Author: openjargon

• My son's father moved out of the house he lived in with me and our son. 
• I thought it would be the end of our relationship, but we still spend a lot of time together. 
• It was hard to know what to label our connection at first, but in the end, we're still family.

When my son's father moved out of the house we shared with our 3-year-old, he took his shoe collection, some pictures, and old Father's Day cards. Everything else, he left: his motorcycle, the air fryer his mother had bought us, the cigar box where he kept a stash of $20 bills. Even clothes, so many that I wondered what he planned to wear — until he came over the next day, took a shower, and put on a fresh T-shirt and shorts, as though nothing had changed.

I figured he was just taking time to adjust. I'd wait a few weeks, then have a candid conversation about boundaries. I told myself this until the toilet stopped flushing, and I called him frantically, wondering if there was any way he could come over that night to fix it.

We had told everyone we were breaking up. And so even as the weeks became months and we kept cooking meals together, checking in about minor life decisions, and showing up at each other's houses outside child drop-off times, we continued repeating the same story: that we had given it a good try, but failed. That we had once been a family, but now, we were not.

We continued to spend time together after we separated

What ensued was an odd kind of double life. He wasn't in the family Christmas card, but he was over for the entire holiday. I was a single mom, but my best friend just happened to be my son's father. It was hard to self-identify because every term I tried out seemed misrepresentative of our particular arrangement.

Part of the issue was that our arrangement ebbed and flowed. When I started dating someone, he and I had to negotiate expectations. We still saw each other, but we scheduled it a little more in advance — a planned weekly dinner with our son, rather than a spontaneous movie on a Wednesday night.

Even when neither of us was seeing anyone, we still sometimes crossed our own boundaries and got sick of each other. When this happened, we divided time with our son and did our own thing for a while. Two households cost more than one, but there were no other downsides to living apart. The benefits — space, and freedom — were huge and expansive, impossible to put a price on.

We didn't know how to label our relationship

It turns out, though, that society appreciates standardized labels for our relationships with the people with whom we have children. When registering our son for kindergarten, we discovered that because we did not have a shared address or a formal custody agreement, only one legal parent could be listed on the form. To be allowed to pick our son up from school, my son's father had to self-identify as a "relative or family friend."

This was annoying. But it also made me realize something. Three years after "separating," he and I were, in the simplest terms, relatives — family. We were partners to each other in most things concerning our son, and emotional and logistical partners in other ways, too. We took trips together. We bought each other things like coffee and laundry detergent. We texted every day. Sometimes, when we felt like it, we slept over.

We just weren't exclusive life partners in the way we'd tried to be before. We both spent more time pursuing independent friendships than when we had lived together in a somewhat claustrophobic home. We could each date if we wanted to, although most of the time, this didn't feel like a missing puzzle piece.

"Family" is what we call each other now. Partner, too, when it applies — or when it makes a bureaucratic phone call easier. "My son's dad," I say sometimes.

But ex-boyfriend? I haven't said those words about him for years. Because there's no "ex" about it — we're doing life together, apart. And we're grateful for it.

• If you've ever been frustrated that a customer service rep can't help, you may be a victim of an "accountability sink."
• Economist Dan Davies uses the term to describe how companies avoid responsibility by deferring decisions to algorithms.
• Davies says customer feedback is often ignored when tech is accountable for decisions.

It's one of every traveler's worst nightmares: You arrive at the boarding gate to be told your flight is overbooked and you've been bumped.

You complain at the counter — you have an important business meeting or you don't want to miss your friend's wedding. Can't they bump someone else?

However, the attendant tells you there's nothing they can do to help. Company policy is final.

While frustrating, the gate attendant is not at fault — and that's the whole point. Companies create algorithms to decide who is bumped from a flight, ensuring that the system's decision is final and no one employee is accountable.

It's an example of what economist Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink" in his new book "The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions — and How the World Lost its Mind."

Corporations absolve their employees of responsibility by delegating decision-making to an algorithm or deferring to company policy. No one person is empowered to make a judgment call, and the customer's frustrations are moot. It's not just at airlines; technology and an increased focus on streamlining processes to cut costs have allowed companies in all kinds of industries to create accountability sinks.

Davies told Business Insider that once a decision like bumping someone from a flight is made, "then it's just natural to create an accountability sink."

"You don't want any accountability there because you don't want to have pressure put on anyone to change the decision," Davies said.

While technology can optimize decision-making processes, it can also prevent customers from reaching someone with the power to make a decision that strays from the corporate script.

In the case of the sympathetic gate attendant telling the disgruntled customer, "'We've got a policy, there's nothing that can be done,'" Davies said, the customer's negative emotions are ignored and poured into a void — or an accountability sink.

