Children in Public Housing Play Outdoors More

Another Holy Grail of the excusinators - the built environment is the cause of fat people because kids are too scared to play - is busted.

Young children living in urban public housing spend more time playing outdoors than other urban children, according to researchers at Rice University, Columbia University and Princeton University.

Contrary to the expectations of the researchers, who hypothesized that children living in poorer circumstances would be playing outside less, the study found that 5-year-olds living in public housing played outside 13 percent more per day, on average, than did other urban 5-year-olds. Children living in places of high physical disorder -- areas with visible graffiti, trash, and abandoned homes -- also played outside more per day.

The researchers also concluded that the ratio of outdoor play to television watching is a significant predictor of body mass indexes (BMIs). The study, "Young Children in Urban Areas: Links Among Neighborhood Characteristics, Weight Status, Outdoor Play and Television-Watching," showed that for each additional hour the children played outside over the amount of time spent watching television, children scored 1.5 percentile points lower on BMI. BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. The higher a person's BMI, the higher their risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and other health problems.

"A key to solving obesity problems among poor, urban children is to create safe and open spaces where these kids can play, because now we know that they are outside playing," said Rachel Kimbro, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University and lead author of the new study. "It's possible that children living in public housing have access to community playgrounds and courtyards for children to play outdoors, which could be why we see more outside play time for them."...

The data, collected through the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study, represent more than 1,800 5-year-olds in 2003-2004 in urban areas of the U.S. Overall, 19 percent of the sample was overweight (between the 85th and 95th percentiles) and 16 percent was obese (above the 95th percentile).

Huh.

Maybe it is the Calories in.

Duh.

Defence figures show 10 per cent of soldiers unfit for active duty

The USA sets the standard.

MORE than 5600 Australian military personnel are unfit for active duty with obesity and weight-related illnesses the main culprits.

That is almost 10 per cent of the 57,800 full-time staff who wear the uniform of the navy, army or air force, reported The Daily Telegraph.

In addition to permanent military fatties, more than 12,200 reservists are rated as overweight and more than 4000 are classified as obese...

Head of Defence Health Major-General Paul Alexander said the Australian Defence Force approach to nutrition was completely different to the American approach.

"We do not have Burger King on bases. We have healthy eating on bases," he said.

Despite this, Australian troops are almost as fat as their US counterparts...

But not quite.

Body Weight Influences Risk of Death Among Asians, Large Study Confirms

Chop suet.

A study of more than 1 million Asians found that those who were a normal weight were far less likely to die from any cause than individuals whose body-mass index (BMI) was too high or low. A similar association was seen between BMI and the risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease or other causes...

"Previous studies that evaluated the association between BMI and the risk of death have been conducted primarily in populations of European descent, and the current definition of overweight and obesity is based essentially on criteria derived from those studies," said Zheng, director of the Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center. "The validity of these criteria in Asian populations has yet to be determined. A large proportion of Asians are very thin and the impact of a severely low BMI on the risk of death has not been well evaluated until now."

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 1 billion adults worldwide are overweight and at least 300 million are obese. Fat tissue has been recognized as an active endocrine organ, capable of releasing a number of biologically active factors that may contribute to obesity-related diseases, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, stroke and several types of cancer.

The research, conducted as part of the Asia Cohort Consortium, included health status and mortality information on more than 1.1 million individuals from East and South Asia. In the cohorts of East Asians, including Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, the lowest risk of death was seen among individuals with a BMI in the range of 22.6 to 27.5, which is considered normal to slightly overweight (BMI is defined as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters).

Chinese, Japanese and Korean populations were much like groups in other parts of the world. These East Asians with a raised BMI of 35.0 or higher had a 50 percent higher risk of death.

Kudos, honorable fatsos.

New From WOSCOPS: Obesity Independently Associated With CHD Death

So much for the health at every size bulls**t and the idiots promoting it.

