Swedish News:

H&M to make Olympic clothing. Congrats Mamma Malin Åkerman. Embarrassing food shopping. 

  • Swedes are embarrassed about putting diet and junk food in their carts at the grocery store. Meanwhile, they like to brag about baking their own bread. Image source: Helge Höpfner/Wikimedia Commons

  • H&M to make Olympic clothing
    Watch for the Swedish athletes and paralympians during the winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia next year and summer Olympics in Rio, Brazil in 2016: They will be wearing Swedish clothing. Famous Swedish low-price brand H&M will create the outfits to be worn at the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the training clothes. “This is one of the most important and most exciting collaboration agreements that SOK (Sveriges Olympiska Kommitté, the Swedish Olympic Committee) has ever signed,” says SOK chairman Stefan Lindeberg in a press release, according to an article in daily DN. The agreement is a major one, which will allow for SOK to reach the goal of 80 million SEK ($12,222,541) in annual sponsorship revenue during 2014, which is 50 percent more since 2012. “There’s now space to gradually give twice as many talents the possibility to fully commit to this,” says Lindeberg. Among the athletes involved in the design work are skier Anja Pärson and swimmer Therese Alshammar.

  • Swedish brand H&M will design the outfits to be worn by Swedish athletes and paralympians at the winter Olympics in Russia next year, as well as the summer Olympics in Rio in 2016.

  • Congrats Mamma Malin Åkerman
    Swedish Hollywood star Malin Åkerman has given birth to her first baby, a boy named Sebastian. The father is Åkerman’s husband Roberto Zincone (drummer for the Petalstones). The baby was born on April 16. "My husband and I welcomed our beautiful, healthy baby boy to this world this morning! Biggest joy of my life!!! #lovemykid" Åkerman tweeted. “Love him more than life itself!!” Åkerman, 34, announced her pregnancy back in September last year. She and Zincone married in Italy in 2007. Next we will see her in the biopic "Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story" due out this year. She'll also play Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry in "CBGB," a film based on the famous club that helped launch Blondie, the Ramones and Talking Heads.

  • "Grattis" to new mom, Swedish actress Malin Åkerman, who just gave birth to a baby boy named Sebastian. Photo: Sachyn Mital derivative work: PancakeMistake [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

  • Embarrassing food shopping
    Are there items in your cart that embarrass you? When we put soup cans, bagged apples and milk into our cart at the grocery store, do others watch us? Four out of 10 Swedes say they do; and they form an image of what kind of person they see by what that person has in his cart. One out of four Swedish women (and every fifth Swedish man) is embarrassed by what they eat, and thus buy. Most embarrassing is diet food, almost as embarrassing are snacks and potato chips as well as prepared food. All this according to a study from Livsmedelsföretagen. “Unfortunately there’s still a lot of prejudice when it comes to prepared food,” says Marie Söderqvist, managing director at Livsmedelsföretagen. “I think we’d gain a lot if we were to stress a little less and be OK with sometimes taking shortcuts in the kitchen. There’s no need to feel embarrassed over prepared foods, which in general are of high quality both when it comes to nutrition and taste.” Time is at a premium in today’s society, which is why cooking from scratch has become such a high status symbol. The more time consuming something is, such as slow cooking or baking your own sourdough bread, the higher the status. No wonder research shows that half of Swedish families with children feel stress over keeping up with everyday chores. But Swedes brag about foods as well. We brag mostly about expensive or fancy foods, about our knowledge of food and drink, and about nutritious and healthy foods. “Food means status,” Söderqvist continues. “And that’s why we boast as well as feel embarrassed about what we buy and eat.” We tend to brag via social media mostly. On Instagram, for example, it’s popular with hashtags like #instafood and #food, much more so than fashion and music images. The list of most embarrassing food products looks like this: 1. Diet or low-fat products, 20% 2. Snacks, 19% 3. Prepared or pre-packaged foods, 17% 4. Fast food (hamburgers and pizza), 17% 5. Foods with lots of additives, 17%. Foods we brag about: Expensive or fancy foods, 40% 2. Wine and knowledge about wine and other drinks, 39% 3. Healthy and nutritious foods, 36% 4. Home baked breads, 33% 5. Ecological or other “OK” foods, 33%.