Drugged-Out Nation

I start a new series as of today, on the topic of Drugs. The pharmaceutical kind, that is. You know, the stuff you go to the drug store to get.

I’m not anti-drugs. There’s a time and place for them. They can save lives. And sometimes they are necessary.

But the problem is that they should be used as a bridge, to be a stopgap measure while a person is working on getting healthier.

Instead, they are the only thing the great majority of people turn to when they are not feeling well.

As a result, drug use is at an epidemic level. In the U.S., per capita drug use is one dozen. Imagine that: on average, every man, woman and child in the U.S. is taking one dozen medications.

And I’m not taking any, so that means someone is picking up the slack for me.

The thing is: if you truly want to be healthy, you need to cut down and then cut out taking any medications.

Because taking medications is one of the surest ways to end up living a High Density Lifestyle, and with it, a very unhealthy and unhappy life.

Here’s the most ironic thing: in the U.S., every child is taught the slogan, “Just say no.” And yet, what kind of a lesson is being taught when the use of prescription medication is so rampant? Where’s the “Just say no” of that?

In 2008, overall drug sales in the U.S. were $291.5 billion. Lipitor, a statin used to control cholesterol, was the top-selling drug, followed by the acid reflux medication Nexium, and Plavix, an anti-platelet agent that reduces the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Sales of cardiovascular and gastroenterology medications, as well as ones that regulate central nervous system issues like seizures, depression, pain and Alzheimer’s, accounted for half of all drug sales in 2008.

Another big seller are antidepressants – they were the third most-popular type of drug dispensed in 2008, with $9.5 billion in sales.

It’s a boom time for the depression business, as long as you’re not a psychotherapist – fewer patients are seeing psychotherapists to resolve their mental health problems. Instead, says Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, “there’s a greater emphasis on drugs.”

Over 3.5 billion prescriptions a year are written in the U.S. And as a consequence of all those prescriptions written, here’s no surprise – the 4th leading cause of death is medication side effects.

And the outlook for the future? With prescription volume growing exponentially year after year, it’s not good.

This is great news for the drug industry and insurance companies – drug costs are driving premiums through the roof – but not good for the rest of us.

Drugs have direct, powerful effects on human systems. Most of these effects are negative, and taking multiple drugs increases the risks. Psychologically, the growing attitude that drugs are the answer for every ache and angst is destructive for individuals and societies.

With drug advertising everywhere, what is the message being drummed into us and our children: that for every symptom and sensation the solution is a pill?

The drug industry has been the most profitable industry by far year after year, and they have no ethical problem with the totally unethical act of giving financial incentives to doctors to write prescriptions for their products.

And it goes both ways: many doctors have no ethical problem with the totally unethical act of taking financial incentives from drug companies to write prescriptions for their products.

This is a sad state of affairs, and until it changes, we are going to be stuck in the quagmire of High Density Lifestyle living.

Which means we’ll continue to have people getting sicker, with their medical needs and costs draining the system; health care costs and premiums will continue to skyrocket with less coverage and higher co-pays; and businesses will be strangled with the burden of trying to give employees health care coverage.

The answer – along with health care reform – is for people to learn how to be healthier, and one of the most important steps in seeing that happen is the reduction and elimination of prescription drug consumption.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be delving into this more.

Relationships, Love and Sex, Part 2

In yesterday’s article, Relationships, Love and Sex, Part 1, I began to dissect this crazy little thing called love.

I said how these are complicated topics, full of pitfalls and entanglements, mishaps and risks, and also much bliss and happiness.

I also said how it’s the arena in which we can become most vulnerable, in which our deepest intimacies can become known; it can also be the arena in which our buttons are pushed to the max.

So let’s delve deeper into it. I’ll also explain why I believe that people who live a Low Density Lifestyle have a better chance of entering into lasting relationships and having better sex.

We are all social animals, and everyone desires to have a social network of friends, family, loved ones and significant other that you desire to spend time together with.

Strong relationships are a vital component of a healthy and happy life, while negative relationships can impact health and happiness in a detrimental manner.

When you are living a Low Density Lifestyle, you are naturally attracted to other people who are also living a Low Density Lifestyle, and it is these people who will make up your most intimate social network. If you feel centered, balanced and in the flow, you won’t readily enjoy the company of people who live a completely opposite lifestyle, as it will just be too jarring to your soul.