"That's the situation that people find so incredibly frustrating," Davies said. "Because it's bad to have decisions go against you, but it's absolutely psychologically intolerable to feel like you're not being listened to."

Sorry, it's company policy

According to Davies, accountability sinks emerged over the past decades of privatization and technological innovation.

In the 1980s, he said, free-market capitalism and profit maximization became the norm, spearheaded by economist Milton Friedman and championed by Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK. Since then, companies have focused on profits, growth, and maximizing shareholder value, according to Davies, which in turn has created accountability sinks.

Following the technology boom of the 1990s, Davies said companies developed computer systems to make decisions for them because of the volume and complexity of information.

In addition, middle management and customer service jobs were cut or outsourced as corporations prioritized profits, optimizing costs, and delivering strong quarterly earnings.

"The big problem with cutting the feedback link is that you're cutting off all of your own sources of information," Davies said. "And so your customers can be getting steadily more and more annoyed with you, and you won't really know that."

In the case of the person at the airport, Davies said ideally, any customer bumped from a flight should be able to talk directly with an employee with some level of decision-making power.

"The answer is usually there are no more flights going, and there's nothing that can be done, but just simply having that experience of someone listening to you, in my view, is just really, really important," he said.

Of course, accountability sinks aren't just at the boarding gate. You may have experienced similar frustrations when calling your internet or cellphone provider, bank, or credit card company. It often looks like a customer service representative working within a system with limited options to help.

Accountability sinks can range from customer service to decision-making at major corporations. According to Davies, Boeing is a company rife with accountability sinks. The airline manufacturer is at the center of legal troubles stemming from two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019, and an incident in January when a Boeing 737 Max's door plug came off mid-flight.

Davies said decision-makers at Boeing have been too focused on share buybacks and optimizing costs in recent years while accountability sinks developed around manufacturing quality.

In March, when Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced his resignation, he told CNBC that Boeing had a "bad habit" of focusing too much on delivery time, which might have given the message that "the movement of the airplane is more important than the first-time quality of the product."

Nonetheless, Davies said accountability sinks will eventually catch up with companies.

"Over time, it degrades the brand, and the resentment builds up," he said. "At some point, there's just going to be this huge bump where you get back to reality, and all of the accountability you've been pouring into this sink for the last 10 years comes back and hits you in one massive lump."

Do you see accountability sinks elsewhere in life? This reporter wants to hear from you. Please reach out at jtowfighi@businessinsider.com.

• Former President Donald Trump is a driver's seat to reclaim the White House.
• In fact, he's in the position of any Republican presidential hopeful in over two decades.
• What's all the more remarkable is Trump has kept a lower profile of late.

Donald Trump is on a winning streak, which is all the more remarkable because he's barely played the game.

On Thursday night, CNN aired live footage of a podium. It was the exact kind of shot that got the cable news network harangued in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Only it wasn't a Trump rally. The former president has held few public events since the first debate on June 27.

President Joe Biden's debate performance was so disastrous that it supplanted Trump as the biggest story in politics, a rare occurrence since Trump descended the golden escalator at his namesake New York building in 2015 to kick off his first campaign. That's why CNN was airing a live shot of a presidential podium. Biden, whose remarks have rarely been carried live throughout his presidency, is now must-see TV. Unfortunately for him, it's only because every utterance risks potentially hurting his standing even more.

Trump is set to try to reclaim the spotlight in the days ahead. First, he will name his long-awaited vice presidential pick. Then, he will formally accept the Republican Party's presidential nomination at the national convention in Milwaukee.

Trump is the current favorite to win in November.

Trump can also afford to take time away. He's in the strongest position any Republican presidential hopeful has been in July since George W. Bush in 2000. His top campaign advisors boasted to The Atlantic that Trump could win in a blowout. Democrats are concerned that far-fetched possibility is now quite possible with political prognosticators putting New Hampshire and Minnesota into play. If the bottom falls out, Virginia, New Mexico, and Maine's two-statewide Electoral College votes could follow suit.

"President Biden has spent much of 2024 with a more challenging path to winning a second presidential term in November than Donald Trump," former Clinton advisor Doug Sosnik wrote in The New York Times on Friday. "But for reasons that have become glaringly obvious, that path has all but vanished."

Biden's campaign conceded that their standing has dipped since the debate, but emphasized that they still have "multiple" paths to victory.

"Our internal data and public polling show the same thing: this remains a margin-of-error race in key battleground states," Biden's campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a memo to staffers that was first published by The Associated Press and later obtained by Business Insider.