A new analysis of the landmark West of Scotland Prevention Study(WOSCOPS)has shown, for the first time, that obesity per se is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) death [1]. Dr Jennifer Logue (University of Glasgow, Scotland) and colleagues report their findings online February 14, 2011 in Heart.

Logue told heartwire there are already a number of studies relating body-mass index (BMI) to risk of CHD events, "but it has always been presumed that this is due to traditional risk factors. When people have adjusted for those factors in the past, looking at total events, the risk is gone. But because we had a high number of events, we were able to separate them into fatal and nonfatal. Even after adjusting for all traditional cardiovascular risk factors, any confounding such as medication use and socioeconomic deprivation, we still had a 60% increased risk for fatal CHD events in men with a BMI of 30 and above."

"There seems to be something extra happening, that's the crux of it," she says, but adds that more work is needed to confirm these findings in other data sets and to see whether they extend to other age groups, ethnic minorities, and women, because the WOSCOPS participants were middle-aged, white men from Scotland. Also there was far less obesity when this study was conducted compared with nowadays, so a more contemporary, "generally more obese cohort to try to power this would be helpful," she observes.

The "something extra"?



Lose the weight before it is too late.

Knee Replacement Surgeries Take More Time, Are More Costly In Overweight Individuals

Have the fatsos pay for the extra costs.

Knee replacement surgery takes far more time to conduct in overweight and obese patients than in normal weight patients, according to recent research at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. The study will be presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting, held Feb. 15-19 in San Diego, Calif. The study has implications for hospital staff scheduling surgeries, operating room utilization and personnel staffing, and also raises the question of whether knee replacements should be reimbursed based on time.

"When we schedule surgery, the body mass index is never considered," said Geoffrey Westrich, M.D., an adult reconstruction and joint replacement surgeon and co-director of Joint Replacement Research at Hospital for Special Surgery who led the study. "If I have four or five knee replacements in a day, they will just put them on the OR schedule but they don't look at whether a person is heavy or obese class II or obese class III. What this study shows is that the utilization is greatly increased. If you have a 20 percent greater utilization for someone who is obese and if you multiply that by five or six knee replacements over the course of a day, at the end of the day the operating room staff could be finishing up two hours later. In many cases, the hospital has to pay the staff overtime which greatly increases hospital expenditures."

Obesity causes a variety of health problems, including an increased need for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) or knee replacement surgery extra weight puts extra stress on knees. Researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery wondered whether weight might impact the time it took to perform a knee replacement. "Intuitively, one would think that as people get heavier, knee replacement surgery may be more difficult and more time consuming because the fatty tissue makes surgery more difficult," Dr. Westrich said. "Now that we have collected data on the different stages of knee replacement surgery, we wanted to use the objective data to determine if there was an increase in the time of surgery based on a patient's weight and whether we could correlate a patient's weight or BMI with the different steps of knee replacement surgery."

It is time the rest of us stopped paying for the calorically irresponsible.

Link Between Obesity, High-Fat Meals And Heart Disease Reinforced By Study

Fat begets fat.

The effect of a high-fat meal on blood vessel walls can vary among individuals depending on factors such as their waist size and triglyceride levels, suggests new research at UC Davis.

The new research reinforces the link between belly fat, inflammation and thickening of the arterial linings that can lead to heart disease and strokes.

Kudos, fatsos, on your unique vicious cycle.

Mental Health Of Obese Children Is Primary Concern, Nursing Researcher Says

Another idiot researcher.

The mental health of obese children should be a primary focus of researchers studying childhood obesity, according to Christine Calamaro, PhD, CRNP, assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.

Calamaro, a leading research scientist in pediatric nursing, says, "My interest in this is not just about the weight of our kids anymore. It is about all the problems associated with obesity. When you start talking about adolescents [emerging] into adulthood, you have to consider co-morbidities, such as depression and diabetes."

This is drivel.

More concern should be on the mental health of parents who make their kids obese.

F**k you, Calamaro.

And when you see a fat kid, do your mandated by law duty and report them to child protective services.

Not only are you a moron, you are an IMHO lawbreaker.