Interestingly though, people who live a High Density Lifestyle will be naturally attracted to those who live a Low Density Lifestyle, because the calmness and peacefulness of someone living a Low Density Lifestyle is something that can help to balance and center someone living a High Density Lifestyle.

It can actually be a profoundly transformative experience if someone living a High Density Lifestyle allows themselves to open up to the energies and calming influence of someone living a Low Density Lifestyle. So this is truly one case of opposites attracting!

But the tricky thing is that for those living a Low Density Lifestyle, the desire is to have happy and harmonious relationships, and they will go out of their way to find them and to reject relationships that create unhappiness and disharmony.

So it’s not impossible for people on opposite ends of the spectrum to come together—after all, the chemical bond of love transcends all boundaries and overcomes all limitations—it’s just that if you want to have a sustaining and lasting relationship, there needs to be a bonding of two souls, one in which each person can gaze into the other’s eyes and see the reflection of the deep and infinite waters of the Zero-Point Field, which is the origins of universal love and consciousness.

Communication is a big part of a relationship, and failure to communicate is a major reason for breakups. To be able to communicate, each party in a relationship needs to feel loved and safe. Each person in the relationship also has to let go of expectations and not judge or criticize the other, but instead help them to feel comfortable being able to communicate.

Communicating your deepest and most intimate thoughts and feelings is not easy, but if you feel safe and loved, and feel that what you say won’t be held against you, then it is easier to speak from your heart. This happens easiest when both people in the relationship are living a Low Density Lifestyle.

If one or both people in the relationship are living a High Density Lifestyle, then it’s a lot harder, because there’s no feeling of safety in expressing intimate thoughts. These are the relationships that are doomed to fail.

Another important part of a strong and lasting relationship is the sex life. Because those living a Low Density Lifestyle are healthier and more balanced, less stressed and more in the flow, they have the capability of having a strong sex drive and having better sex.

They understand that sexual desire is a natural biological urge, as opposed to a feeling that one should be ashamed of or should repress. They know that sex, and orgasm, make both parties feel good and is a vital part of making love. In addition, sex allows for intimacy and expressions of love, and these are things cherished by those living a Low Density Lifestyle.

For many people living a High Density Lifestyle, the only time when they’re able to relax and feel comfortable having sex is when they imbibe in alcohol or recreational drugs, because these allow them to relax their inhibitions and feel less stressed.

Although sex can be very enjoyable when performed in an altered state, an important part of the sexual experience is the feeling of intimacy that one person has with another, because in that state of intimacy, a strong bond is formed between both people and the flow of love, happiness and joy circulates and is expressed between them.

When a person is having sex in an altered state, the flow is impeded. But unfortunately, for many people living a High Density Lifestyle, having sex while in an altered state is the only way they can get full enjoyment of the act of making love.

Another great aspect of sex is that it increases your chances to be healthier and happier. People who have a regular sex life have been found to have a decreased risk of heart disease and stroke, a decrease in pain in the body, and an increase in life span.

These are enormous motives for having a healthy sex life, but the reality is that in order to have a healthy and happy sex life, it is best that both people involved live a Low Density Lifestyle.

Lessons for a Long Life From the Island of Ikaria, Greece

On the tiny island of Ikaria, off the coast of Greece, there is much to learn about living a long and healthy life, because a large percentage of the population of this island do so.

During the course of this series on Longevity, I have introduced you to various people who have lived a long and vital life, from the late Joe Rollino, to Jack Lalanne, yoga teacher Bette Calman, Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, and Mimi Kirk (whose three-part exclusive interview with me ended yesterday), among others.

But with the above video, you can be introduced to an entire population of people, as opposed to individuals.

The above video is based on the work of Dan Buettner and the Blue Zones team, researchers who have identified certain regions of the world where people live longer.

They found that in Ikaria, and especially in the northeastern end of the island, that over one-third of everyone in the northeastern end reaches age 90. They suffer 20% less cancer and half the rate of heart disease. And there’s virtually no dementia.