Since the debate, Biden has faced almost daily onslaught of Democrats calling him to step aside. Capitol Hill, once bursting over with liberal schadenfreude as pro-Trump allies like Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia needled their leadership, is now the site of a Democratic Party in disarray. If Biden does stay in the race, Republicans have a plethora of statements from fellow Democrats questioning his ability to lead.

Trump hasn't fundamentally changed. Even as he's refrained from rallies, he's still ranting on social media. He's attacked reporters and even went after George Clooney, an especially odd post given that the actor was in the news for saying Biden should drop out. Trump also handed Biden's campaign a major gift by offering one of his signature "I don't know them" denials about Project 2025. This Heritage Foundation-led project seeks to shape a future Repubican's next administration with proposals to restrict abortion access without passing new laws (including reversal approval of the drug mifepristone), replace a large number of federal employees with political allies, and even consider the elimination of many of the functions for the agency that oversees the National Weather Service.

It wasn't just the debate, either. Less than 24 hours before the faceoff, the Supreme Court handed down a pair of rulings that the former president welcomed enthusiastically as they further weakened the administrative state and narrowed the degree to which federal prosecutors could go after January 6 Capitol rioters. Then, days after the debate, the court handed Trump a much more sweeping than expected victory in ruling that former presidents have some immunity from criminal prosecution related to their official acts while in office. Trump's legal team is even trying to argue that the landmark decision should mean that his New York criminal conviction should be vacated.

The GOP convention will reflect Trump's influence.

The Republican National Convention has all the makings of the two big Trump shows before it. Model Amber Rose, one of Kanye West's exes, is set to speak. So, too, is Dana White; according to The Wall Street Journal, the UFC head will speak right before Trump — the type of high-profile slot that parties used to dole out to rising stars. Trump already has a bare-bones platform that favors his views on key issues like abortion, to the chagrin of more traditional conservatives like his former Vice President Mike Pence.

It remains to be seen if Trump will retake the headlines, particularly if Biden's future is still undecided. Then again, it won't really matter. Even without all the oxygen, the former president is still on fire.

• Erin Vaughan, 41, went back to college when she was 32.
• It allowed her to find a new career path she wouldn't have considered otherwise.
• It was challenging to get a degree later in life, but she said it was well worth it. 

It's not an exaggeration to say going back to school changed Erin Vaughan's life.

Vaughan, 41, completed two semesters of college in her mid-twenties, but she wasn't able to afford to further her education at the time, so she dropped out and began pursuing her passion for the culinary field. She moved to Los Angeles, worked in restaurants, and started her own business as a personal chef — and she said she loved working with her clients, who were primarily older adults who needed nutritional meals.

However, given her older client base, Vaughan wanted to further her knowledge of nutrition. At the age of 32, she went back to school and graduated in 2020 with a bachelor of science degree in food science and technology.

She had to take out $20,000 in student loans to afford the program, but she said it was well worth it.

"It is truly one of the hardest things I've ever done, but the most rewarding thing," Vaughan told Business Insider. "It has changed how I think about myself. It has changed how I think about my abilities. It has definitely changed my career."

The restaurant industry had a heavy drinking culture, Vaughan said, and once she started school and grew committed to the program, she decided to become sober.

"It's the biggest thing I've ever done for myself," she said. "There's four years where I've worked toward one goal, and it empowered every aspect of my life."

Vaughan now works as a project manager for quality assurance at a men's personal care brand. According to documents reviewed by BI, she's already received a series of promotions at the company that have boosted her paychecks by hundreds of dollars per month. She said it's a role where she feels like she can bring a lot of value and continue to grow.

She's among a growing number of older adults who have decided to return to school later in life to give themselves another shot at higher education. A recent paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that about 70% of the rise in college completion from 1990 to 2010 is a result of the growing share of adults getting degrees after their mid-twenties. On top of that, a report from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation on the state of higher education in 2024 found that "adults' interest in pursuing some form of higher education is at the highest level" the organizations ever recorded.

Going back to school opened Vaughan's eyes to the possibility of a different career path, and she now has a steady job, bigger paychecks, and a sense of fulfillment with the opportunities her degree opened up for her.

"If you have that inkling, do it. It will be rewarding," Vaughan said. "It'll be hard, but it's kind like, you don't enjoy doing squats. You enjoy it afterward. You enjoy the results. And I think anybody who's in their head about going back, the only way to move through that is actually do it."

'It's opened up a world of potential'

Going back to school hasn't made things perfect for Vaughan. Graduating at the beginning of the pandemic, Vaughan said she had to accept a job with a very low salary because she had no other option, and she went through three different jobs in search of better pay before landing her current role.

But a few years of instability set her up for a steady future where she can look toward achieving her goals.

"I can shine in my job, and I know that I can use the skills I have in the future and blaze my own trail," she said. "It's opened up a world of potential for me."

