Remember the game, GOSSIP? This "icebreaker," used often in team-building workshops, is a great exercise to illustrate how quickly information can become misinformation. The person who begins the game writes a message on a piece of paper then tells it, as a secret, to player two. Delivery of the message continues, from person to person, until everyone has heard the secret. Then, the last person repeats what he (or she) believes was heard, out loud, followed by reading of the message (from the paper) by the person who started the game. The two messages typically differ in direct proportion to how many people participated in the exercise. This illustrates, quickly, how careful we need to be when we repeat something we hear from someone else.

Nowadays I receive too many Emails that remind me of GOSSIP. These particular messages often have "urgent" or "thought you should see this" or "pass this on" (and sometimes, "suggestion for your newsletter") typed into the subject line. The forwarded messages are accompanied by lengthy lists of the people who've received them before I did and the first sentence often says, "I checked this out before sending it to you," or "I trust the person who sent this to me." followed by an outrageous health hazard or opportunity for me to get something for almost nothing if I'll simply, "pass the message on."

This week I received two pieces of gossip from several sources. The first promised that if I forwarded the message to my friends I'd somehow end up with a gift certificate from The GAP. The second was more frightening. It warned me that some tampon manufacturers had added asbestos to their tampons to perpetuate lengthening of a woman's menstrual cycle and, therefore, sell more tampons.

None of the people who sent me the message checked to see if it was true before forwarding it to me (and probably many other "friends" on their mailing list). The reason I know they didn't check it out is because I did. Both are untrue.

I know my friends believe gossip is harmful, dangerous and, certainly nothing they would want to perpetuate. So, I'm inviting them, and all my readers, to think twice before they relay the dire messages they receive back into cyberspace on the out and out chance they "might" be true. Consider also that if there is such a thing as "karma" that sending potentially erroneous (especially fearful) information to others is a set up for some scary experiences of your own. And, if you want to help yourself, and others, to better health--relay your favorite exercise or smart eating habit in hopes it will make their life in this world a better one.