Tag Archives | Obesity

Obesity Is Bigger Health Crisis Globally Than Hunger

By majestic on December 16, 2012 in News 32

It’s not just America y’all. Via CNN:

Obesity is a bigger health crisis globally than hunger, and the leading cause of disabilities around the world, according to a new report published Thursday in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Nearly 500 researchers from 50 countries compared health data from 1990 through 2010 for the Global Burden of Disease report, revealing what they call a massive shift in global health trends.

“We discovered that there’s been a huge shift in mortality. Kids who used to die from infectious disease are now doing extremely well with immunization,” said Ali Mokdad, co-author of the study and professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which led the collaborative project.

“However, the world is now obese and we’re seeing the impact of that.”

The report revealed that every country, with the exception of those in sub-Saharan Africa, faces alarming obesity rates — an increase of 82% globally in the past two decades.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 32

BPA From Plastics, Food Packaging, Linked To Obesity

By JacobSloan on September 25, 2012 in News 5

Americans may be growing fat not only from the foods we eat, but from the hormone-disrupting materials in which those foods are given to us. Via the Smithsonian:

Since the 1960s, manufacturers have widely used the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) in plastics and food packaging. A study by researchers from New York University, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at a sample of nearly 3,000 children and teens across the country and found a “significant” link between the amount of BPA in their urine and the prevalence of obesity.

The researchers speculate on a possible underlying mechanism, alluding to other studies that have shown that the chemical may disrupt mechanisms of human metabolism in ways that increase body mass. They also note studies that have revealed associations between urinary levels of BPA and incidences of adult diabetes, cardiovascular disease and abnormal liver function.

The vast majority of BPA in our bodies comes from ingestion of contaminated food and water.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 5

Death Row Inmate Too Fat to Die

By Matt Staggs on September 20, 2012 in News 31

The always-charming Nancy Grace profiles Ronald Post, a death row inmate seeking a stay of execution. Post, who weighs over 400 pounds, claims that the medical difficulties posed by his condition makes it likely that his execution would be “torturous.” While the AP points out that a stay of execution would also allow Post’s attorneys to pursue arguments that the inmate may have not actually confessed to the crimes he is accused of, Grace sidesteps this particular nuance in favor of her usual public stoning.

Continue Reading · 31

A Third Of Homeless People Are Obese

By majestic on May 26, 2012 in News 26

Photo: David Dennis (CC)

How do homeless people have enough food to become obese? It seems something of a paradox, until you look at the processed junk they eat. Via CNN:

Obesity is a widespread epidemic, even among the homeless.

While the popularized image of a homeless individual is one of skin and bones, a new study shows the reality is not so. One in three (32.3%) homeless individuals in the United States is obese, highlighting a hunger-obesity paradox.

The paradox is that hunger and obesity can exist in the same person. And although a person may be overweight or obese, he or she can lack proper nutrition.

Nutrition is a daily challenge for homeless people, as the foods they manage to get are often full of preservatives and high in sodium, fats and sugars. They may not have access to healthier options like fresh fruits and vegetables.

“It’s the lowest socio-economic group who has the biggest obesity problem,” said Paul Montgomery, one of the authors of the study published in the Journal of Urban Health.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 26

Sugar Shown To Be Toxic, Causing Cancer, Heart Disease

By majestic on April 1, 2012 in News 17

Although food activists have been warning for years of the dangers of the massive sugar overload in the American diet, and in particular the perils to our health from the ubiquitous High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), only now has the scientific research confirming their concerns become so compelling that the mainstream media is taking what was once a minority viewpoint seriously. The most remarkable thing about this “60 Minutes” investigation by celebrity doctor Sanjay Gupta is the short shrift given to the sugar industry’s right to reply. Gupta and CBS News dismiss the industry representative’s protest against the research summarily, essentially calling him out for having nothing of substance to say. Bravo Dr. Gupta!

You can read a transcript of the segment here.

