Tag Archives: obesity

BPA and obesity

Posted on September 18, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Used to manufacture some plastics – like the kinds in soda or water bottles – and as an anti-corrosive in aluminum cans, BPA has been under fire for some time from consumer advocacy groups. The FDA recently banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups after concerns were raised about potential side effects on the “brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and young children,” according to the FDA website. Still, the organization has stood by the overall safety of the chemical; in March the FDA denied the Natural Resources Defense Council’s petition to ban BPA outright. Now a new study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association is adding more fuel to the flames. The paper shows an association between BPA levels in children’s urine and obesity prevalence. BPA is known to disrupt your body’s metabolic mechanisms, according to the study authors, which could affect your body’s ability to control its weight… see more

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Posted in Environment, Obese

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TV Ads Contribute to Childhood Obesity, Economists Say

Posted on November 23, 2008 by | Leave a comment

By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: November 20, 2008

Banning fast food advertisements from children’s television programs would reduce the number of overweight children in the U.S. by 18 percent and decrease the number of overweight teens by 14 percent, economists have estimated in a new study.

The researchers used several statistical models to link obesity rates to the amount of time spent viewing fast food advertising, finding that viewing more fast food commercials on television raises the risk of obesity in children. The study appears in this month’s issue of The Journal of Law and Economics.

“There is not a lot of evidence that overweight kids are more likely to watch TV than other kids,” said Michael Grossman, professor of economics at the City University of New York. “We’re arguing the causality is how many messages are aired — seeing more of these messages is leading people to put on weight.” The study’s co-authors are Shin-Yi Chou, an economist at Lehigh College, and Inas Rashad, an economist at Georgia State University.

But the researchers’ estimate relies on older data gathered in the late 1990s, according to Elaine Kolish, a spokesman for the Council of Better Business Bureaus. Since then, two of the largest fast food chains — Burger King and McDonald’s — and more than a dozen other packaged food companies have signed on to the council’s Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, she said, pledging to advertise only their healthier products to children under age 12….read more here..

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Posted in Diet and Nutrition, Diseases, Health & Fitness, Medicine, Society

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Spare Tires Raises Risk of Death….

Posted on November 13, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Study: Spare tire doubles risk of dying even if BMI is OK

* Story Highlights
* European study finds fat around belly raised risk of dying
* The link was strongest in those who were at a healthy weight, BMI
* Abdominal fat can pad internal organs and is thought to promote inflammation
* iReport.com: Who’s the boss of your diet?

By Kate Stinchfield

Everyone knows that being overweight increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and some types of cancer, but new research reveals that even normal-weight people aren’t scot-free. A European study suggests that people with belly fat — even if they’re at a healthy weight — have a higher risk of dying during a 10-year period than their same-weight peers without a spare tire. The report was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“I was surprised that even people who would be considered normal weight in terms of their [body mass index] have a higher risk of death if their waist circumference is increased,” says Tobias Pischon, M.D., the study’s lead author and a member of the department of epidemiology at the German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE).

In one of the largest long-term prospective studies in the world, a team of researchers at the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition analyzed 359,387 people ages 25 to 70 from nine European countries.

The researchers found that those with a higher body mass index (BMI) were at a greater risk of dying during the 10-year study than normal-weight people. Health.com: Compare more than 40 diet plans

But when they looked at waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio alone — not just overall weight — they found that those factors were strongly associated with a higher mortality risk too. A 2-inch increase in waist circumference raised the mortality risk by 17% in men and 13% in women, regardless of BMI. The link was strongest in those who were at a healthy weight, compared to their heavier peers. Health.com: Why getting rid of belly fat may lower Type 2 diabetes risk

Men with the biggest girths (about 40.4 inches) were 2.05 times more likely to die during the study than men with waists that were less than 33.9 inches. Women with waists 35 inches or larger had a mortality risk 1.78 times higher than those with waists less than 27.6 inches.

It’s been known for some time that belly fat is bad for one’s health, and it has been linked to a greater risk of erectile dysfunction, memory problems, diabetes, and heart disease, among other health issues. Abdominal fat — unlike fat elsewhere in the body — can pad internal organs; it is thought to promote inflammation by releasing hormones.….read more here..

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Posted in Health & Fitness, Medicine, Survival, Wellness

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Obese People to Blame for Accelerating Global Warming?

Posted on August 30, 2008 by | 5 Comments

Obese People to Blame for Accelerating Global Warming?

by David Gutierrez

(NaturalNews) The weight and consumption habits of the overweight and obese are worsening the pace of global warming, said two researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in a letter to the medical journal Lancet.

It takes more fuel to transport people who are obese and therefore heavier, Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote. In addition, heavier people do not just tend to eat more food: they actually require it. The researchers calculated that it takes an obese person 1,680 calories per day just to maintain their body functioning and another 1,280 to sustain their daily activities. This is 18 percent higher than the caloric intake required for a person with a normal body mass index (BMI).

BMI is a measure of weight relative to height that is used to calculate healthy body weight. A BMI of 18 to 25 is considered normal, while a BMI above 25 is considered overweight and one of 30 or more obese.

But according to Edwards and Roberts, 40 percent of the global population has a BMI in the neighborhood of 30 or more.

“We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility,” Edwards said. “Obesity is a key part of the big picture.”

The production and transportation of food is a major source of greenhouse gases, the researchers noted, with agriculture responsible for a whopping 20 percent of global emissions. They also faulted the overweight for contributing to global food shortages.

“Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food,” the researchers wrote.

Tim Church of Louisiana State University questioned Edwards and Roberts’ focus on obesity, noting that 25 percent of the food produced in the United States is thrown away.

“We throw away far more food than the extra 460 calories per day [that Edwards and Roberts] point out,” Church said. “In other words, most of our food overproduction is due to waste, not overeating.”

Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com, telegraph.co.uk

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Posted in Alternative, Diet and Nutrition, Diseases, Environment, Medicine, Wellness

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$200 a barrel, $7 gallon for gas- Coming Soon?

Posted on May 18, 2008 by | 1 Comment

Perhaps expensive gas will help solve the  obesity epidemic.   Seriously, people will probably be  less likely to drive to a neighbor’s  home  or supermarket  if they will have to spend $7 a gallon on gas.  The result will be more walking and less driving.

Gas at $200 a barrel will have catastrophic  consequences on US families, perhaps pushing us to a 3rd world status.   An article I posted earlier suggests that what we know about oil and its limitless supply may not be entirely true.  Also, what if you could run your car on water? Whatever the truth is- $200 /barrel will likely lead to the end of our economy as we know it.  I doubt Obama or McCain can save us.

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By Sambit Mohanty

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co will begin trading physical oil by year-end, increasing its exposure in a market that could rise to $200 a barrel, the bank’s global head of commodities said on Wednesday.

The bank plans to expand in commodities and energy trading, Blythe Masters said, despite expectations of job cuts in other areas as it prepares to take on staff from Bear Stearns at the same time it deals with turbulent financial markets.

“We will start trading in physical oil and refined products by the end of this year,” she told Reuters in an interview.

JPMorgan will join a growing list of investment banks from Goldman Sachs to Barclays Capital seeking to boost profits on their big derivatives trading desks by gaining a foothold in physical markets.

The third-largest U.S. bank added 50 people to its commodities and energy trading and investment team last year and is on track to hire a similar number this year, taking the strength of the total team globally to 450, Masters said…. read rest of story..

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Posted in Politics and Medicine, Society, Survival, Wellness

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