Meaningful presents require a personal touch

CFL greats open up about full effects of concussions

He remembers the four Grey Cup wins. He remembers his Hall of Fame teammates. He even remembers single plays he authored that changed the history of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers franchise and which fans still talk about more than 50 years later.

But what Canadian Football Hall of Fame quarterback Ken Ploen no longer remembers is what he did yesterday. The greatest Bombers player who ever lived has been diagnosed — like an alarming number of his aging CFL teammates — with dementia.

“He’s still in great health otherwise. We just had our checkups and the doctors say he has the heart of a 16-year-old,” says Janet Ploen, his wife of 55 years.

“He’s still able to get out and he’s still able to do things. It’s just that he doesn’t remember the experience the next day.”

Compartmentalized bentos are the go-to for school lunches

Brown bagged lunches are a thing of the past.

Once an esthetically pleasing trend piece, bento box-style lunch kits — Japanese-inspired containers with separate compartments for individual food items — have become the utilitarian star of the midday meal for many parents with school-aged kids.

Winnipeg dietitian Nita Sharda has had plenty of experience experimenting with different kits and cases while packing lunch for her two young sons through preschool and, now, elementary school.

She’s a fan of bento boxes for their ease of use and ability to pack a variety of foods.

Canada's Conners and Hughes once again teammates

When Mackenzie Hughes and Corey Conners were selected to represent Canada in men's golf at the Tokyo Olympics, they didn't really become teammates — the close friends have been working together for years.

In fact, the pair have been teammates at every level of golf, even functioning as pseudo-teammates on the PGA Tour, practising together with a revolving roster of Canadians every week. Conners said that the familiarity between him and Hughes will be a benefit in the 60-player, no-cut field at the Tokyo Olympics.

"We know each other's game really well, we're really comfortable around one another," said Conners. "I think that's going to be really helpful. You know as much as golf an individual sport, you know we're cheering for one another."

The pair first met as adolescents, playing in a tournament at Conners's home course in Listowel, Ont. They were then teammates on Golf Canada's men's young pro squad in 2015 and 2016, before playing together again at Kent State University.

A balancing act

Life sometimes seems like a balancing act in an effort to juggle kids, careers, aging parents and endless other responsibilities. Throw in a global pandemic and we teeter even closer to tipping the scales.or Karen Duncan, associate professor in the University of Manitoba’s community health sciences department, paid work is important — but so, too, is leisure time.“People are experiencing a lack of balance among these activities in their lives and it can lead to a number of negative outcomes such as lower satisfaction with family, relationships and life in general,” she said.“It’s also been shown to have negative health effects such as stress, poor sleep, depression and poor coping mechanisms such as addictive behaviour. If I’m not paying attention to this, I could be on the road to some serious health difficulties.”For those in the 40-plus demographic, it’s often a life stage filled with many demands.“There may be children who need attention or older family members who need increasing levels of care. There may be financial stresses. Work itself can be demanding because it’s a time when people are looking to advance their careers,” Duncan said.“I think work-life balance has been much more difficult in the pandemic for people in this demographic. It’s phenomenally difficult trying to continue your paid work while you are taking care of your children, particularly for single parents.”Katherine Breward, associate professor in the University of Winnipeg’s business department, said persistently high stress will lead to burnout typified by diminished personal achievement, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization — and all of these things can negatively impact the work environment.Beyond that, Breward said a lack of work-life balance disrupts life in other undesirable ways that can lead to family conflicts, anxiety, guilt and a lack of availability to family members.“I think it is important that these personal emotional and social impacts on the broader family are recognized in addition to business impacts,” she said, adding that changes to expectations for parenting styles might also contribute to the problem.“There is a lot of research that suggests females are more negatively impacted by work-life issues than men (although both are affected), due primarily to ongoing gender-related imbalances in childcare and domestic work responsibilities.”For those sandwiched in the middle of competing demands, self-care is a good place to start — although Breward acknowledges it might not always be possible due to time constraints.“Really, though, the help needs to come more from employers. We need to have more realistic workplace expectations, paid sick and mental health days and paid days off for family care,” she said.“Offering flextime can really help since it gives people more flexibility to attend to family appointments and other needs. Work-from-home options can also help if people have a suitable space in which to work.”Although there’s a tendency to put responsibility on individuals, Duncan agrees employers have a role to play.“Research shows employers incur costs when their employees are experiencing work-life conflict. There’s a real bottom-line incentive for employers to have policies in place that are going to be helpful to their employees’ work-life balance,” she said.“It’s so tempting to think of this as an individual thing but, really, it’s societal. Work-life balance is not a luxury for those who can afford it — it is essential for everyone.”Karen Duncan, associate professor in the University of Manitoba’s health sciences department 

Life sometimes seems like a balancing act in an effort to juggle kids, careers, aging parents and endless other responsibilities. Throw in a global pandemic and we teeter even closer to tipping the scales.

or Karen Duncan, associate professor in the University of Manitoba’s community health sciences department, paid work is important — but so, too, is leisure time.