What’s Making Our Children Obese?
November 18, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
There is an epidemic of childhood obesity in both the U.S. and the world, as I discussed in yesterday’s article.
I discussed some of the reasons for this, but there is one factor, and one factor alone, that is the main cause for it: sweets – sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.
Back in 1977, average daily consumption of fructose was about 37 grams per person per day.
Recent surveys show that it’s up to 54.7 grams, or about 10 percent of total caloric intake. And for teenagers – who consume a ton of sodas – fructose intake averages a whopping 72.8 grams, the equivalent of 18 spoonfuls of the stuff every single day.
Why should we care? It’s deadly. Fructose is one of the worst sweeteners you can possibly consume and it’s making our children obese.
Table sugar (sucrose) is made up of fructose and glucose. Studies that compare the effect of these two simple sugars (glucose and fructose) consistently show that it is the fructose part of table sugar that does the most damage, raising triglycerides and creating insulin resistance.
Yet, high-fructose corn syrup is only marginally worse than sugar (high fructose corn syrup is about 55% fructose and 45% glucose while table sugar contains equal amounts of both).
And there are a few food categories that are packed with these deadly sweeteners and heavily marketed to children.
If you recall the article I wrote about Kellogg’s promoting their obscenely sweetened with sugar and high fructose corn syrup breakfast cereal, Cocoa Krispies, as a healthful food, you can see how difficult it is for most people to realize the dangers of sugar when they’re up against a marketing behemoth that will stop at nothing to lure you into the unhealthy lifestyle that living a High Density Lifestyle is.
Besides the breakfast cereals, another food category that is playing a major role in the obesity epidemic are high-calorie soft drinks and fruit-flavored drinks.
“Roughly 15 or 20 years ago, we had an explosion in the availability of these beverages,” says Dr. Robert Keith, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System nutritionist. “Sure, they were around two decades ago, but certainly not to the degree they are today.”
“They’re everywhere, and they come in these attractive packages that are highly marketable,” he says. “And because you don’t have to refrigerate them, they can be stuck in a backpack and consumed anytime during the day.”
Few would deny the convenience associated with these products. But with this convenience comes a highly “concentrated source of calories,” Keith says. And when consumed in large amounts day in and day out, the end result is often obesity.
“Children up to age 11 need between 1,200 and 1,500 calories a day,” Keith says. “Only four of these beverages typically add up to between 400 and 600 calories, so many children are deriving up to a third or even half of their daily caloric intake from these products.”
Studies have confirmed a high correlation between heavy consumption of these drinks and obesity. Indeed, children who consume large amounts of these beverages tend to have higher body weights and higher levels of body fat.
Equally bad, the crowding out of other foods associated with over-consumption of these products is also depriving children of other vital nutrients.
“By consuming a third or even a half of their calories from these drinks, kids are causing the hunger mechanism in their brains to become partly quenched,” Keith says. “The result is that they’re less hungry, and with less hunger, they’re apt to eat fewer fruits, vegetables and other nutritious foods.”
“They are getting the calories but very little nutritional value.”
What can be done to reverse this dangerous trend?
“You really can’t make kids eat nutritious foods without limiting the intake of these beverages, because this will only contribute to obesity,” Keith says.
Instead, he says parents first should limit their children’s intake of high-calorie drinks to only one or two a day and replace additional consumption with milk, water or pure fruit juice.
Pure fruit juice, however, should be somewhat restricted in cases where the children already are obese.
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Obesity in Children
November 17, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
I continue with this series on obesity by discussing a topic that is alarming: obesity in children.
I’ve talked about obesity around the world and in the U.S., and how statistics show that the obesity trends continue to increase.
It’s bad enough to see the rates increase amongst adults; it’s even worse to see them increase among children.
What this means is that we’re creating future generations of people trapped in a High Density Lifestyle.
This does not bode well in many ways. It increases the health risks for these children now, and/or when they become adults. And it increases the health care costs of society in general.
In the U.S., nearly one in three children and teens are overweight or obese. In Mississippi, which is the nation’s most obese state, 44% of children and teens are overweight or obese.
And one in four obese children in the United States has early signs of type II diabetes, which is the type of diabetes seen only in adults until recently. In fact, almost half of the children and adolescents now diagnosed with diabetes have the type II form of the disease, which is strongly linked to obesity and lack of exercise.
Things aren’t better in other countries, as I pointed out in the article on Obesity Around the World.
Even more specifically, let’s look at childhood obesity in Asia – Asians are catching up with the U.S. and Western world in their obesity statistics.
