Young people can usually get away with a suspect diet while they stay active. I’m sure there are plenty of high school athletes who don’t do any calorie counting or worry about skipping their favorite fast food. But as you get older, it’s not so easy to get away with ignoring half of the health formula.
In fact, when comparing the importance of diet vs. exercise, it’s now believed that diet wins out, hands down. The best thing for you do is to combine the two, but a new study says that your food has the bigger impact on your weight.
“Decreased physical activity may not be the primary driver of the obesity epidemic,” said Loyola University nutritionist Amy Luke, a member of the study team.
Yahoo News has a disturbing, but seemingly logical, mathematic formula for students: Fast food + nearby schools = fat kids.
According to new research, kids who go to school within walking distance of fast food restaurants are more likely to be obese than students at other schools. The study was expansive, to say the least. It involved 500,000 adolescents at middle schools and high schools in California.
“We’ve basically discovered that kids who are going to a school that is near a fast-food restaurant have a higher chance of being overweight and obese than kids who are at a school that is not near a fast food restaurant,” said Brennan Davis of Azusa Pacific University in California. The study appears in the American Journal of Public Health.
Jim Richards. (Photo by Wade Payne of AP.)
Jim Richards of Knoxville, Tennessee, 51, attributes his 20-pound weight loss to commuting to work on bicycle. Richards commutes every day to work and back. That’s 40 minutes of exercise every day, before he even steps into a gym.
He’s one of the healthy success stories that can be tied to what’s referred to as active transportation: people who leave the car keys at home and commute to work by foot or pedal. Or maybe it’s just taking that quick trip to the grocery store on your bike instead behind the wheel.
There’s a new study that came up with results that aren’t exactly shocking: Countries that have the highest rate of citizens who walk, bike, or even use public transportation to get around town have the lowest rates of obesity.
THIS is going to be our President!
The Internet is abuzz with recently released photos of a shirtless president-elect Barack Obama as he swims in Hawaii. I just came across the buzz and my first reaction was: WOW!
From Clinton jogging to McDonald’s to George W. Bush clocking a few miles, I can’t really say that a president in recent history has made me take a second look. Until now.
This Wednesday the United Health Foundation, together with the American Public Health Association (APHA) and the Partnership for Prevention, released the 15th annual report ranking our states’ health. The number one healthiest state this year goes to Vermont, followed by Hawaii, then New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Utah completes the top five. Filling in the bottom five spots are, sadly, my state of Florida at #45, followed by Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, and finally Louisiana as #50, meaning the least healthiest state.
This year’s report reveals a 17.5 percent improvement in America’s overall health during the past 15 years. However, the rate of improvement, unfortunately, is slowing significantly due to a combination of personal, community and public health issues.
This news is sure to raise the ire of a few Canadian citizens. Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one on flights that stay within the borders of Canada.
With airlines already feeling the financial crunch from skyrocketing fuel costs, this may add to the burden.
No word on how the law will decide what constitutes obese enough to get the extra seat. The airlines appealed the measure, but the courts struck down their pleas.
Here’s what I found on the specifics to what is referred to as the One-Person-One-Fare Policy. You qualify, if you:
- are accompanied by an attendant for your personal care or safety in flight; or
- require additional seating for yourself, including those determined to be functionally disabled by obesity.
So, we ask you the reader… is this legislation a fair measure? Or are people getting undue favored treatment. We open the floor to you.
I’m always fascinated by the political debate from the Left and Right over the free market and what role, if any, the government should play in our society. In full disclosure, I am one who leans a little to the Left on most issues, including the market. I don’t think that having sensible regulations means you are inherently against capitalism and all the wonderful things that it entails.
I’ll use a sports analogy to explain my views: I love football. But what would the NFL be if there were no referees?
I totally understand it’s a tightrope, and that too much oversight can be stagnating. But we’ve seen what too little oversight can do in the financial market.
Anyway, how does all this apply to dieting, you ask? Plenty.
There’s more happening in the public health realm that raises, what I find to be, the interesting debate/dilemma of the free market society that we live in. Researchers have found that banning fast food advertising on television in the United States could reduce the number of overweight children by as much as 18 percent.
Dramatic Relief is another technique for lifestyle change that has been adopted by anti-obesity and healthy living campaigns. It has also been used frequently in anti-smoking campaigns. Dramatic Relief can be used no matter your goal, and is designed to help move you from the Contemplation stage to Determination and towards Action. Dramatic Relief works by creating an experience of increased emotion which is followed by a relief from that emotion if a step towards life change is taken. Dramatic experiences can include anything moving such as testimonies, psychodrama, and media campaigns. These type of ad campaigns use uncomfortable emotions, such as fear, disgust, or guilt, so people are motivated to do something not to feel this same way again.
It is the idea used in “reverse thinspiration,” or when someone puts a picture of themselves at their highest weight on the refrigerator. It’s the reason we call loved ones after watching a sappy movie or go clean the kitchen after reading an article about salmonella. It’s hard to imagine driving your kids through a fast food restaurant and not portioning their servings after driving by one of these billboards:
The obesity statistics are alarming: One-third of all Americans are obese and two-thirds are overweight. For individuals who are so overweight, losing weight is more involved than simply counting calories and exercise. It also has to do with how their relationship to food and exercise enables weight gain and the continuous cycle of over indulgence and a sedentary lifestyle.
Downward Dog
The ancient system of yoga, which was developed in India thousands of years ago, has shown promising help for those who are feeling imprisoned by an unhealthy relationship to food. Not only is yoga exercise, which is an indispensable component to any healthy lifestyle program, but it makes us more aware of our thoughts and emotions and it engenders compassion and non-reaction when uncomfortable situations arise.
For those who struggle with their weight, turning to food for comfort following a stressful or anxiety-provoking event is often a knee-jerk reaction that enables overeating and binge-eating. What follows are feelings of remorse, guilt and shame. Yoga can help identify the feelings that trigger these situations and consequently help to create some space in our minds to contemplate our actions before we do something we will later regret.
Oprah sang during her show yesterday “There is a place for us…,” as she learned that Mauritania, a west African nation, classifies beauty as being overweight. Her Nov. 20 episode featured a look around the world at how different countries define beauty in women. In Japan it was having flawless, porcelain skin; in Iran it was having a petite nose (the nose job capital of the world); in New Zealand, the women tattoo their chins and have their lips tattooed blue.
Mauritanian men and women define beauty as being “plump,” said Houda, a native of the country. From a young age, girls are force-fed couscous and camel’s milk, which is high in fat, all in an effort to make the girls gain weight so that they can find a husband. Often times, the girls are stuffed so full that they get sick, but given little recovery time before the feeding begins again. It seems the fatter the better in this culture.
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