Continue Reading · 17

Do You Suffer From Nature-Deficit Disorder?

By majestic on March 30, 2012 in News 19

Tell me you don’t, I dare you… Timothy Egan explains why in the New York Times:

Your day breaks, your mind aches for something stimulating to match the stirrings of the season. The gate at the urban edge is open, here to the Santa Catalina Mountains, and yet you turn inward, to pixels and particle-board vistas.

Something’s amiss. A third of all American adults — check, it just went up to 35.7 percent — are obese. The French don’t even have a word for fat, Paul Rudnick mused in a mock-Parisian tone in The New Yorker last week. “If a woman is obese,” he wrote, “we simply call her American.”

And, of course, our national branding comes with a host of deadly side effects: heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, certain kinds of cancer. Medical costs associated with obesity and inactivity are nearly $150 billion a year.

This grim toll is well known.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 19

Carbon Dioxide Makes You Fat

By majestic on March 11, 2012 in News 24

So sayeth some Danish scientists, as reported in Science Nordic:

No, this is not 1 April — and this is not an April Fool’s hoax. Mad as it may sound, Danish researchers have announced a theory that may not only explain why people all over the world are getting fatter and fatter, but also warn of the serious consequences for life on Earth of continued pollution of the atmosphere by CO2 emissions. In itself, the theory is quite simple: CO2 contributes to making us fat.

Continue Reading · 24

How The Food Industry Eats Your Kid’s Lunch

By majestic on December 4, 2011 in News 51

Lucy Komisar, who contributed the essay “Dirty Money and Global Banking Secrecy” to the disinformation anthology Everything You Know Is Wrong, contributes a major op-ed to this Sunday’s New York Times:

An increasingly cozy alliance between companies that manufacture processed foods and companies that serve the meals is making students — a captive market — fat and sick while pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. At a time of fiscal austerity, these companies are seducing school administrators with promises to cut costs through privatization. Parents who want healthier meals, meanwhile, are outgunned.

Each day, 32 million children in the United States get lunch at schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program, which uses agricultural surplus to feed children. About 21 million of these students eat free or reduced-price meals, a number that has surged since the recession. The program, which also provides breakfast, costs $13.3 billion a year.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 51

Denmark Becomes First Nation With Tax On Fat In Food

By JacobSloan on October 4, 2011 in News 25

Is Denmark’s new fat tax a just response to the societal problems caused by obesity? Or is it sweet, buttery tyranny? Via the BBC:

Denmark has introduced what is believed to be the world’s first fat tax – a surcharge on foods that are high in saturated fat. Butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food are now subject to the tax if they contain more than 2.3% saturated fat.

Some consumers began hoarding to beat the price rise, while some producers call the tax a bureaucratic nightmare.

Danish officials say they hope the new tax will help limit the population’s intake of fatty foods.

However, some scientists think saturated fat may be the wrong target. They say salt, sugar and refined carbohydrates are more detrimental to health and should be tackled instead.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 25

Marijuana Munchies Won’t Make You Fat

By majestic on September 14, 2011 in News 54

Three hash cakes made with hashish from different Amsterdam coffee shops.

Thanks to some fearless French researchers, we now know that you have nothing to fear from an attack of the munchies, reports Reuters:

Anybody who’s smoked marijuana knows about “the munchies,” that desire to eat everything within reach. But a study from France has found that, surprisingly, pot smokers are actually less likely than non-smokers to pack on weight.

Using data covering more than 50,000 U.S. adults, researchers headed by Yann Le Strat, a psychiatrist at the Louis-Mourier Hospital in Colombes, France, found that roughly 14 percent to 17 percent of the people reporting that they smoked pot at least three days per week were obese.

That compared with a 22 to 25 percent obesity rate among people who said they had not used pot in the past 12 months.

“Initially, we thought we made a mistake,” said Le Strat, adding that he and co-author Bernard Le Foll checked the results several times to make sure they were correct.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 54

1 2 … 8 Next →