Of course, going to school later in life doesn't always pay off. BI previously spoke to a Gen Xer who pursued a degree in his 40s, but he was unable to land a job and ended up saddled with over $100,000 in student debt. The high cost of college is also a key factor as to why many Gen Zers have chosen to skip higher education altogether, instead choosing to pursue careers that do not require college degrees.

Given the financial barriers, some adults have opted to complete some or all of their programs at a community college to lessen the costs. Vaughan started her program at a community college, and she said that had she not done otherwise, she would have had a much bigger student-debt balance.

Going forward, Vaughan said she's looking forward to discovering where else her career can take her — and she's hoping to pursue other interests now that she has a job that gives her a good work-life balance.

"I'm able to actually go to yoga classes, take care of my health, write as a hobby or maybe even as a side hustle someday, or maybe I'll pick up photography," Vaughan said. "You don't have to stop now that you have your degree."

Did you go back to school later in life? Did it pay off, or do you regret it? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

• 2024 has been a great year for true crime fans so far.
• Shows like "Baby Reindeer" and "The Asunta Case" have dramatized shocking true stories.
• While documentaries including "American Nightmare" and "Quiet on Set" have given viewers fresh insights.

2024 is shaping up to be a big year for true crime.

The genre has grown to new heights in the past decade, as streaming services and podcasts feed audiences' fascination with the darker side of humanity. This year that has included stalking in "Baby Reindeer" to child exploitation in "Quiet on Set."

Here are the best true crime shows and documentaries so far this year.

1. 'American Nightmare'

Netflix started 2024 strong with "American Nightmare," which tells the story of a bizarre kidnapping.

Denise Huskins was forcibly taken from her boyfriend's house in Vallejo, California in 2015 and reappeared two days later over 400 miles away near her family home in Huntington Beach.

Using interviews with Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, the gripping three-part docuseries explains how the authorities suspected she faked the kidnapping in a move similar to the plot of the 2014 movie, "Gone Girl."

But the case takes an even stranger turn when a police officer stumbles onto a disbarred lawyer, Matthew Muller.

2. 'Lover, Stalker, Killer'

Mechanic Dave Kroupa had no idea what he was getting into when he started dating Liz Golyar in 2012.

"Lover, Stalker, Killer" explains how the Nebraska couple enjoyed going out and drinking, but things turned deadly when Kroupa called things off and started dating computer programmer, Cari Farver.

Farver went missing just two weeks into their relationship.

The documentary explores how Golyar killed Farver and impersonated her online to evade the authorities.

3. 'Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV'

"Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV" is a shocking four-part Investigation Discovery docuseries about kids TV channel Nickelodeon and the abuse faced by some of its most famous actors.

The show is based on Business Insider's reporting and explores the allegations that producer Dan Schneider created a toxic work environment at Nickelodeon.

It also sees actor and musician Drake Bell talk publicly for the first time about being sexually assaulted by dialogue coach, Brian Peck.

4. 'The Asunta Case'

Spain was shocked when body of 12-year-old Asunta Basterra Porto was discovered near the city of Santiago de Compostela in 2013.

It was later discovered that her adoptive parents, lawyer Rosario Porto and journalist Alfonso Basterra, murdered her after their divorce.

The tragic death is dramatized in Netflix's "The Asunta Case," which gives audiences an insight into what happened to the couple in the immediate aftermath of the murder.

5. 'Under the Bridge'

Hulu's "Under the Bridge" dramatizes Rebecca Godfrey's true crime book of the same name about the 1997 murder of Canadian teenager, Reena Virk.

What makes the show more interesting than a typical crime drama is that it puts Godfrey in the middle of the mystery. The author is played by "Mad Max: Fury Road" star Riley Keough.

Although Godfrey didn't help the investigation in real life, it adds an extra layer of drama to the show, helping to keep viewers invested.

6. 'Baby Reindeer'

"Baby Reindeer" dramatizes the show's lead actor and writer's experience with stalking, and became a huge talking point after it was released in April 2024.

Richard Gadd plays a fictional version of himself, Donny Dunn, an aspiring comedian who is stalked by a woman called Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning) after he shows her a moment of kindness at the pub where he works.

Gadd also uses the show to also tackle subjects like sexuality and sexual assault. But it became a global phenomenon because audiences tried to track down the "real Martha" online.

In May, 58-year-old Fiona Harvey came forward as the woman the character is based on, but challenged Gadd's depiction of her and has taken legal action against Netflix.

7. 'Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult'

"Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult" dives into the murky world of TikTok dancers and content creators. It starts by looking at Miranda Derrick, a dancer who cut ties with her family after joining the controversial Shekinah Church in Los Angeles.

