent of men and women aged 71 or older—have less then the recommended two daily servings. Consumption of grain products also declines with age, the study found — and women are much more likely than men to fall short of the recommended level.

Men like their meat though, according to the study, while women eat far less of it. The Food Guide recommends 100 to 300 grams of cooked meat per day and about one in four men exceeds that on a daily basis. Almost no women consume more than 300 grams a day.

Canadians are within acceptable ranges for protein, carbohydrate and fat as sources of energy but the study notes that there are a few too many who exceed the recommended fat consumption. More than a quarter of Canadians between ages 31 and 50 are above the acceptable level and according to the survey findings, they’re getting the fat from a relatively small number of foods. Pizza, subs, burgers and hot dogs account for 15.9 per cent of fat intake, followed by cake, cookies and doughnuts.

It was Canadians with the highest incomes that were more likely to exceed the recommended fat consumption. A quarter of adults in the highest income households get more than 35 per cent of their total calorie intake from fat compared to 15 per cent in the lowest income households. That could be because they were also more likely to have eaten at a fast food outlet and the study also found they were eating fewer fruits and vegetables than people in the lower income households.

The nutrition study broke down the data by province and found in general Canadian diets are similar from coast to coast but did find some notable differences:

• When it comes to fruits and vegetables, 79 per cent of children in the Atlantic provinces are not eating enough, compared to 51 per cent in Quebec;

• But it’s only 26 per cent of kids aged 4 to 9 in the Atlantic provinces that aren’t consuming the recommended amount of milk products, compared to 37 per cent nationally;

• Quebec residents get a smaller proportion of their calories from snacks than other regions — 20 per cent for adults, compared to 26 in the Atlantic provinces. (Twenty-three per cent is the national average);

• Quebecers also eat less fast food than other Canadians, 18 per cent compared to 25 per cent. Ontarians were above average with 29 per cent of adults reporting they had eaten at a fast-food outlet in the previous 24 hours.


© CanWest News Service 2006

James F. Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health, will be the first recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (AChemS), an international body of scientists that advances understanding of the senses of taste and smell. Researchers are working to learn more about taste and smell because these senses can have a major impact on a person’s quality of life, food preferences, diet, and overall health. The newly created award, to be conferred on special occasions, recognizes individuals “with a record of outstanding service to the chemical senses research community.”

“As director of the NIDCD, Dr. Battey has moved far beyond the role of administrator by his genuine interest in the chemical senses,” said Dr. Diego Restrepo, president-elect of AChemS, citing Dr. Battey’s participation at international meetings, his leadership in trans-NIH scientific efforts such as NIH’s Knockout Mouse Project, the stem cell research program, and his support of promising young investigators. “Dr. Battey is the perfect example of the outstanding scientific administrator — an astute scientist/administrator intimately engaged in the affairs of science,” Dr. Restrepo said.

“One of the most distinguished honors that a scientist can receive is the recognition of his or her peers,” said Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., director of the NIH. “James Battey’s ability to make significant contributions to the study of the chemical senses while effectively serving as director of the NIDCD demonstrates a rare combination of leadership and scientific expertise that have served the NIH well. In addition, during the time that he was chair of the NIH Stem Cell Task Force, Dr. Battey demonstrated extraordinary insight in advancing our knowledge about this exciting and challenging area of research.”

Dr. Battey received his B.S. degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology, and his M.D. and Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University School of Medicine. After receiving training in pediatrics, he pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in genetics at Harvard Medical School. Dr.Battey is widely recognized for his work on G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), a large family of proteins important in cell-to-cell communication, and integral to an array of physiological processes, including taste and smell. His laboratory is collaborating on a large-scale project to identify molecules that are important for taste. He has held a variety of positions at the NIH, including serving in the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and NIDCD, before being named director of the NIDCD in 1998.

Dr. Battey will receive the award during the opening ceremony at the AChemS annual meeting in Sarasota, Fla., on Wednesday, April 25, at 8:00 p.m. Scientists from around the world will be in attendance and will be presenting their latest research findings throughout the meeting.

The NIDCD supports and conducts research and research training on the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, smell taste, voice, speech and language and provides health information, based upon scientific discovery, to the public. For more information about NIDCD programs, see the Web site at www.nidcd.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH)

An analysis of nearly 300 umbilical cord blood samples led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that newborn babies are exposed to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) while in the womb. PFOS and PFOA are polyfluoroalkyl compounds (PFCs)—ubiquitous man-made chemicals used in a variety of consumer products, including as a protective coating on food-contact packaging, textiles and carpets, and in the manufacturing of insecticides. The health impact from exposure to these compounds is not fully known, but previous studies found these compounds could cause tumors and developmental toxicity in laboratory animals at doses much higher than those observed in the Hopkins study.

The analysis conducted in Baltimore, Md., detected PFOS in 99 percent of the infant samples examined and PFOA in 100 percent of those examined. The results are published in the April 20, 2007, online edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Some of the study’s findings were previously reported at the Society of Toxicology workshop held in February and at the International Conference on Environmental Epidemiology and Exposure held last September.

“When we began this research we weren’t sure what we would find, because previously there was very little information about fetal exposure to PFOS and PFOA. Even though these chemicals are not bioaccumulative in fat, they are very persistent, which probably accounts for their presence in nearly every newborn,” said Benjamin Apelberg, PhD, lead author of the study and a research associate in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology. Apelberg conducted this work as part of his doctoral research.

