Tag: obesity epidemic (Page 4 of 5)

Addressing America’s Growing Waistline

January 5, 2012 / Staff

And the solutions to the problem are a pretty tall order.

“Altering the way society is organized” may be effective in addressing the problem but is it a viable solution?

Consider all the special interests benefitting from the system as it is now, from factory farms to tobacco companies, who is willing to be “re-organized”?

First lady Michelle Obama has made healthy eating her special project and hopefully she can bring national attention to growing problem.

The problem for the country echoes the problem for individuals: Willpower is not enough. “(It’s a) basic instinct, even stronger than the sexual instinct, to store calories to survive the next period of starvation. And we live in an environment where there’s food every half mile. It’s tasty, cheap, convenient, and you can eat it with one hand.”
Thus says Martijn Katan of the Institute of Health Sciences at VU University in Amsterdam, author of one of the many studies on the limits of dieting, quoted in U.S. News & World Report.
If you as an individual want to change your weight, you must change your whole life. Likewise, to reduce obesity in modern society, we will have to alter the way society is organized.

Health Care Policy, Nutrition

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The Sweetening of America

December 18, 2011 / Staff

A battle wages for your “sweet tooth“.

Big corn manufactures are spending tens of millions of dollars to re-brand high fructose corn syrup.

Sugar makers say the corn industry is making a desperate effort to salvage the product which consumers are increasingly avoiding.

“The most widely used kind of HFCS may have disruptive effects on metabolism, as the body doesn’t utilize fructose well. In fact, regular consumption of HFCS may contribute to obesity.”
The National Consumers League has sent a letter urging the FDA to reject the renaming petition and noted that the corn sweetener in question “has received much negative publicity over the last several years.”
“Questions have been raised concerning potential links to obesity and a variety of obesity-related health conditions including diabetes and heart disease,” the letter said.
“Some consumers are concerned about emerging science regarding nutrition and health effects of HFCS, while others simply want to avoid highly processed sweeteners in favor of more natural substances.”

All sugars should be consumed in moderation and are best consumed in the form of whole foods such as fruits with the skin intact.

Quality Control, Research, Resources, Wellness

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FDA Revamps the Food Pyramid

September 7, 2011 / Staff

We are all getting the message about foods that we shouldn’t eat but what exactly should we be eating?

The FDA is trying to simplify the answer to that question by illustrating food labels making them easier to read and follow.

Calorie counts are popping up on menus of chain restaurants across the country and the longstanding food pyramid was toppled this year by the U.S. government in favor of a plate that gives a picture of what a healthy daily diet looks like.
The struggle to redesign the labels on every box, can and carton has been in the works since 2003, and some of the changes could be proposed as soon as this year. FDA Deputy Commissioner Michael Taylor cautions not to expect a grand overhaul, but the revamped label does mark a shift to create a more useful nutritional snapshot of foods millions of Americans consume every day.

Nutrition, Quality Control, Wellness

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The Japanese are No Longer Number One in Longevity

August 31, 2011 / Staff

Japanese people no longer the most long lived, according to an extensive report on Japan’s health in the Lancet.

Smoking, growing obesity and a rising suicide rate are among some of the factors contributing to Japan’s declining health rating.

The aging population is ill prepared to deal with geriatric sickness.

With a median age of 40 years and a declining birth rate the health care system is inadequately funded to take care of all of the needs of it’s citizens.

In a country where people feel that they are responsible for their own health to benefit the society the answers to Japan’s problem may lie in it’s cultural values.

Research

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Obesity Hurts Everyone

August 29, 2011 / Staff

If you think that being overweight effects only the obese then think again.

Obesity is fast replacing tobacco as the single most important preventable cause of chronic non-communicable diseases, and will add an extra 7.8 million cases of diabetes, 6.8 million cases of heart disease and stroke, and 539,000 cases of cancer in the United States by 2030.
Some 32 percent of men and 35 percent of women are now obese in the United States, according to a research team led by Claire Wang at the Mailman School of Public Health in Columbia University in New York. They published their findings in a special series of four papers on obesity in The Lancet.

Health Care Policy, Health Insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, Nutrition, Quality Control, Resources, Wellness

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