Where malaria, typhoid and malnutrition once were the major killers in Asia, millions of people are falling prey to “Western” diseases – diabetes, heart disease and strokes, all associated with obesity and sedentary lifestyles.
Vietnamese rice farmer
This dramatic, almost abrupt change in lifestyle follows centuries in which the vast majority of Asians survived on a diet of less than 2,000 calories a day derived from food grown from the soil – particularly rice.
“The number of calories consumed by Asians, historically speaking, haven’t been that high,” says Dr. Robert Keith, a professor of nutrition at Auburn University in Alabama. “Food was sparse with very little saturated fat and was derived mostly from grains, rice and vegetables.”
By modern standards, it was a bleak lifestyle, far removed from the opulent lifestyles now commonplace in burgeoning cities throughout Japan, China, Thailand and Malaysia.
Until recently, obesity and its related problems were associated almost entirely with the West, where food was cheap, fast and fatty and physical inactivity was the norm rather than the exception.
But Asians are catching up fast. As health professionals are learning, the rising tide of affluence that has followed industrialization and urbanization throughout much of Asia has been accompanied by the same problems associated with the West – skyrocketing rates of obesity coupled with plummeting levels of physical activity.
“Like the West decades ago, Asians have prospered by producing more consumer goods and attracting tourist dollars,” Keith says. “And as a result, they now have more disposable income, and their lifestyle allows them to purchase more convenient food.”
In many cases, Western food providers, particularly fast-food chains, are only happy to meet this demand.
But opulence comes with a price. More often than not, this food, while cheap, convenient and plentiful, also is loaded in saturated fat and, in most cases, sugar. As a result, in only one generation, many Asians have gone from consuming between 1,500 and 2,000 calories a day to between 2,000 and 3,000 calories. And many of these calories increasingly are being derived from milk, ice cream, cookies and soft drinks.
What this has meant is that there is rising rates of obesity not only among adults but amongst Asian children and teens. Like millions of Western children, they’re developing something health experts seldom ever saw a few decades ago – adult onset diabetes.
The World Health Organization reports that obesity among Thai children, ages 5 to 12, has risen to nearly 16 percent – a 4 percent increase from only a couple of years ago.
In Japan, where the problem isn’t as serious, obesity has risen from just under 3 percent to almost 10 percent among boys and from almost 3.5 to 8 percent among girls.
One of the factors for this increase in Asia is the wide availability of televisions, personal computers and video games. Like their counterparts in the United States, millions of Asian children are spending an increasing amount of time either watching television or playing computer games – and in the meantime, snacking on the wide array of readily available Western-style snacks.
Another factor associated with affluence, described by Asians as “malling,” also appears to be taking its toll. Like millions of their counterparts in the West, Asian children and teens are spending an increasing amount of their leisure time in malls, shopping and munching on fast food.
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Obesity, Meat Free Monday, and the Empire Strikes Back
November 13, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono get a little help from their friends in announcing the launch of Meat Free Monday
Back in September I posted an article about Meat Free Monday, the campaign that Paul McCartney is helping to spearhead, which encourages people to go meat free one day a week.
The theory behind Meat Free Monday is that eating less meat is good for the environment and that even one less day of meat eating a week can help slow climate change.
It’s also well-known that eating too much meat can be harmful to your health, and so Meat Free Monday can definitely be a boost to the health of anyone who partakes.
And it can also be something that can lower obesity rates.
With that in mind, the city of Baltimore public school system became the first district in the U.S. to adopt Meat Free Monday. On October 5, 2009 the school cafeteria workers began prepping their first vegetarian fare.
This is really such a wise thing for the school district to do, especially in the face of the rising tide of childhood obesity, and obesity in general, in the U.S.
But the Empire was immediately ready to strike back at the news.
A spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute, Janet Riley, recently went on CNN and warned that students aren’t getting enough protein.
And the Animal Agriculture Alliance urged people “shocked” by the once-weekly absence of meat on school menus to write schools chief Andrés Alonso “to ensure this effort does not spread.”
Janet Riley of the American Meat Institute
“I am not suggesting that every child be forced to eat meat every day,” Janet Riley of the American Meat Institute said on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight. “What I am suggesting is that children and parents should have the ability to choose what they want to eat.”
Riley also voiced concerns that children will not get enough protein. Will someone please tell her that there are lots of other sources of protein besides meat?
And, get this, Riley also didn’t like the idea of the indoctrination that will occur: she’s concerned that it’s not the place for a school to tell children how to eat.
Riley said that by taking meat completely off of the menu one day a week, the school district was denying students the freedom of choice. “I am not suggesting that every child be forced to eat meat every day,” said Riley. “What I am suggesting is that children and parents should have the ability to choose what they want to eat.”
