In the latest push to get New Yorkers to eat better, city Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking on salt. The mayor previously launched several visceral attacks on sodas and other sugary beverages. Now, he’s urging city residents to cut down on their intake of sodium. The new campaign targets frozen dinners and canned soups, and features images of these foods surrounded by heaps of salt. The images are accompanied by messages like “Excessive can lead to heart attack and stroke.”
Excess salt in one’s diet can potentially lead to a number of serious health conditions, like high blood pressure and other cardiovascular conditions. WPIX reports that 23,000 deaths are caused by cardiovascular-related conditions in New York City alone.
Read Full Post >
Al Roker ran a half marathon in Chicago
The ING New York City Marathon is this Sunday, and runners across the city are gearing-up for the 26.2 mile run. This year there were 125,000 applicants to the race, which is offering a prize of $600,000. There are expected to be about two million spectators and a massive amount of media coverage.
Many celebrities are seizing upon the event to promote healthy lifestyles and other worth-while causes. There are over 190 charities involved in ING’s New York City Marathon charity program, “A Million Dollars a Mile,” which aims to earn (you guessed it) $26.2 million.
Today Show star Al Rocker is one of the notable participants, and will be running his first full-marathon. “Almost everybody’s bucket list includes running the ING New York City Marathon,” said Roker. “Just the thought of being able to start this race gives me goose bumps. As does the fear that the weather might turn ugly. On the other hand, if it does that might help improve my time as I try to outrun an angry mob of soggy and cold runners!”
Read Full Post >
The ING New York City Marathon Health And Fitness Expo is coming to town November 4th through 6th. The famous NYC Marathon is on Nov. 7th and every participant is required to pick up his or her registration materials at the expo. The marathon is scheduled to start at 8:30 A.M. for the wheelchair division and other start times are every thirty minutes after that due to the large number of runners- over 45,000.
Read Full Post >
There’s controversy lurking behind the “Don’t Drink Yourself Fat” campaign launched by the New York City Health Department. Experts are disputing the claim that “Drinking one can of soda per day can make you 10 pounds fatter a year.”
E-mails obtained by The New York Times show that even the chief nutritionist Cathy Nonas had her doubts about the commercial, which ran on local news stations and as a viral video on the web. “CAUTION,” she wrote on August 20, 2009. “As we get into this exacting science, the idea of a sugary drink becoming fat is absurd.” City health commissioner Dr. Thomas A. Farley permitted the ads because he felt that “what people fear is getting fat,” as opposed to a more nuanced discussion of nutritional value.
Print versions of the ad show a can of soda turning into fat as it’s poured into a glass (shown above). A newer advertisement shows a man eating the amount of sugar in a soda.
Read Full Post >
The United States Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more popularly known as the Food Stamp Program, was used by more than 41 million people in July 2010. Those are record levels during one of the more trying times in our country’s history.
Considering the fact that this means more than 10 percent of our citizens are on the public aid program, what people purchase with their food stamp assistance has become a bit of a hot topic in public discourse.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is advocating a ban on his city’s 1.7 million recipients of food stamps from using them to buy soda or other sugary drinks. That request for federal permission, made earlier this month, has its merits and should be considered.
Read Full Post >