In other words, they’re living the good years many people are missing. Years we could possibly have by just adjusting a few simple habits, including:

1. Wild Greens – Greens are abundant in fields and roadsides, Ikarians frequently eat wild green salads and pies. Some contain more antioxidants than green tea or wine.
2. Herbal Teas – The common herbal teas consumed here contain compounds that lower blood pressure and decrease the risk of heart disease and dementia.
3. Low sense of time urgency – Feeling less obligation to one’s schedule and day is shown to lower heart-harming stress hormones.
4. Daily naps – Taking a 30-minute nap at least five times a week can decrease the risk of heart attack by 35 percent.
5. Mountain living – Here, every trip out of the house occasions a mini workout. People get their daily exercise without thinking about it. Studies show the mountain people have lower cardio vascular disease.
6. Strong sense of community – Family and village support create strong social connections, which are proven to promote longevity.
7. Goat’s milk – 80 percent of all people over 90 have consumed goat’s milk many times per week throughout their life. It is rich in blood-pressure lowering tryptophan and antibacterial compounds.
8. Ikarian diet – The Ikarian variation of Mediterranean Diet is high in vegetables, beans, and low in meat and sugar. Uniquely, though, it’s lower in grains and fish, but high in potatoes.

In the U.S., cancer costs almost $250 billion per year, heart disease another approximately $500 billion and dementia yet another $175 billion. If people of the U.S. could live Ikaria’s lifestyle, rates could be cut in half and half a trillion dollars could be saved.

People of Ikaria are clearly living a Low Density Lifestyle, and living long and vital lives because of it. There’s a lot of life lessons for living a long life that we can learn from the people of Ikaria, Greece, if only we can heed the call.

One of the biggest lessons to be learned is that living a High Density Lifestyle will surely affect the quality of your life both in terms of health and your lifespan.

Ok…So What the Heck is a Low Density Lifestyle?

Having started the new year off with poetry – which was the nature of all the articles last week, from the poetry of David Tucker, to Susan Jefts, to the odes to the New Year, and finally, to the poetry of Leonard Cohen, I will be beginning a new series, on Longevity, in just a couple of days.

But first, we interrupt this message to give you an important message from our sponsors…

Ok, it’s not exactly from our sponsors, the message is from me. You see, it’s almost a year now since I started the Low Density Lifestyle website. I’m starting to do radio interviews, and here’s the schedule of them; and my book The Low Density Lifestyle will be coming out in the near future; but…

People still want to know, What the Heck is a Low Density Lifestyle?

The concept is amazingly easy to grasp, but allow me to explain it to you…

Have you ever had a time in your life when everything seemed to be going just right? When everything flows and you feel like you’re clicking on all cylinders? Maybe it was when you were on vacation, or when you did something you felt passionate about. Maybe it was when you were absorbed in nature, listening to music, or perhaps even in the middle of a crowded city street.

Ultimately, where you are when you experience this isn’t so important, because in the end it’s really a state of mind.

This state, which occurs when your body, mind and spirit are in such resonance that you feel like you are in the zone, is called a Low Density Lifestyle.

When you are living this way, you are living in a more relaxed, less stressed, and calm, clear and focused manner on an everyday basis. It can lead you to better health and happiness, along with a more fulfilled, successful and enlightened life.

When you live a Low Density Lifestyle, you have less density, rigidity and tension in your body, mind and spirit—this means there are fewer blockages obstructing the dynamic flow of energy circulating throughout your body. You are more fluid and flexible, and less inflexible, rigid and uncompromising.

Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist, said, “Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.”

In essence, this is the formula for living a Low Density Lifestyle: if you let go of your densities and rigidities, and overcome your blockages, you will be like a fountain. You then become a circuit of energy, flowing infinitely, much like an unimpeded electrical circuit in which the electricity freely courses throughout.

How do you achieve a Low Density Lifestyle? Like anything in life, it takes a commitment, but the investment you put into it in terms of time and energy pays itself back with tremendous dividends.

You can start just by doing some simple things—eat more vegetables, grains and whole foods, and less animal foods; turn on some music and let go, moving and swaying to the beat as you feel it move through you; stop doing the same routine that you always do, instead doing something different everyday.

For instance, brush your teeth with your right hand if you always brush with your left, or sleep on the other side of the bed, or take a different route to work.

Make room for quiet time everyday, whether via meditation, walking in nature, or sitting quietly in your living room; and say “yes” instead of always saying “no.” See the Jim Carrey movie “Yes Man” to help guide you.

I have put together a 12-step guide to living a Low Density Lifestyle, which explains how to do it.