During the segment on CNN, host Lou Dobbs commented, “That’s a real political storm in the making, isn’t it?”
You can watch the CNN segment in the video at the top of this page.
Now, you may consider it a coincidence, but it wasn’t much longer after this segment aired that Dobbs announced his resignation from his show, effective immediately.
To me, it’s no coincidence. It’s obvious Lou Dobbs is quitting in order to get to the bottom of this conspiracy and find out who’s behind this treacherous plot that’s forcing our kids to not eat meat.
I mean, God forbid, if these kids actually go a day without meat, then they may actually lower the obesity rates amongst children and in the U.S. in general. And we wouldn’t want to upset the apple cart, would we?
I mean, do we really want to invoke the wrath of the Empire, and take a risk of the Empire Striking Back?
And here’s a repeat of the video from the article in September in which Paul McCartney announces the Meat Free Monday campaign:
The Most Obese State in the U.S. – and What They’re Trying to Do About It
November 12, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
Over the last few days during this series on obesity, I’ve told you about obesity in the U.S. and how the rates have been increasing rapidly, and I also told you about the most obese cities in the U.S. – with Miami, Florida having the honor of being the most obese city.
Today I want to look at the most obese state in the U.S., a state that has held onto first place for the last five years. In 2008, Mississippi reported that 32.8% of their residents are obese.
So you could say that they are the leading High Density Lifestyle state.
It’s not an honor anyone wants to win, and unfortunately, as you saw in the article on Obesity in America, Mississippi has been at the forefront of obesity statistics since the CDC first began measuring the numbers in 1985.
Mississippi also has the highest number of obese children, with 44% of children ages 10-17 registering in that category.
Here is what some Mississippi state public policy makers and health advocates are suggesting for the state to do to reverse the trend:
1. Address the Environment
Personal choices about diet and activity are important. But in a state with a high poverty rate, if there’s no healthy food available at affordable prices, and no place to exercise or even take a walk, that’s a problem.
“I am not here to tell you to be healthy or force you to be healthy. I’m just here to give you an opportunity for it,” Chip Johnson, mayor of Hernando, Miss., said. ” I have to put that opportunity out there, and if the people don’t take advantage of it, that’s their choice.”
Johnson says Hernando, which is located about 12 miles south of Memphis, Tenn., has a population of 15,000 people and is in Mississippi’s Delta region.
“Mississippi is the fattest state in the fattest nation in the world at the fattest time in all of history, and the Delta is the fattest area of our state. So we’re right here, smack-dab in the middle of the fattest thing going on,” Johnson says.
2. Spring for Sidewalks
Gene McGee, mayor of Ridgeland, Miss., says his town (population: 23,000) mandates sidewalks for new subdivisions. “That hopefully encourages families or individuals to walk in the subdivisions,” McGee said.
In Hernando, Mayor Johnson says grants will pay for sidewalks to be installed in the city’s poorest neighborhood, and crumbling sidewalks elsewhere have also been upgraded.
Johnson says he’s seen more people walking on the new sidewalks. “It’s like that movie — if you build it, they will come,” he says.
3. Spruce Up Parks
“I think it’s very important to encourage communities to have facilities such as multi-use trails or parks that encourage physical activity,” says McGee, noting Ridgeland’s system of multi-use trails for biking, jogging, or walking.
Johnson says in Hernando, volunteers rehabbed an overgrown football field and track at a burned-down high school, turning it into a site for youth football and soccer and a place for neighborhood residents to walk and jog.
4. Reframe Obesity
Obesity shouldn’t be thought of as a personal failure or sheer gluttony, but as a “chronic medical condition,” says Gabrial Uwaifo, MD, FACP, FACE, an endocrinologist at the University of Mississippi in Jackson, Miss. Uwaifo wants obesity to be covered by insurance, not paid for out of pocket.
Deep fried bread - a southern delicacy
5. Step Away From the Deep Fryer
Uwaifo, who moved to Mississippi two years ago from the Washington, D.C., area, says he was surprised by how Mississippians eat.
“I was amazed at how virtually everything was fried,” Uwaifo says. “I’ve seen oranges dunked in oil” as well as fried bananas and apples.
Uwaifo says these eating habits are “dangerous for your heart, and it could add up over time.”
6. Launch a Public Health Blitz
That’s something Uwaifo wants to see happen. He likens it to the antismoking public campaign.