From there, the compelling three-part series introduces the audience to Shekinah Church pastor Robert Shinn, and explores allegations of abusive behavior and coercion within the church.

Derrick denied being in a cult in June 2024, and said that she has received death threats because of the Netflix docuseires.

8. 'How to Rob a Bank'

Scott Scurlock's life sounds like something out of a Steven Spielberg movie.

In the 1990s, he lived in a huge tree house on his own property and started robbing banks in the Seattle area using makeup and prosthetics to disguise himself.

He even earned himself the nickname "The Hollywood Bandit," because of his techniques.

Scurlock's free-spirited life is the focus of Netflix's "How to Rob a Bank," and features surprisingly honest interviews with his fellow bank robbers and friends.

9. 'Perfect Wife: The Disappearance of Sherri Papini'

Another docuseries with some striking similarities to "Gone Girl" is Hulu's "Perfect Wife: The Disappearance of Sherri Papini."

As the title suggests, it revolves around Papini — who went missing after she went for a run in Redding, California, in November 2016. She was found three weeks later in Yolo County, California, 150 miles from home.

The docuseries explains how it took authorities six years to arrest her for faking the kidnapping, while also looking at the ramifications the hoax had on her family.

10. 'The Man with 1000 Kids'

Audiences learn the jaw-dropping story of prolific Dutch sperm donor, Jonathan Jacob Meijer, in "The Man with 1000 Kids."

Meijer does not appear in the three-part docuseries, but five families who used his sperm to conceive share how they discovered the truth about how many children he has and the subsequent dangers.

Meijer has not been convicted of a crime, but the show bears the hallmarks of the true crime genre.

Meijer confirmed he has over 550 children worldwide, and was banned from donating sperm to new families in 2023.

• A diet high in ultra-processed foods is linked to poor health. 
• But you don't need to cut them out to be healthy, dietitian Nichola Ludlam-Raine said.
• She shared an average day of eating to show how to strike a healthy balance. 

Registered dietitian Nichola Ludlam-Raine is on a mission to help people understand how to limit ultra-processed foods (UPF) while enjoying their lives.

While the term UPF has become more prominent in recent years as research has grown about their potential harms, Ludlam-Raine says the public is confused about how to shop and eat to avoid them.

In her new book, "How Not to Eat Ultra-Processed," published in the UK and Germany on July 18, Ludlam-Raine aims to arm people with the knowledge they need to decipher food labels and make informed decisions.

It's not a case of never eating anything ultra-processed — generally considered to be a food containing ingredients you wouldn't have in your own kitchen — but minimizing your intake and choosing predominantly whole foods.

There are many reasons UPFs are considered harmful: they tend to be hyper-palatable thus easy to over-eat, and were linked to a higher risk of 32 health problems, including type 2 diabetes, depression, and cardiovascular disease, in a recent study.

As Ludlam-Raine explained to Business Insider, when choosing what to eat, it's not necessarily about what the foods are, but what versions you choose. One brand of cream cheese might be a UPF, but another won't, for example.

To help show how you can eat a predominantly non-UPF diet, Ludlam-Raine shared how she eats on an average day with BI.

Oatmeal is a healthy breakfast

Ludlam-Raine has oats for breakfast but chooses whole rolled oats rather than instant, which can be ultra-processed.

She cooks her oatmeal then tops it with frozen berries, nuts, and seeds, so she's eating a diverse range of plants, Ludlam-Raine said. The aim is to add goodness into your meals when trying to eat more healthily, rather than cutting out foods, she said.

When it comes to the milk she uses to cook her oats, the least processed choice is usually dairy. However, Ludlam-Raine's son is allergic to dairy, so she doesn't use it.

"These foods have got a real place in people's lives who literally cannot consume certain things," she said, referring to UPFs. "So if my son didn't have UPF oat milk, he wouldn't be meeting his calcium and his iodine goals."

This is an example of a small amount of UPF in an otherwise whole-food meal being nothing to worry about, Ludlam-Raine said.

She often has some Greek yogurt on the side for a protein boost too, which is a better choice than flavored yogurts which tend to be ultra-processed.

Fruit, nuts, and cheese are good morning snacks

Ludlam-Raine said she drinks tea and coffee in the morning and often snacks on dried fruit with nuts, or fresh fruit such as an apple with a piece of cheese.

Depending on the product, cheese tends to be processed not ultra-processed, she said.

Sourdough toast is a versatile lunch base

For lunch, Ludlam-Raine uses sourdough bread as a base, but makes sure to choose one that is genuine sourdough as opposed to "sourfaux." Sourdough bread should only feature flour, water, and salt on its ingredients list.