If this 12-step guide sounds complicated or overwhelming, let me distill it down to its essence: a Low Density Lifestyle is about being fluid and flexible of mind, body and spirit. From that starting point, all the benefits—better health, happiness, self-mastery, more joy and passion, fulfillment, success and inner peace—ensue.

Ultimately, the key to fluidity begins in the mind. How unbending are you in your beliefs? Are you a flexible thinker or someone who can be stubborn and dogmatic? Even if you eat the best vegetarian diet in the world, if you do it out of a rigid and holier-than-thou sense of what’s right, you may be doing more harm than good.

Now I’m not saying not to eat well, because that is an important component; however, a fluid and flexible mindset is what’s most important. It’s really the most important aspect to living a Low Density Lifestyle.

If you don’t live a Low Density Lifestyle, you may find yourself trapped in a High Density Lifestyle, a realm in which the burdens of stress and feeling overwhelmed can lay heavy on you and cause you to feel dense, tense and rigid.

If you feel heavy, and weighed down in your body, mind and spirit because of stress, poor eating, lack of exercise, a rigid belief system, unethical behavior, or a negative world view, then you are caught in the treadmill of a High Density Lifestyle. Billions of people on this planet are now caught in the trap of a High Density Lifestyle, and the increasingly fast-paced lifestyle of the modern world is to blame.

According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, in 2008, more people reported stress-related physical and emotional symptoms than they did in 2007, and nearly half of adults said their stress has increased in the past year.

A High-Density Lifestyle causes people to become physically ill, as well as mentally, emotionally and spiritually dense and rigid. This is evidenced by many of the common ills plaguing people today—weight gain, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and numerous other chronic and degenerative health problems.

So which would you rather live? A Low Density Lifestyle or a High Density Lifestyle? I think the choice is obvious. I invite you to be a part of a Low Density Lifestyle world.

And if more people lived a Low Density Lifestyle, we could then imagine the question, What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like?

What if War Isn’t Over?

In yesterday’s article during this series on What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like?, I showed the video of John Lennon’s well-known holiday anthem, Happy Xmas/War is Over.

I discussed it within the context of what John Lennon stood for – he was a man of vision and a man of peace. He was able to clearly articulate what a Low Density Lifestyle world should look like.

I said how the song, when it came out in 1971, was seen as radical and the work of a notorious peace activist, but now is sung far and wide by all kinds of musicians.

And to prove my point, in yesterday’s article were versions by Celine Dion, Melissa Etheridge, Tom Jones, the Three Tenors, and U2.

Which means the song is now a fully accepted and loved part of the holiday season. As well it should, since it is a hymn to peace – and isn’t that what the holiday spirit is about?

But what if war isn’t over? (I know, I know, just look around us – it goes without saying.)

So let me clarify it: what if we continue on the path we’re on, of many countries armed with nuclear weapons, ready to use the final option if necessary?

That’s the point of the above video, courtesy of Good Magazine.

So I invite you to watch it and to understand that is not the vision of the world we want to live in. That’s the vision of a High Density Lifestyle world, and is certainly not what a Low Density Lifestyle World Would Look Like.

So let’s all resolve to do better. Before it’s too late.

A Voice of Sanity in a High Density Lifestyle World

In a world in which people are stressed to the max, feel overwhelmed, and are caught up living a High Density Lifestyle existence; and in a world in which things seem topsy-turvy and what is wrong is right and what is right is wrong, voices of sanity are desperately needed.

That’s why we need people who live a Low Density Lifestyle to speak out and to be bold with their vision, because they are the voices of sanity, and the voices to lead us out of the wilderness.

And that’s why I’ve had this series on What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like? - to inspire the Low Density Lifestyle folks to help point the finger to the way to live a sane existence.

In the above video, you can see the actor Woody Harrelson’s poem Thoughts From Within set to music and images. In the poem he speaks simply, clearly and eloquently to help us understand how we’ve lost our way.

Woody is giving a Low Density Lifestyle perspective to a High Density Lifestyle world. Perspectives like these are voices from the wilderness, voices of clarity. They shine a light to help us see through the darkness of a High Density Lifestyle existence.

Woody Harrelson, best-known as Woody on the TV show Cheers, but also star of many well-known movies, including Indecent Proposal, Wag the Dog, and The Messenger, lives a Low Density Lifestyle. He’s a peace activist, a vegan – in the recent film Zombieland, when the script required him to eat a Twinkie, he replaced it with a vegan-faux Twinkie made from cornmeal – and in October 2009, he was conferred an honorary degree York University for his contributions in the fields of environmental education, sustainability, and activism.