Jerk.

Here is Maryland's definition of physical child abuse:

Abuse means:
The physical or mental injury of a child by any parent or other person who has permanent or temporary care, custody, or responsibility for supervision of a child, or by any household or family member, under circumstances that indicate that the child's health or welfare is harmed or at substantial risk of being harmed

Here is Maryland's definition of emotional child abuse:

Emotional Abuse
Citation: Fam. Law § 5-701

Mental injury means the observable, identifiable, and substantial impairment of a child's mental or psychological ability to function.

Here are the mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect in Maryland:

Professionals Required to Report
Citation: Fam. Law § 5-704

Persons required to report include:
Health practitioners
Educators or human service workers
Police officers

Here is where Calamaro and her ilk belong, IMHO, for enabling child abuse and neglect through their failure to report:

Weight Loss Improves Knee Pain from Common Arthritic Condition, Study Says

Stop your bitchin' and lose the darned weight, fatsos.

Knee pain related to osteoarthritis (OA) is a common complaint among obese individuals and retired professional athletes, especially former NFL players, but researchers presenting their work at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day program on February 19th say they have a simple solution: lose weight.

"Our research on patients who were obese with early-onset knee osteoarthritis showed that those individuals who underwent isolated weight loss via bariatric surgery and lost an average of 57 pounds within the first six months significantly improved their knee pain, stiffness and physical function. Quality of life, activities of daily living and sports activity also improved; all of this without other arthritic treatments," said lead researcher Christopher Edwards of the Penn State College of Medicine.

OA of the knee is one of the five leading causes of disability among elderly men and women in the U.S., and costs $185 billion in out-of-pocket expenditures each year. Obesity is one of the leading risk factors for the disease.

Fat whiners.

Childhood obesity almost "inevitable", say experts

Right and wrong.

Right:

“Children are relatively helpless in this regard because they do what their parents do and copy what’s going on around them.”

Wrong:

Childhood obesity is almost “inevitable” because of the way society is organised, experts are set to tell a major Welsh health conference.

It is not society.

It is the parents.

Fat parents have fat kids.

Study Linking Diet Soda And Stroke Risk Is Seriously Flawed

A good example of an "association" study, its pitfalls and the media frenzy surrounding research crap.

The Calorie Control Council stated today that research findings presented during a poster session at the International Stroke Conference claiming an association between diet soft drink consumption and increased risk of stroke and heart attack are critically flawed.

"The findings are so speculative and preliminary at this point that they should be considered with extreme caution. In fact, the study has not been peer reviewed by any independent scientists and has not been published in a scientific journal," stated Beth Hubrich, a registered dietitian with the Council.

The research, as well as the publicity regarding the study abstract, is drawing a growing body of criticism and skepticism from experts in the field of nutrition and science.

"I have to say this is one of the worst studies I've seen capturing headlines in a long time," said Dr. Richard Besser, Chief Health and Medical Editor at ABC News, commenting during a February 10 segment on Good Morning America. "It's bad because of the science, but it's also bad because of the behavior that it can induce and the fear that people have. I don't think people should change behavior based on this study."

Pointing out some of the flaws in the study, Besser added, "They didn't look at how much salt they took in, they didn't look at what other foods they ate. Those things we know are associated with stroke and heart attack. They didn't even look at obesity over time. And so to conclude from this, that it's all from the diet soda, just makes no sense whatsoever."

Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, echoed this criticism in comments presented on ABCnews.com: "It's important to keep in mind that his was really a preliminary report. It's not even published yet, and the study was fairly small. I think we have to interpret the findings about diet soda very carefully, in almost any first report, we shouldn't really change our behavior, because it could easily have occurred by chance."

The poster presentation is also at odds with statements on the website of the American Heart Association, sponsor of the conference where this poster was presented. Regarding the low-calorie sweeteners used in diet soft drinks, AHA states: "Try non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose or saccharin in moderation. Non-nutritive sweeteners may be a way to satisfy your sweet tooth without adding more calories to your diet. The FDA has determined that non-nutritive sweeteners are safe."