"All you have to do is look at the label on bread and if there's no emulsifiers or preservatives, if it's based on whole foods, then that's non-UPF," Ludlam-Raine said.

She toasts her sourdough and tops it with smashed avocado or a non-UPF hummus.

"The majority of hummus out there is non-UPF, but some is," Ludlam-Raine said. "However, the amount of additives, again that's on the spectrum. I was mortified when I looked at some of these ingredient lists."

She said some brands of hummus may only include a small amount of one preservative, whereas others have many additives.

Other days, Ludlam-Raine has eggs on toast with a side salad, she said.

Look for snack bars that are non-UPF

When it comes to an afternoon snack, Ludlam-Raine's choice depends on whether she is out or at home.

She looks for the least processed option: A chocolate bar would likely be UPF, while chocolate-covered almonds might also be UPF but would be more nutritious. So she would choose a snack bar that features whole foods mixed together.

Ludlam-Raine, who is based in the UK, likes brands including Nakd and Deliciously Ella.

Spaghetti bolognese can be a non-UPF meal

An average dinner for Ludlam-Raine would be homemade Bolognese sauce made from lean ground beef, kidney beans, chopped tomatoes, and spices, served with spaghetti.

If you make your Bolognese using a pre-made pasta sauce, however, it may contain UPF.

"Although these meals could be 100% non-UPF, actually there's a decision to be made on the oat milk, the bread, the pasta sauce," Ludlam-Raine said.

Greek yogurt and dark chocolate for dessert

To satisfy her sweet tooth after dinner, Ludlam-Raine often eats Greek yogurt topped with a combination of dark chocolate, homemade granola, strawberries, or honey, she said.

"Sugar isn't UPF, but because it's non-UPF doesn't mean that you can have as much of it as you like," Ludlam-Raine said.

She encourages people to eat unprocessed foods freely while being mindful of the sugar and fat content.

Take potato chips, for example: You can get non-UPF potato chips, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch your portion size, Ludlam-Raine said.

This is why Ludlam-Raine thinks it's a mistake to consider only whether a food is a UPF when choosing what to eat, when there are many factors that determine how healthy something is.

• Ncuti Gatwa started out as Eric Effiong in Netflix's teen drama "Sex Education." 
• His career rose to new heights after he starred in "Barbie" and "Doctor Who."
• The actor told Business Insider that he has to 'fight' to prioritize his health.

Ncuti Gatwa has had a busy year between starring in "Barbie" and taking on the lead role in "Doctor Who." But with success comes pressure, and the actor told Business Insider he has to "fight" to protect his physical and mental health as his star continues to rise.

Like David Harbour, Jonathan Bailey, and Jenna Ortega before him, Gatwa has used Netflix as a launchpad to secure even bigger roles off the streaming platform.

Gatwa played the charming and charismatic Eric Effiong in Netflix's teen drama "Sex Education," which ended last year, before being cast as a Ken alongside Ryan Gosling in "Barbie," 2023's highest-grossing movie. Last winter, Gatwa took the reigns as the new lead of "Doctor Who," the longest-running sci-fi series of all time.

Over the last year, Gatwa has also appeared in a season of "Masters of the Air," and lent his voice to a "David Copperfield" audiobook.

"One thing that I've had to watch out for is burnout. I love to work, and I often have to wrestle with my own ambition," Gatwa said. "I won't realize that I've got a year booked up, and I'm like, 'Oh, when will I sleep?'"

Gatwa added that he's learned to leave space in his schedule to rest.

"You got to fight for it. Because other people won't do it for you, so you need to make sure that you are prioritizing your physical and your mental health," Gatwa said. "Make sure that there's time carved out for that in your day. But yeah, I'm very blessed to have a team that will listen to that."

But Gatwa is also able to savor the special moments.

In March, he and the other Kens joined Gosling onstage to perform the Oscar-nominated song, "I'm Just Ken" from "Barbie."

Gatwa said the rest of the "Barbie" cast didn't know he would appear in the performance, but the director, Greta Gerwig, might have figured it out.

"I think maybe Greta did. I saw Greta the night before our agent's party, and she was like, 'Are you here for the performance?'" Gatwa said, laughing.

Gatwa said he was surprised that Gosling decided to share his big Oscars moment with the other Kens.

"I was shooting that week, and I had to fly out mid-production. I think I had two rehearsals, but the madness was all part of the joy of it all," Gatwa said. "I was dancing in front of Greta and Margaret, so it felt like my own personal tribute to them."

"Doctor Who" season 14/season 1 is available to stream on Disney+.

• Dr. Michael Roizen is 78, but says his "biological age" is 57.6.
• He's the chief wellness officer at Cleveland Clinic, and takes his own advice on staying healthy.
• Dr. Roizen shared his diet principles with Business Insider, including sticking to the Mediterranean diet.