I hope you enjoy the video and it inspires you to become a voice of sanity in a High Density Lifestyle World.

The Obesity Apocalypse is Nearing

Today is the last article for this series on obesity, and the last article for this week -  Thanksgiving is upon us, and with it I am taking a few day hiatus.

And what better time than Thanksgiving to talk about the dangers of eating too much food and the wrong types of food?

Because as a nation, here in the U.S., statistics show that obesity is rapidly reaching epidemic proportions.  Already the U.S. is the most obese nation on the planet.

I’ve talked about all the different causes of obesity – diet, sugar/high fructose corn syrup, chemicals, cars and stress – but no matter how you cut the mustard, the truth is that if we continue the path we’re on, there is something ugly looming on the horizon.

And that is the obesity apocalypse.

Forget 2012 and the Mayan Long Count calendar.  That just makes for a thriller of a Hollywood movie.

The real apocalypse will occur in 2030. That’s the year, according to a study that came out in the August 2008 edition of the medical journal Obesity, that nearly every American will be overweight or obese.

The study, led by Dr. Youfa Wang of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, says that if current overweight and obesity trends continue, 86 percent of Americans could be overweight or obese by the year 2030.

And even more troubling, the authors note, is the fact that “by 2048, all American adults would become overweight or obese.”

Shades of the Pixar film Wall-E.  In that film, 700 years in the future, the inhabitants of earth are forced to evacuate the planet, because due to mass consumerism the entire planet is covered with trash. The people of earth are now living in space on starliners, and are grossly obese and no longer able to walk. They have to rely on motorized hovercrafts to get them around.

Dr. Wang of John Hopkins also said that the increase in metabolic disease and other weight-related conditions could have a catastrophic toll on public health — and on the public pocket. If these predictions come to bear, Wang and his colleagues estimate that the additional overweight and obesity burden could add up to an extra $860 billion to $956 billion per year in health expenditures to treat these conditions.

All told, this would mean that $1 in every $6 spent on health care would be spent as a result of the overweight and obesity.

The reality is that if those dollar figures quoted above are spent on the health demands of obesity, it will bankrupt this nation. We can reform health care until we’re blue in the face, we can create a single payer system that is compassionate, caring and exceeds expectations, but if we have that level of burden to pay on health care, the only way to rescue the U.S. economy will be if every person in the country is allowed to have a printing press in their home in order to print up money.

Obviously, we are in dire need of reversing course, and doing it soon…or else.

Dr. David Katz, co-founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center says, “We are terribly, ominously off-course. To close the gap, we need to fix everything that’s broken — from neighborhoods without sidewalks, to the high price of produce, to food marketing to children, to misleading health claims on food packages, to school days devoid of physical activity and school cafeterias devoid of healthful offerings. The list goes on and on.”

Others state that the path to reversing course lie in individuals taking responsibility for diet and lifestyle habits. Dr. Neal Barnard, founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and a staunch supporter of a vegetarian diet, says dietary modification could be a crucial step in solving the problem.

“U.S. eating habits are nowhere near where they should be,” he says. “The average American eats 50 pounds more meat and 20 pounds more cheese per year, compared to the 1960s. … I would strongly encourage Americans to adopt more vegetarian meals.”

Soon we will be at a crossroads. On one path is the road to a Low Density Lifestyle, while the other is the trail to a High Density Lifestyle.

The choice is ours.

And so with that, I leave you to have a happy Thanksgiving.  I wish you well, and I hope you remember all I’ve written on this important subject.

Stress: A Major Cause of Obesity

I’ve been writing on the theme of obesity for the last few weeks, and will wrap this series up tomorrow. (It’s a short week, what with the Thanksgiving holiday, and so tomorrow’s article will be the last for this week.)

I’ve written about many causes of obesity – diet, chemicals in foods, sugar/high fructose corn syrup, cars.

Another cause of obesity, and a major cause at that, is stress.

Stress is a major cause of living a High Density Lifestyle, and a major cause of obesity – that’s why I’ve said throughout this series that being obese can get you trapped in the treadmill of a High Density Lifestyle.

What is it about stress that leads to obesity?

There’s two main reasons: behavioral and physiological.