“Just the same way we finally got people to understand that the Marlboro Man looked good but all those cigarettes wasn’t good for him and will kill him eventually. That’s the sort of public health onslaught I think needs to be put out regarding food. People need to understand that we do end up being what we eat,” Uwaifo says, cautioning that messages should be tailored to different ethnic populations and age groups.
“It has to be handled sensitively and carefully. It cannot be one-size-fits-all,” Uwaifo says.
If Mississippi really steps up to the plate by making a major commitment to tackle obesity, the state could end up being an obesity underdog. Given the high rate of obesity, even small changes could make a “measurable impact,” Uwaifo notes.
7. Make Healthy Food Available and Affordable
This hasn’t been as simple as putting in sidewalks. Mississippi is one of the nation’s poorest states, and as Uwaifo points out, “as long as it’s far cheaper to get high-fat, high-carbohydrate, simple starchy things, whatever public education you put out there is not going to work. People finally have to work with what is in their pocket.”
Johnson points to a new farmer’s market — all with local food — on the Hernando town square on Saturday mornings that is proving popular. It’s within walking distance of poor neighborhoods and also draws people from up to 60 miles away, says Johnson, adding that the city’s poorest neighborhood also has a new community garden.
But he’s not happy with the choices at local stores in certain neighborhoods.
“We still don’t have healthy foods accessible in our lower-income neighborhoods,” Johnson says.
“People who don’t have a car and who walk to the corner market for their meals, well, their only options are the fried chicken and the fried pizza sticks and all that stuff sitting there in the counter. When you go in these corner stores, there’s no fresh vegetables. There may be a brown banana laying there, that’s the best you can hope for. So we’re trying to encourage that, and that part has not happened here yet,” Johnson says.
8. Walk the Walk
“Setting an example for people is very important,” says McGee, who is an avid cyclist, covering 100-150 miles per week on his bike. But he wasn’t always like that.
“When I started cycling, I was probably 35 pounds over what I am right now,” he says. Taking up cycling “helped me to lose weight, and it also taught me that to exercise, I’ve also got to eat right, and so I’ve learned to turn down those foods that aren’t good for you.”
The Most Obese Cities in the U.S.
November 11, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
In yesterday’s article, I continued with this series on obesity by discussing obesity in the U.S. I showed maps of the U.S. that charted out obesity rates across the country from 1985-2008, and the results were startling.
Now let’s examine it even more closely by looking at the most obese cities in the U.S. This statistic is put together by Men’s Health magazine, which has been doing the survey for the last 11 years.
Men’s Health magazine does their analysis by working with a research firm to examine the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas and grade them in more than a dozen categories, including the percentage of overweight citizens and the number of fitness centers and sports stores.
According to their findings, Miami, Florida is the nation’s unfittest and most obese city.
That may be hard to believe, since when you think of Miami, you think of hard bodies working on their tan in South Beach.
Yet Miami earned its dubious distinction because of its large number of overweight people, a high rate of TV viewing among residents, long commutes and poor air quality. The city has almost three times as many fast-food restaurants as the average city. And participation is low in outdoor activities such as biking, running and fitness walking.
Claudia Gonzalez, a registered dietitian in Miami, says the city doesn’t invite people to walk and exercise because of all the highways. “If you walk in some areas, people look at you like you are strange – like, ‘Why are you walking when everyone else is driving?’ ”
So what’s up with Miami? Here’s a number of reasons why they are numero uno:
**Florida state law limits or prohibits obesity-related lawsuits against food manufacturers and restaurants.
At the beach in Miami
**The local commute is much more oppressive than in most cities – 50 percent more oppressive than average, leaving less time to exercise and prepare healthy meals. Commuter stress may also raise levels of cortisol, a hormone linked to weight gain and other health problems.
**According to Nielsen Media Research, TV viewers in the Miami television market spend 20 percent more time in front of the tube than average among cities.
**Air quality here is among the most unhealthful of any city, according to EPA air quality standards. Unhealthy air makes outdoor exercise hazardous.
**Miami’s park acreage per capita is 80 percent lower than average. Research has found a connection between access to parks and green space and reduced obesity rates.
**Fast food, widely implicated as a contributor to obesity, is more common in Miami than most places. In a per capita comparison there are 31 percent more fast-food joints here than average.
**Miami residents participate in sports much less than average – 20 percent less than average.
**Although other states participate in a CDC-sponsored program to reduce obesity and other chronic diseases, Florida doesn’t.
**Miami has 74 percent more pizza places per capita than the average among cities.
**Despite wide availability of local running and biking trails, Miami residents are 35 percent less likely than average to jog or cycle.