An expert in healthy aging who claims to have reversed his biological age by 20 years shared his diet principles with Business Insider.

Dr. Michael Roizen, an anesthesiologist and the chief wellness officer at Cleveland Clinic, is 78 years old. But he told BI his "biological age" is around 57.6, meaning that based on his risk of dying and or developing age-related chronic illness, his body appears to be decades younger. (It's important to note there is no consensus on the definition of biological age or how to measure it.)

Roizen used the same principles that he says have kept him young to develop a wellness institute at the Cleveland Clinic, giving employees financial incentives to implement healthy lifestyle changes. The program has saved Cleveland Clinic up to $200 million a year on the healthcare costs of 101,000 employee patients since 2008, according to Roizen, and informed their research initiatives on healthy aging.

Here are the diet principles Roizen follows.

Eat a Mediterranean diet

The Mediterranean diet primarily consists of whole foods such as fruits and vegetables, legumes, low-fat protein and dairy, and limits red meat, processed foods, and alcohol. It has been named the healthiest diet for seven years in a row by the US News & World Report, and research has linked it to better heart health, weight loss, and preventing cognitive decline.

Trout and salmon are his major sources of animal protein, which contain vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids.

Eat a big meal at lunch

Roizen has his biggest meal at lunch and eats "very little" at dinner — usually just a salad. He can't sleep well after a heavy meal and then feels "much worse the next day."

A 2024 study by researchers at the University of Alagoas, Brazil, found that eating most of your calories at lunch could help to prevent and treat obesity, regardless of the quality of a participant's diet. Eating this way may align better with the body's natural rhythms, the team suggested.

Restricts calories five days a month

Roizen also follows the Longevity Diet developed by Valter Longo, a professor of gerontology and director of the University of Southern California Longevity Institute. He's been doing this for seven years. The diet involves restricting calories five days a month to mimic the effects of fasting.

Calories are dropped to 1,100 on the first day of the "fast," then to about 700 on days two to five. A 2024 study by Longo's team at USC found that participants on the fasting-mimicking diet had lower biological ages by an average of two and a half years after three months on the diet.

David Clancy, who studies the biology of aging at Lancaster University, UK, who wasn't involved in the study told BI at the time: "It's not unreasonable to think that, during ages 40 to 60 at least, this regime twice per year may add three to four years of healthy life, maybe more, in those with higher BMI, blood pressure, blood sugar, etc."

But he added the diet was "harsh" and working people may struggle to follow it. "Scheduling days four and five for weekend days would be sensible," he said.

Eat in an eight-hour window

Roizen intermittent fasts by eating between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. each day.

He said that while the data on the impact of intermittent fasting on longevity is much less solid than the data on calorie-restricted fasting, but he said he likes how he feels.

"By the end of that 16-hour period, I'm feeling great and very energetic. I sleep much better and I seem to have much more energy as well," he said.

BI previously reported that research on the potential benefits of intermittent fasting aren't conclusive. One controversial study released earlier this year suggested that it may actually shorten person's lifespan, and others have suggested that it doesn't have benefit our health.

• The British Army is now smaller than those of Romania and Bangladesh.
• Its size raises questions about the UK's ability to support NATO, confront Russia, or fight a war.
• "Right now, the British Army cannot generate a single division, let alone two," an expert told BI.

What has happened to the redcoats that defeated Napoleon and helped win an empire that stretched across a quarter of the Earth's surface?

The British Army has shrunk to its lowest level since the early 1800s. Years of relentless budget cutbacks have left it with just 73,000 active-duty soldiers. That's a far cry from the Chinese army of 2 million soldiers, Russia's 1.3 million, or the 460,000 active-duty troops of the US Army.

Britain's Army is now smaller than those of Romania and Bangladesh, and just slightly larger than those of Canada and Armenia. Until now, its lowest manpower level over the last two centuries came in 1823, when it had just 72,000 soldiers. But that understates the current problem. Britain's population in 1823 was just over 20 million, versus around 67 million today. Adjusted for population, the British Army of 1823 would have around 225,000 soldiers today.

This raises questions about the ability of Britain to support NATO, confront Russia, or to engage in any major or long-term conflict. "As things stand, the British Army is a one-trick pony," Nicholas Drummond, a British defense expert and former infantry officer, told Business Insider. "It would deploy, fight for a maximum of six months, and then be fully depleted."