Behaviorally, stressed-out people will often eat even when they’re not hungry – this is known as stress eating or emotional eating, and the food choices made are usually not the wisest.

Physiologically, there’s a few factors that lead to obesity. One factor is cortisol and cortisol-induced insulin.

When faced with a stressful situation, the body triggers the stress response, the fight-or-flight response. This leads to the secretion of cortisol, adrenaline and other stress hormones along with an increase of blood pressure, breathing and heart rate.

The natural stress response is usually short-term and self-regulating. When the threat is gone, the body returns to normal. As cortisol and adrenaline levels drop, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure, as well as energy levels return to their baseline levels. Other systems inhibited by the stress response return to their regular activities.

The natural stress response goes awry when stress is constant and excessive. In today’s society, most people are inundated with overwhelming stress. For those constantly dealing with excessive and chronic stress, the body’s fight-or-flight response is constantly on. In turn, the resulting stress hormones released are chronically high.

Chronically high levels of cortisol plays a big role in the development of obesity.

Cortisol helps the body handle stress, so when stress goes up, cortisol also goes up. Cortisol stimulates fat and carbohydrate metabolism during stressful situations. This leads to increased blood sugar levels required for fast energy. In turn, this stimulates insulin release which can lead to an increase in appetite.

When the immediate stress is over, cortisol lingers to help bring the body back into balance after stress. One of the ways it gets things back to balance is by increasing appetite to replace the carbohydrate and fat used for the flight or fight response.

The problem is that in today’s society, stress-causing situations — such as traffic jams or computer malfunctions — don’t require the body to use up a lot of energy. So, cortisol ends up causing the body to refuel after stress even when it doesn’t really need to refuel. This excess fuel or glucose is converted into fat, resulting in increased storage of fat.

What makes matters worse is that cortisol-induced high levels of insulin also leads to increased production and storage of fat. This means that exposure to chronically high levels of cortisol and cortisol-induced insulin are major main reasons why stress can lead to increase in body fat and obesity.

Another physiological reason that was found recently for why stress leads to obesity is a molecule that the body releases when stressed called NPY (neuropeptide Y). NPY appears to unlock certain receptors in fat cells, causing them to grow in both size and number.

NPY was discovered by researchers during an experiment in which stressed and unstressed mice were fed either a standard diet or a high-fat, high-sugar, “comfort food” diet.

As expected, the mice on the high-fat, high-sugar diet gained fat while those on the standard diet did not. But researchers found the stressed mice on the high-fat, high-sugar diet developed more body fat than the unstressed mice fed the same diet.

The good news of all this is that stress-induced obesity can be overturned by the learning of simple stress management techniques.

And for that matter, diet-induced obesity can be overturned by the learning of better food habits.

So there is hope!

Cars Are Making Us Obese

I’ve pointed out during this series on obesity that the obesity rates are steadily increasing at alarming numbers in adults and children, and that the number one cause is the prevalence of junk foods and sugar drinks.

Now you can add another thing to the list, and it’s something that most people use on an everyday and regular basis: cars.

There’s a direct correlation between the obesity rate in a nation, and the amount of driving as a primary means of transportation.

The more walking and biking a nation does, the lower its obesity rate. The more driving, the higher.

Which is why Americans are on average some 15% more obese than residents of European countries like Spain, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Only 5% of Americans regularly bike or walk as a form of transit, while over 50% of people in those countries do. And not all of this is purely from the exercise that you get by walking or biking, either.

If you live in a dense, urban, walkable city, you can consume less energy per person than any other kind of environment. It turns out that all that walking keeps you skinny too.

One person wrote in to the Atlantic magazine saying, “Car culture is terrible for public health. Again, I’m significantly overweight. Always trying new exercise and diet programs that never result in sustained weight loss. What has? Spent two months in London without car, relying on public transit and walking, no attempt at dieting or exercising. Weight loss: 22 lbs. Six weeks in NYC without car, relying on public transit and walking, no attempt… Weight loss: 19 lbs.”

This also means that there’s a correlation between living in suburban sprawl, or sprawling cities, and being obese, because of the amount of driving that has to be done. Researchers are finding that suburban dwellers are significantly fatter than their urban counterparts, primarily because they drive everywhere, even to the fitness club.

If you recall in the article a few days ago, I stated that Miami is the most obese city in the U.S. If you’ve ever been to Miami, you know that it is not a walk-centric city – it is one sprawling megalopolis.