You have been warned.

Again.

Increased Rates Of Breast Cancer In Offspring Of Female Rats Given Folic Acid Supplements

Oops.

The daughters of rats who took folic acid supplements before conception, during pregnancy and while breast-feeding have breast cancer rates twice as high as other rats, according to a new study.

They also had more tumours and developed them at a faster rate, according to the study led by Dr. Young-in Kim, a gastroenterologist at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.

Kim stressed more research needs to be done to determine whether the findings also apply to humans. While there are similarities in breast cancer in rats and humans, there are differences in how rats and human metabolize folic acid. "We don't want pregnant women to panic," he said.

The amount of folic acid to which fetuses are exposed has increased dramatically in North America in the past decade. Women are routinely advised to take folic acid supplements before becoming pregnant and while pregnant to prevent neural tube birth defects such as spina bifida. Since 1998, the Canadian and U.S. governments have required food manufacturers to add folic acid to white flour, enriched pasta and cornmeal products as a way of ensuring women receive enough of the B vitamin. In addition, up to 40 per cent of North Americans take folic acid supplements for possible but as yet unproven health benefits.

Still think they have any idea what they are talking about?

Fiber Intake Associated With Reduced Risk of Death

Immortal animal.

Dietary fiber may be associated with a reduced risk of death from cardiovascular, infectious and respiratory diseases, as well as a reduced risk of death from any cause over a nine-year period, according to a report posted online today that will be published in the June 14 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Fiber, the edible part of plants that resist digestion, has been hypothesized to lower risks of heart disease, some cancers, diabetes and obesity, according to background information in the article. It is known to assist with bowel movements, reduce blood cholesterol levels, improve blood glucose levels, lower blood pressure, promote weight loss and reduce inflammation and bind to potential cancer-causing agents to increase the likelihood they will be excreted by the body.

Yikyung Park, Sc.D., of the National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Md., and colleagues analyzed data from 219,123 men and 168,999 women in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. Participants completed a food frequency questionnaire at the beginning of the study in 1995 and 1996. Causes of death were determined by linking study records to national registries.

Participants' fiber intake ranged from 13 to 29 grams per day in men and from 11 to 26 grams per day in women. Over an average of nine years of follow-up, 20,126 men and 11,330 women died. Fiber intake was associated with a significantly decreased risk of total death in both men and women - the one-fifth of men and women consuming the most fiber (29.4 grams per day for men and 25.8 grams for women) were 22 percent less likely to die than those consuming the least (12.6 grams per day for men and 10.8 grams for women).

The risk of cardiovascular, infectious and respiratory diseases was reduced by 24 percent to 56 percent in men and 34 percent to 59 percent in women with high fiber intakes. Dietary fiber from grains, but not from other sources such as fruits, was associated with reduced risks of total, cardiovascular, cancer and respiratory disease deaths in men and women.

Feed your inner beaver.

Stop snickering.

Obesity 'epidemic' weighing on ICUs

Patient transfer.

It can take six nurses -12 experienced hands grappling with great masses of flesh -to turn some of the alarmingly growing number of obese patients in Canada's intensive care units.

There are men and women with so much abdominal fat that they can't lie flat on their backs and still breathe.

They spill over the sides of a normal hospital bed and require extra-wide bariatric beds that can support up to 1,000 pounds. Some of them are so large it can be difficult for nurses to find their patients' veins to insert intravenous lines.

They may weigh 400 pounds, 500 pounds or more.

In the latest fallout from Canada's obesity epidemic, intensive care units across the country are reporting a rise in the number of patients with "morbid" or extreme body weight.

The phenomenon is posing significant challenges for the health care system, from patients too large to fit inside CT scanners or MRI machines, to what doctors have described as the "nightmare" of trying to insert breathing tubes into patients whose airways are layered in fat.

Recently, an ICU bed in Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital nearly collapsed under the weight of a patient who weighed 435 pounds.