The British Army has never had it easy. For centuries, it was the poorer cousin of the Royal Navy, which was seen as the guardian of an island nation and its empire. The writer Rudyard Kipling pointed out in poems like "Tommy" that Britain doesn't support its army until there's a war:

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"

But it's "Savior of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;

Thus the British Army's muster rolls have fluctuated depending on the world situation, and the perpetual parsimony of His Majesty's Treasury. In 1812, when it fought Napoleon and burned down Washington, DC, it had 246,000 soldiers. In 1918, it ended the First World War with 3.8 million personnel, and 2.9 million in 1945.

In 1989, the British Army had 156,000 soldiers, or more than twice its present size. Like many armies after the end of the Cold War, it was downsized due to a perceived lack of need, difficulties in recruiting soldiers, and the belief that precision-guided weapons meant fewer boots on the ground.

However, the shocking casualties and trench warfare in the Ukraine conflict suggest that future wars will be attritional, with victory going to the nations that have the most stamina, industrial might and resources to sustain losses. Yet with just 28,000 Army reservists, Britain lacks manpower to flesh out undermanned units in wartime, or to replace losses. Even the Army's current two combat divisions aren't fully capable.

"Right now, the British Army cannot generate a single division, let alone two," Drummond said.

"It simply doesn't have the supporting units needed to sustain it when deployed."

"We have no second echelon force to provide a third, reserve division, casualty replacements, or to create the basis of a larger wartime Army."

Drummond argues that today, Britain needs two readily deployable mechanized divisions, one using tracked vehicles and a lighter unit on wheels, each of 25,000 troops. "In addition to this, we need training regiments and Army schools, and a regular reserve. Historically this has required 30,000 to 40,000 additional personnel. So the irreducible peacetime strength of the Army is 80,000 to 90,000 soldiers."

If money is the root of all evil, then the British armed forces have been sinned against for 35 years. In 1984, the UK's defense spending was 5.5% of GDP. It is currently a bit over 2 percent, with the newly elected Labor government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledging to honor the previous Conservative government's to raise the defense budget to 2.5%. This is less than America's 3.5% spent on defense, though it exceeds NATO's goal — which many members have yet to fulfill — of 2% of GDP allocated to the military.

It's not just the Army that is struggling. The British armed forces have been cut back to 183,000 personnel, and even then, they can't find enough recruits. A shortage of sailors has forced the Royal Navy to decommission warships, and the Royal Air Force can't attract enough pilots.

To be fair, the problem is caused by more than stingy government bean-counters. With many nations abolishing conscription, and civilian careers seen as more lucrative, this is not a good time to be a military recruiter anywhere. But as a nation past its imperial glory, Britain has prided itself on punching above its weight. A skeleton army won't help.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Bari Tessler is a financial therapist who helps clients navigate issues like inheritance.
• She shared tips she often gives them to help them understand their relationship with money.
• Tessler recommends not spending any part of an inheritance for at least six months.

Millennials are set to inherit from their boomer parents over the next two decades, and many are already getting windfalls.

Inheritances can cause friction between families. One sibling might inherit more or be resented after being named the executor of the estate. Even when assets are split equally, family members might butt heads over how money should be invested or spent.

Bari Tessler, who's been a financial therapist for 23 years, told Business Insider that inheritance can often bring up a lot of emotions, such as guilt, betrayal, and shame.

She shared advice she gives clients to help navigate their emotions and family conflicts.

1. Pause before spending anything

Tessler told BI that, while you might have the urge to spend an inheritance quickly, it's important to give yourself time to adjust to the change in circumstances. She suggested waiting between six months and a year before taking any big decisions on how to spend the money.

This period can help people work out any emotions it brings to the surface, she said. "You need some transition time to process and understand," she added.

2. Figure out your relationship to money

Even people with the same upbringing can have different approaches to handling their money and this can create conflict, Tessler said. "How you earn, save, spend, and invest will be different," she said.

Understanding your emotions around money can help to navigate tricky inheritance conversations, Tessler said. "Know your money story. Know where your challenges and triggers come from," she added.

People might feel that they don't understand money or that their siblings don't see them as financially responsible.

She said people are sometimes given a "financial identity" by others. She recalled how she was seen as the sibling who spent rather than saved, when she was younger. Tessler eventually realized she could be both a spender and a saver. She said that challenging a family's narrative of your relationship with money can help build your confidence.

3. Try to understand how their relationship with money might relate to yours

Tessler said it could be helpful to try and understand how your family members' relationship with money might interact with yours.

Using personality tools, such as the Enneagram, can help people figure out where their family members are coming from when disagreements arise, she added.

Tessler said she has previously advised clients to wait 24 hours before reading emails from "intense and challenging" family members. She has previously read such emails with clients to help them make sense of it.

"It's about learning how to have better money conversations with the people closest to you and how to negotiate better with challenging siblings," Tessler said.