Speaking of sprawling cities, L.A. is another one. Which makes the above music video, The Ride, by the rock band 30 Seconds to Mars really cool, as it’s an ode to L.A. bicycle culture.

It must have taken a lot of work to make the video, because there’s barely a car in sight in the video. Even if you don’t like the video, it’s worth watching with the sound off just for the visuals of the bikers taking over in one of the most car-centric cities in the world.

Call it a fantasy, but we need it to become a reality.

And so, if you’re a conspiracy theorist, you may wonder: the automobile created suburban sprawl, bigger and fuller fridges, the proliferation of fast food restaurants and the decline in the use of bikes.

Could it be that the system is rigged to put people in cars and take them to Wal-Mart and to McDonalds for cheap, fast high-fat food?

No wonder obesity rates are sky-high! And no wonder we’re becoming a world of people stuck in a High Density Lifestyle.

Join the conversation – I invite you to join my Facebook page and follow me on Twitter!

It’s the Food, Not Lack of Exercise, Causing Teen Obesity

For the last two days I’ve been talking about obesity in children, and the fact that in the U.S. nearly one in three children and teens are overweight or obese.

I discussed in yesterday’s article that one of the key causes of this obesity epidemic is sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

Many say that another big cause of obesity in younger folks is their lack of exercise.

Most American teenagers are not as active as they should be, but a lack of exercise does not seem to be to blame for the rising rates of teen obesity, according to a U.S. study.

According to a recent study published in the journal Obesity Reviews, researcher Youfa Wang of John Hopkins University said that a lack of exercise was not to blame for the rise in U.S. children and teens.

Wang and his research team, using government survey data from 1991 and 2007 that tracked the health and lifestyle of U.S. high school students, found the amount of physical activity among U.S. teens has not in fact changed significantly over the past two decades while the population, including children, has gotten heavier.

“Although only one third of U.S. adolescents met the recommended levels of physical activity, there is no clear evidence they had become less active over the past decade while the prevalence of obesity continued to rise,” said Wang.

He said there was no evidence that teens’ exercise levels had changed appreciably at any time during the study period — even though those years saw an increase in teen obesity.

Overall they found only 35 percent of teenagers surveyed in 2007 met the current recommendations for physical activity — performing activities that gets the heart rate up at least one hour per day, five or more days out of the week.

But there was no evidence that teenagers’ exercise habits shifted significantly during the study period.

In 1993, for example, 66 percent of teens got enough short bursts of vigorous exercise — 20 minutes of running, biking or other heart-pumping activity at least three days per week. That figure was 64 percent in 2005.

When it came to moderate exercise which should, according to guidelines, be performed at least 30 minutes per day, on five or more days per week, only 27 percent met that goal in 1999.

That figure was unchanged in 2005.

The researchers also found a decline in teenagers’ TV time, which is interesting, because it has been widely believed that an increase in TV time is one of the causes of obesity.

In 1999, 43 percent of students spent three or more hours watching TV on school days but this figure dipped to 35 percent in 2007. Wang said these findings suggest that waning exercise levels are “not likely the major explanation of the recent increase in obesity among U.S. adolescents.”

He said other factors, like unhealthy diets, may be the driving force.

And that is the truth. It’s the high consumption of junk food – sugar/high fructose corn syrup and fatty foods – that are the culprit.

Sadly, the desire for the junk foods is pretty much an addiction. Studies of the brain function of people with substance addictions has found that junk food triggers the same activity and response in the brain.

And a new study by researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida found similar reactions in rats. Pleasure centers in the brains of rats fed high-fat, high-calorie food became less responsive over time – a signal that the rats were becoming addicted. The rats started to eat more and more. They even went for the junk food when they had to endure an electric shock to get it.

“Your brain reacts almost identically to that of a cocaine addict looking at cocaine,” said Dr. Louis J. Aronne, a clinical professor at Weill Cornell Medical School and former president of The Obesity Society. “And the interesting thing is that someone who is obese has even more similarity to the cocaine addict. In many ways, they can be addicted to junk food.”

And even more sadly, food companies know this and create their food products with this in mind – they want people to be addicted to their products, because then they have a customer for life, regardless of the consequences.

And the consequences are that these junk food addicts will be caught in the treadmill of a High Density Lifestyle unless they break their addiction.

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