Kudos, fatsos.

Obesity training proposed for child care workers

Another hare-brained scheme.

Nevada's licensed child care providers could soon be required to take annual training about childhood obesity.

Members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday approved SB27, a bill that requires training each year in nutrition and fitness. Curriculum is free online.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, said the goal is to combat an obesity epidemic. The bill now goes to Senate floor.

Supporters said 36 percent of children entering kindergarten in Nevada are overweight. As more mothers work outside the home, child care providers play a larger role in a child's health and development.

Not hardly.

If kids entering the system are fat, the proof of who is at fault is clear - parents.

Making others responsible for reversing the failings of the parents, besides being unfair, cannot work.

Holding these nutritional child abusers, i.e., the parents, accountable will work.

International Scientists Broaden The Debate On Saturated Fat And Cardiovascular Disease

Still think they have any idea what they are talking about?

For generations, the consumption of dairy products has been positively associated with the health and wellness of families and communities. Nevertheless, the recent shift in dietary trends has focused on "what not to eat" instead of emphasizing "what to eat," resulting in demonizing the naturally occurring fats in dairy, while overlooking its many essential nutrients.

However, the long-held beliefs about the impact of saturated fatty acids (SFA) on the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are being challenged by a new perspectives paper from an international symposium, held at the University of Copenhagen in May, 2010 and chaired by Professors Arne Astrup and Walter Willet.

You might want to rethink that.

And, BTW, who put out this piece?

Source:
Melanie Nimrodi
Global Dairy Platform

So, rethink all of it.

Childhood obesity in Sefton is on the increase according to latest figures

Another resounding success of intervention.

CHILDHOOD obesity is still rising in Sefton despite action by the NHS and Sefton Council.

In Sefton 10.3% of reception children and 19.3% of Year 6 children are obese, revealed figures for 2009 to 2010.

The number of overweight youngsters increased in 2009 to 2010, according to results from the National Child Measurement Programme.

In the north west 9.9% of reception children and 19.3% of year six are obese. Nationally 9.8% of reception class youngsters and 18.7% of year six children fall into that category.

The figures for Sefton are up on last year, which recorded 9.7% of reception children and 17.8% of year six youngsters as having childhood obesity.

More than 5,300 Sefton children aged four to 10, including 93% in reception class and 96.6% in year six, were weighed and parents opted to take part in the programme.

Despite the scheme by NHS Sefton there was still a rise in the number of overweight children recorded.

"Despite"?

Because.

To understand why conventional interventions MUST fail, go here and here.

Thousands spent to adapt ambulances to cope with obese patients

To the fatmobile!

Overweight patients are being carted off to hospital in specially adapted ambulances equipped to carry wider and heavier loads.

South East Coast Ambulance Service has spent £12,000 of taxpayers’ money converting two of its vehicles to accommodate fat people, reflecting the increasing burden obesity places on society.

The refits are in addition to standard trolleys and stair chairs found on all the trust’s existing ambulances, which can already carry patients weighing up to 50st and 35st respectively.

"Just like the rest of the NHS, ambulance services have to deal with the fact patients are getting larger," said Jo Webber, director of the national Ambulance Service Network.

For more fatcare implements/devices, go here.

Kudos, fatsos.

BMA Calls For Action To Tackle Rising Obesity, Scotland

A call to action. That'll do it.

Commenting this week on figures revealed by the Liberal Democrats which show that the number of people dying as a result of obesity has gone up by over 40% since 2004, Dr Dean Marshall, Chairman of the BMA's Scottish General Practitioners Committee said:

"The rise in deaths related to obesity is of grave concern. Currently around one third of children are either overweight or obese. We are in danger of raising a generation of children burdened with long term chronic health conditions. Doctors have a role to play in supporting overweight patients and talking about the dangers of obesity but there is a limit to what they can do. The BMA believes that the government must take action on this issue in order to achieve a real improvement in the future health of our children."