Even little Miamians like their ice cream
**Ice cream shops are 141 percent more popular in Miami than average.
**Just 7 percent of Miami residents play golf. That’s 32 percent less than average.
**Miami residents are 67 percent less likely than average to go hiking.
**Only about 2 percent of Miami residents do Pilates.
**Residents of Miami are 84 percent less likely than average to use aerobic rider machines.
**Skateboarding is 63 percent less popular here than average.
Here, according to Men’s Health, are the 24 other cities that round out the top 25 most obese cities in the U.S.
2. Oklahoma City, OK
3. San Antonio, TX
4. Las Vegas, NV
5. New York, NY
6. Houston, TX
7. El Paso, TX
8. Jacksonville, FL
9. Charlotte, NC
10. Louisville-Jefferson, KY
11. Memphis, TN
12. Detroit, MI
13. Chicago, IL
14. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
15. San Jose, CA
16. Tulsa, OK
17. Baltimore, MD
18. Columbus, OH
19. Raleigh, NC
20. Philadelphia, PA
21. L.A.-Long Beach, CA
22. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
23. Indianapolis, IN
24. San Diego, CA
25. Kansas City, MO
Obesity in America
November 10, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
Continuing on with this series on obesity, today I want to talk about obesity in the U.S., and what the trends tell us.
The last article talked about obesity around the world; now I will look at the country that has the dubious distinction of leading the world in obesity, the U.S.
And as I said in the first article in this series on obesity, being obese is a sure-fire path to living a High Density Lifestyle - it plays havoc on your health, and it stresses your body to no end.
So let’s look at the trends, from 1985 – 2008, courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control:
In 1985, a few states registered, 10-14% of the population as being obese, and other states registered less than 10% of the population as being obese.
As you can see, there was no data for many states in 1985, presumably because there wasn’t a large population base of obese people, so it wasn’t seen as something to have to keep tabs of.
In 1991, a few states reported less than 10% of the population as being obese, while the majority reported 10-14% obesity. Four states, Michigan, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi reported 15-19% of the population as being obese.
In 1998, things had progressed. Now there were no states reporting less than 10% obesity. The best numbers that a minority of states had were 10-14% obesity. Many states were now reporting 15-19% obesity, and a smattering of states were now registering 20-24% obesity rates.
A few years later, in 2003, numbers had increased again. Now no states were reporting 10-14% obesity rates. Only a few states had 15-19% obesity statistics, with the great majority at 20-24% obesity. A few states, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky and Indiana were now reporting 25-29% obesity numbers.
And now, the latest trends in 2008 show that numbers continue to increase. Only one state, Colorado, has obesity rates at 15-19%, most states are at 25-29%, and a few states are at 30% of the population being obese.
Below are the 2008 rates laid out in table format:
| 2008 State Obesity Rates | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State | % | State | % | State | % | State | % |
| Alabama | 31.4 | Illinois | 26.4 | Montana | 23.9 | Rhode Island | 21.5 |
| Alaska | 26.1 | Indiana | 26.3 | Nebraska | 26.6 | South Carolina | 30.1 |
| Arizona | 24.8 | Iowa | 26.0 | Nevada | 25.0 | South Dakota | 27.5 |
| Arkansas | 28.7 | Kansas | 27.4 | New Hampshire | 24.0 | Tennessee | 30.6 |
| California | 23.7 | Kentucky | 29.8 | New Jersey | 22.9 | Texas | 28.3 |
| Colorado | 18.5 | Louisiana | 28.3 | New Mexico | 25.2 | Utah | 22.5 |
| Connecticut | 21.0 | Maine | 25.2 | New York | 24.4 | Vermont | 22.7 |
| Delaware | 27.0 | Maryland | 26.0 | North Carolina | 29.0 | Virginia | 25.0 |
| Washington DC | 21.8 | Massachusetts | 20.9 | North Dakota | 27.1 | Washington | 25.4 |
| Florida | 24.4 | Michigan | 28.9 | Ohio | 28.7 | West Virginia | 31.2 |
| Georgia | 27.3 | Minnesota | 24.3 | Oklahoma | 30.3 | Wisconsin | 25.4 |
| Hawaii | 22.6 | Mississippi | 32.8 | Oregon | 24.2 | Wyoming | 24.6 |
| Idaho | 24.5 | Missouri | 28.5 | Pennsylvania | 27.7 | ||
Obesity Around the World
November 6, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
Percentage of population over 15 with a body-mass index greater than 30
Obesity is a global epidemic, as I’ve stated in prior articles in this series on obesity. Although the U.S. is the world’s leader in percentage of obese people, it is far from the only country in the world with a glaring problem.