The researchers analyzed cord serum from 299 newborns delivered at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore between 2004 and 2005. The samples were tested for the presence of PFOS and PFOA and eight other polyfluoroalkyl compounds. PFOA was detected in all of the samples and PFOS in all but two of the samples. The concentrations for both compounds were lower than those typically detected in adults in the United States and lower than those known to cause tumors and developmental problems in laboratory animals; more study is needed to understand health effects at these lower exposure levels.

PFOS concentrations were slightly higher in Black and Asian infants compared to White infants, but no correlation was found between concentrations and the mother’s socioeconomic status, age, education, marital status or whether she lived within the city limits or not. In addition, the researchers found a strong correlation between concentrations of PFOS and PFOA even though the compounds come from different industrial sources. The finding suggests that humans may be exposed to both chemicals in a similar manner.

“This study confirms that, as we might have suspected, exposure to PFOS and PFOA is fairly universal; this is of particular concern because of the potential toxicity, especially developmental toxicity, for these chemicals and the lack of information about health risks at these exposure levels. What was surprising is how strongly they are associated with each other, given that they have very different uses. We will need additional research to understand how exposures are occurring in this region,” said Lynn Goldman, MD, co-author of the study and a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Addition study authors include Antonia M. Calafat, Julie B. Herbstman, Zsuzsanna Kuklenyik, Jochen Heidler, Larry Needham, Rolf U. Halden and Frank Witter. Heidler and Halden are with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Herbstman, formerly a doctoral student in epidemiology at the JHSPH is now at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and Witter is with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Calafat, Kuklenyik and Needham are with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The research was supported by funding from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Maryland Mothers and Babies Study, the Cigarette Restitution Fund, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and the Heinz Foundation.

Families victimized by tainted spinach and peanut butter put a human face Tuesday on a recent string of high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illness, urging lawmakers to strengthen federal oversight of the nation's food supply.

"I can't protect them from spinach. Only you guys can. I can't," said Michael Armstrong, as he and wife, Elizabeth, cradled daughters Ashley, 3, and Isabella, 5.

The two girls fell ill, Ashley gravely, in September after eating a salad made with a triple-washed bag of the leafy greens contaminated by E. coli.

That and other incidents of contamination have raised questions not only about the U.S. food supply but efforts by the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies to keep it safe.

"I hope these hearings will help alert the American people, Congress and the administration to the seriousness of this issue. If it is not taken seriously, these kinds of poisonings can, and will, happen again. Food poisonings will happen to you, to me and to our children and our pets," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. "The American people expect and deserve better from its government."

Also testifying was Gary Pruden, whose 11-year-old son Sean was seriously sickened in November by E. coli after eating at a Taco Bell restaurant. Pruden said a key element of trade and commerce is trust, whether placed in accountants, airline pilots or auto mechanics.

"That is also extended to the trust in the food we order or buy from the grocery store — that it's edible and safe. Without that trust, commerce cannot work. And where failure occurs, oversight is required," Pruden told the subcommittee.

The safety of food raised domestically was questioned anew last fall when officials traced a nationwide E. coli outbreak to contaminated spinach processed by Natural Selections LLC. Three people died and nearly 200 others were sickened.

A year before a deadly outbreak of E. coli in spinach, the FDA sent a letter to California growers expressing its "serious concern" over ongoing outbreaks of foodborne illness from that state's lettuce and spinach crops, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.

But a former FDA deputy commissioner says the agency is so understaffed it has little capacity to prevent outbreaks, even predictable ones.

"I think basically FDA right now is really not able to protect the safety of the food supply the way people expect," Michael Taylor, the former FDA deputy commissioner for policy, told CBS News.

The popular Peter Pan brand of peanut butter was the subject of a nationwide recall in February after a salmonella outbreak. More than 400 people were sickened, and the recall cost manufacturer ConAgra Foods Inc. between $50 million and $60 million.

Terri Marshall said her mother-in-law, Mora Lou Marshall, has been hospitalized or in a nursing home since early January, after she became seriously ill from eating Peter Pan. The elder Marshall, 85, had kept a jar of the peanut butter on her nightstand to supplement her diet — and had unwittingly continued to eat it, even after she fell ill.

"The very food she thought would improve her health had begun to ravage her body," Terri Marshall said.

Pet food has also had its problems. In March, Menu Foods recalled 60 million cans of dog and cat food after the deaths of 16 pets, mostly cats, that had eaten products contaminated with the chemical melamine. Other companies have since recalled pet foods also tainted by melamine, mixed in with ingredients imported from China.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, called on the Chinese to allow FDA inspectors visit the plants where the tainted ingredients were made. The agency has awaited letters from the government needed to obtain visas for its inspectors.

"My message, and I think the message of this subcommittee on a bipartisan basis, to the Chinese government is plain: stop these shenanigans," Barton said.

Witnesses slated to testify later Tuesday included officials from food manufacturers and distributors involved in the recent food recalls.

"I don't see the latest string of incidents as aberrations. It's become a systemic problem and it calls for systemic solutions," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. Degette has introduced legislation that would give the FDA and Agriculture Department the authority to mandate recalls.


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