In Scotland, over 40 people a day are diagnosed with diabetes, and most of these cases are Type 2 diabetes, which is closely linked with obesity. Increasing rates in childhood obesity will also lead to more future cases of heart disease, osteoarthritis and some cancers. The estimated overall cost of obesity to Scottish society is £457 million every year.

If you stop paying for people's diseases of choice, the cost to society goes down.

Let the natural attrition take care of the rest.

If people are interested in living longer and better, they will make the necessary changes on their own.

Calorie Labeling Has No Effect on Teenagers' or Parents' Food Purchases, Study Finds

And the news is?

A new study led by an NYU School of Medicine investigator and published in the February 15, 2011, Advance Online Publication, International Journal of Obesity, challenges the idea that calorie labeling has an effect on the purchasing behavior of teenagers or what parents purchase for their children. Teens appear to notice the calorie information at the same rate as adults, however they respond at a lower rate. The conclusions are similar to a previous study about adult eating behavior by Dr. Brian Elbel, assistant professor and colleagues, which showed that although labels did increase awareness of calories, they did not alter food choices...

In the new study, Dr. Elbel and his colleagues gathered receipts and surveys from 427 parents and teenagers at fast-food restaurants both before and after mandatory labeling began in July 2008. They focused on lower income communities in New York City and used Newark, New Jersey (which did not have mandatory labeling) as a comparison city. Data were collected before labeling began, and one month after labels were present in restaurants. As parents and teens were leaving fast-food restaurants, their receipts were collected and the foods they purchased were confirmed, along with a brief survey.

Before labeling began, none of the teens in the study said they noticed calorie information in the restaurant. After labeling began 57% in New York and 18% in Newark said they noticed the calorie information. A total of 9% said that the information influenced their choices, and all of these teens said they used the information to purchase fewer calories. This number is considerably smaller than the percentage of adults who said the information influenced their choice (28%). "While the same percentage of adolescents and adults noticed calorie information, fewer adolescents report actually using the information in their food choice," Dr. Elbel said.

However, the study did not find a change in the number of calories purchased at fast-food restaurants after labeling went into effect. Teens purchased about 725 calories and parents purchased about 600 calories for their children.

The way food tastes was considered the most important reason that teens bought it, while price was a consideration for slightly over 50%. Just over a quarter of the group said that they often or always limited the amount of food they ate in an effort to control their weight. The study also reported that most teenagers underestimated the amount of calories they had purchased, some by up to 466 calories.

The only way to keep the pigs from over-slopping at the trough is for them to pay for the consequences.

Period.

Obesity in York County: Couple fights to conceive

Stop the fat from having kids.

Maternal obesity during pregnancy is associated with complications including:

--- Cesarean delivery -- A delivery surgery in which a baby is taken out through the mother's abdomen. In the United States, about one in four women have babies this way. Most C-sections are done when unexpected problems happen during delivery. The surgery is relatively safe but could cause problems with an attempted vaginal birth later.

--- Macrosomia -- Large body size, often used to describe a fetus. The most common cause of macrosomia is diabetes in the mother. Macrosomia can lead to trauma during birth and a greater chance of a Cesarean delivery.

--- Gestational hypertension -- High blood pressure during pregnancy can cause low birth weight or premature delivery of the baby.

--- Preeclampsia -- A sudden increase in blood pressure after the 20th week of pregnancy that can be life-threatening for mother and baby.

--- Gestational diabetes mellitus -- A type of diabetes that is first diagnosed in a pregnant woman. Usually gestational diabetes goes away after pregnancy, but sometimes diabetes doesn't. If not controlled before and during pregnancy, type 1 and type 2 diabetes can cause the baby to have birth defects and cause the mother to have problems such as high blood pressure, kidney disease, nerve damage, heart disease or blindness.

--- Fetal death

--- Birth defects

--- Other problems -- Children born to obese mothers are twice as likely to be obese and to develop type 2 diabetes later in life. Obesity during pregnancy is also associated with greater use of health care services and longer hospital stays.

Source: www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth

It is the responsible thing to do.