And as I’ve pointed out, the main culprit in the obesity epidemic is the modern diet, and in particular white flour, refined white sugar, and high fructose corn syrup, along with the consumption of soft drinks and fast food.
I’ve also pointed out that chemicals in foods can cause obesity.
One other food product that can be directly related to obesity is the growth hormones that are fed to animals - the meat that is then eaten by people. Eating animals that have been artificially bulked up can cause the consumers of these foods to also become bulked up.
In the U.S., the number of obese and overweight children has climbed to 30 percent in 30 states, a troubling trend that could signal decades of weight-related health problems such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease as these children become adults.
The U.S. Centers For Disease Control says that one in three American children born in the year 2000 will go on to develop diabetes.
But the same is seen all around the world. A woman I know who has been visiting Scotland since the 1970’s said when she first stayed in Scotland, there were no obese people she ever saw. Now she says she sees it everywhere when she goes.
And the cause, in her mind, is the proliferation of fast food establishments there.
The physiological cause for this is a syndrome that creates accelerated aging and disease. Its name is Metabolic Syndrome and the amount of people it is affecting is reaching epidemic proportions.
Metabolic syndrome is a complex health condition that affects an estimated 25 percent of Americans, and most probably a similar amount around the world.
It begins with an inability to manage blood sugar, which creates a state of glucose intolerance or insulin resistance. Insulin Resistance creates a multitude of conditions, high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, high blood insulin levels, and obesity. When left unchecked, these conditions are risk factors for coronary heart disease, diabetes and accelerated aging.
According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the chances of developing metabolic syndrome increase if you have three or more of the following symptoms:
* A family history of type 2 diabetes and/or metabolic syndrome
* Waist measurements greater than 40 inches for men and greater than 35 inches for women
* Levels of triglycerides of 150 mg/dL or greater
* Low levels of HDL-cholesterol (less than 40 mg/dL in men and less than 50 mg/dL in women)
* Blood pressure above 135/80
* Fasting blood sugar levels above 110 mg/dL (mg of glucose in 1 deciliter of blood)
The U.S. continues to lead the way, with as many as 37% of its children and adolescents carrying around too much fat. But other countries are rapidly catching up.
According to statistics, more than 20% of European youngsters between the ages of 5 and 17 are either overweight or obese. Children in North Africa and the Middle East aren’t far behind.
Across Asia too, childhood obesity is on the rise, and the trend has been documented even in urbanized areas of sub-Saharan Africa, which until recently was the one place in the world where obesity rates were low.
Among the most obese people on the planet are the inhabitants of the South Pacific island of Nauru, who — thanks to a surfeit of cheap, calorie-dense foods, along with a shift away from jobs requiring physical activity — have the unwelcome distinction of being some of the fattest, most diabetes-prone people on the planet.
Unfortunately, the Nauruan experience, while extreme, is not unique. Asia may lag behind the U.S. and Europe in its obesity statistics, but Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and the Philippines have all reported troubling increases in recent years.
In China, where a one-child-per-family policy has created millions of spoiled and overnourished children (feeding a phenomenon known as little-emperor syndrome), the rise in childhood obesity is particularly alarming. Up to 10% of China’s 290 million children are believed to be overweight or obese, and that percentage is expected to have doubled a decade from now.
Imagine this. What does this bode for the future? A world of people living a High Density Lifestyle, who are extremely unhealthy and putting a strain on medical services and medical budgets.
Obesity Can Be Caused By Chemicals in Foods
November 5, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
In Tuesday’s article I discussed some of the dietary reasons for the increased rate of obesity in most countries around the world, and especially in the U.S.
I said how some of the main culprits are sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and an increased reliance of fast foods.
And in yesterday’s article, I showed you how Kellogg’s is trying to fool the public into thinking that a breakfast cereal that is laden with sugar and junk is a food that can boost your immune system.
No wonder obesity is, according to the World Health Organization, a global epidemic! With friends like these, who needs enemies!
But there’s another category of foods that can lead to weight gain and obesity – the chemicals in your food, even if those chemicals don`t contain a single calorie.
To understand this, you’ll need to realize that the liver is your primary detoxification organ. Your liver is also your primary fat-burning organ. Therefore, the more unnatural chemicals you consume on a regular basis, the more time and energy your liver needs to spend detoxifying you. But, the more your liver is consumed with the role of detoxification, the less time and energy it will have for burning fat.
For instance, it’s safe to say that pesticides are poisons: their primary purpose is to kill living organisms, and most non-organic foods are laden with pesticides.
Now, these pesticides don’t transform into non-toxic, safe entities once inside the body. As the pesticides enter the body, the body’s defense mechanisms send signals that poisons have entered.
How does your body deal with a poison? By attempting to neutralize it. This means your body attempts to render the poison harmless, and then remove it , generally through normal elimination channels, such as through your colon. Your colon is the primary organ used to eliminate toxins from the body, and the liver is the organ most often responsible for rendering poisons harmless.
But what happens when people eat unnatural chemicals on a regular basis?
Then the liver becomes overwhelmed with the need to detoxify all of those chemicals and poisons, and the poisons start backing up into the blood.
The Liver
Your liver is also the great warehouse of the body, and so it also stores toxins and poisons that it was unable to neutralize. It does this to keep those poisons out of your bloodstream and from circulating in your body.
This can be taxing on the liver – it can be overwhelming trying to detoxify all of the chemicals being consumed on a daily basis; in addition it is trying to store all the poisons that it wasn’t able to neutralize.
Some estimates are that three fourths of the average person’s liver is used to store toxins that the liver was unable to render harmless.
No wonder that for so many people losing weight is virtually impossible: Their primary fat burning organ is overwhelmed with another task, and it’s become only half functional.
Not only will this lead to weight gain and an inability to lose weight, it can also lead to diabetes, because the liver plays a vital role in the uptake of blood glucose, and if the liver is not fully functioning, its ability to do the work it needs to do with blood glucose can be severely impaired.
And guess what? Like obesity, diabetes has reached epidemic proportions.
So what to do about it? A couple of things.
The first is to try and stop consuming chemicals in your diet on a regular basis. This generally means giving up processed foods as best as possible, and eating organic foods as much as possible. Plant-based foods, particularly vegetables, are very liver friendly.
This will prevent many new chemicals from entering your body, and is a tremendous step in the right direction. But what about those poisons already stored in your liver and circulating in your blood? Sometimes it takes more than changing your diet to clear out the accrued chemicals residing in the liver.
That is why over the years there have been a number of natural/herbal approaches that have been developed to cleanse the liver.
Milk thistle, vitamin C, selenium, beta carotene, vitamin E, and N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) are all powerful antioxidants which are helpful in liver detoxification.
The amino acid SAM-E plays an important role in liver health, in addition to helping with depression. Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and cabbage in the diet have been shown to enhance liver detoxification. Besides using them as foods, you can also juice with them.
The B vitamins, including riboflavin and niacin, also are helpful in liver detoxification.
Coffee enemas, used in Gerson Cancer Therapy, is also something that can detox the liver.
Can a Breakfast Cereal Make You Obese and Boost Your Immune System At the Same Time?
November 4, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
It’s long been known that most of the breakfast cereals out there can cause obesity. They’re high in sugar, and as I pointed out in yesterday’s article, sugar is a cause of obesity.
They’re also highly processed foods, which is another cause of obesity.
And thanks to the fact that a lot of breakfast cereals are marketed to children, there is an alarming rise in childhood obesity.
Most cereals marketed to children are high in sugar, high in sodium, and low in fiber. Many are highly colorful because of artificial dyes, making healthier cereals, very literally, pale in comparison.
Reinforcing the myth that children will not eat low-sugar cereals,
the cereal industry has funded a number of studies that find that highly-sweetened cereal is good for children, especially when compared to having no breakfast at all.
But now, Kellogg, the world’s largest cereal maker, is claiming that their breakfast cereal Cocoa Krispies, which is their chocolate flavored version of Rice Krispies, can boost the immune system of children and help them stave off illness.
Boxes of Cocoa Krispies carry a banner proclaiming “Now helps support your child’s IMMUNITY.” Parents are led to believe that eating a bowl of the sugary cereal at breakfast will help bolster their child’s ability to fight off infection from a variety of diseases.
Here are the ingredients of this “immune boosting” food:
RICE, SUGAR, COCOA PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE (SUGAR, CHOCOLATE, ANHYDROUS DEXTROSE), PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (ONE OR MORE OF: COCONUT, SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED), SALT, MALT FLAVORING, CALCIUM CARBONATE, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, ASCORBIC ACID AND SODIUM ASCORBATE (VITAMIN C), IRON, ALPHA TOCOPHEROL ACETATE (VITAMIN E), NIACINAMIDE, ZINC OXIDE, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), FOLIC ACID, BHT (PRESERVATIVE), VITAMIN D, VITAMIN B12.
Sounds real yummy and healthful, doesn’t it?
Fortunately, the public isn’t buying into Kellogg’s claims. San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera wrote Kellogg CEO David Mackay last week, asking him to provide proof in 30 days that his cereal boosts immune systems. Kellogg is misleading consumers to make them think that Cocoa Krispies are a healthy food, Herrera says.
He also says parents may think the cereal is effective warding off swine flu at a time when public health officials encourage children to get vaccinated.
“Immunity claims may also mislead parents into believing that serving this sugary cereal will actually boost their child’s immunity, leaving parents less likely to take more productive steps to protect their children’s health,” Herrera wrote in his letter, which also was sent to the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Justice Department.
Susanne Norwitz, a Kellogg spokeswoman, defended the claim and said that the company added antioxidant vitamins A, C and E to its Cocoa and Rice Krispies products after studies showed the vitamins play a key role in the immune system.
Kellogg’s health claim “belongs in the hall of fame,” said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. “By their logic, you can spray vitamins on a pile of leaves and it will boost immunity.”
Brownell says adding vitamins doesn’t make the food an immunity booster. “What really matters is what those things come packaged with – in the case of a cereal like Cocoa Krispies – which is more than 38 percent sugar, it’s not being delivered in a very good vehicle,” Brownell says.
The bottom line is that a poor nutritional food like Cocoa Krispies – if you can call it a food – will weaken your immune system, not boost it.
And it can also lead to obesity, which pretty much is the same thing as saying that it will weaken your immune system.
And it will lead you straight down the path of a High Density Lifestyle.
Obesity – The Health Issue of Our Times
November 3, 2009 by Michael Wayne
Filed under Diet And Nutrition, obesity
For the next few weeks, I am going to cover the topic of obesity. Obesity is truly the health issue of our times.
When you live a Low Density Lifestyle, one of the beneficial side effects is better health and wellness. And when you live a High Density Lifestyle, one of the detrimental side effects is poor health – and one manifestation of poor health is often times obesity.
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems.
Body mass index (BMI), a measurement which compares weight and height, defines a person as overweight (pre-obese) when their BMI is between 25 kg/m2 and 30 kg/m2, and obese when it is greater than 30 kg/m2.
Obesity increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties during sleep, certain types of cancer, gynecological issues, pain, and osteoarthritis. Obesity will also shorten life span.
Before the 20th century, obesity was rare; in 1997 the World Health Organization (WHO) formally recognized obesity as a global epidemic. As of 2005 the WHO estimates that at least 400 million adults are obese, with higher rates among women than men.
The rate of obesity also increases with age at least up to 50 or 60 years old and severe obesity in the United States, the British Isles, Australia, and Canada is increasing faster than the overall rate of obesity. The U.S., by the way, has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.
And Scotland actually is the second most obese country in the world, which is why People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) put up an outrageous billboard not too long ago in Scotland.
Once considered a problem only of high-income countries, obesity rates are rising worldwide and affecting both the developed and developing world. These increases have been felt most dramatically in urban settings. The only remaining region of the world where obesity is not common is sub-Saharan Africa.
Obesity is a public health and policy problem because of its prevalence, costs, and health effects.
The main cause of obesity is the modern diet, and as such, it is an easily preventable situation.
From 1971 to 2000, obesity rates in the United States increased from 14.5% to 30.9%. In that same amount of time, calorie consumption has grown tremendously, and most of the extra calories came from an increase in carbohydrate consumption rather than fat consumption.
The primary source of these extra carbohydrates are sweetened beverages, which now account for almost 25 percent of daily calories in young adults in America. Consumption of sweetened drinks, and sweets in general, is believed to be one of the main contributors to the rising rates of obesity.
A few months ago I wrote an article about sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and in the article I said that these were the main culprits in the obesity epidemic. Both of them are hard for the body to process, and use over time can cause tissue damage in various regions of the body.
It may be a lesser of two evils approach to say which of these two are worse, but the evidence points to high fructose corn syrup as being even more of a detriment to the body than sugar. But that doesn’t let sugar off, as sugar is a close second in its effects on the body and how it contributes to obesity.
Another big contributor is the increasing reliance on big-portion, fast-food meals, and the association between fast-food consumption and obesity is well-known. In the United States consumption of fast-food meals tripled and calorie intake from these meals quadrupled between 1977 and 1995.
Interestingly, the country of Iceland has been in such dire straits financially that McDonald’s recently announced that they are closing their stores in that country, making it one of the few countries in the world that they won’t be in. It will be interesting to see if health statistics and obesity rates will lower because of this.
One thing about Iceland is known: they are a resilient and happy people, even with their financial problems, so without a McDonald’s in the land, they may now have cause to be even happier and truly rejoice.
And it may help their financial situation, because it will lower their health care costs.