Category: Media
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Sweetener Wars
24 comments on Sweetener WarsIn the news: the “Sweetener Wars” continue as the blue, pink, and yellow packets are being joined with green Stevia packets. Also there’s more “combination” sweeteners coming out. What I find interesting is the mix of preferences. Those who avoid sugar for medical reasons. Those who find avoiding aspartame, HFCS, sugar, or sucralose reduces headaches or […]
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More: How Very Obese People Are Almost Completely Sedentary…
Or rather, on how the “almost completely sedentary” in “Very Obese Adults Almost Completely Sedentary” is defined. The full text of the study isn’t freely available, but the abstract is linked in here. The results include: On average, subjects took 3,763 ± 2,223 steps. That implies a range between 1,430 and 5,986 steps a […]
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Very Obese Adults Almost Completely Sedentary?
For all the freaking out in the media about the obesity crisis, there’s not much research on folks who are very fat. So a study on folks with an average BMI of 53 shows some promise…right? Sorry. The headline: “Very Obese Adults Almost Completely Sedentary“. I’m not sure how many people are going to read beyond […]
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What I’m Reading…
An article on public policy vs academic research tackles salt, but I wonder if the same thing could not be said about dieting. If you were an academic researcher, you’d have to persuade your institutional review board that you had considered the risks and obtained informed consent from the participants. […] But if you are […]
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Thankful Thursday
1) Another review of the book Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. “Bacon’s new book on HAES combines her medical background with social analysis and practical tools for learning to eat intuitively and enjoy being active.” 2) Getting enough sleep to wake up without the alarm. 3) Lack of knee pain! […]
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Things Worth Reading
Do you know your upper arm size in centimeters? Well-Rounded Mama has a great post on how the wrong blood-pressure-cuff size can cause misdiagnosis and over- or under-treatment. (Mine is 48.) Margaret Cho’s “diet” where you eat what you want, you don’t have to eat anything you don’t want, and you can buy […]
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Chronic Stress Tied to Obesity? Hey, Let’s Make Them Thin…
So I was reading about a study that says kids of families with chronic stress were maybe a little more likely to be fat and wondering what else there is about chronic stress and being fat. I run into: Researchers found a molecule the body releases when stressed called NPY (neuropeptide Y). NPY appears to unlock […]
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Optimism
It’s getting tougher these days to think of the glass as half full rather than half empty, but if you’re going to survive this economic crisis – literally – you might as well try. – Time Optimism. This can be hard when 2 people you know lost their job in the last week and a […]
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Açaí hits the mainstream…
In this case, The New York Times. Some highlights: Both Oprah Winfrey and Rachel Ray have posted disclaimers on their websites that they do not endorse any açaí product. No studies have shown specific health benefits to eating açaí berries or products. No studies have shown açaí helps in weight loss. The Better Business Bureau has warned […]
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Sleep Quote
“It’s a bell-shaped curve,” she said, with just 2.5 percent of the population needing significantly less sleep than average. “The problem,” she went on, “is that 95 percent of us think we’re in that 2.5 percent.”
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How Goes Daylight Savings Time?
Most of the US switched our clocks forward an hour over the weekend. At the moment, I’m mostly enjoying that it’s not getting light before 7am and the sun doesn’t set until about 7pm. (Remember, I’m up at latitude 47 – we get almost 16 hours of sunlight in late June, and less than 9 […]
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Susie Orbach in the New York Times Magazine
Susie Orbach, author of Fat is a Feminist Issue, was interviewed in the New York Times Sunday Magazine this week. In part: Fifi, which is what I call my book “Fat Is a Feminist Issue,” was in part a plea to give up dieting and learn to recognize hunger and appetite and respond to […]
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Bad Marriages Tied to Metabolic Syndrome, or Depression?
You may have seen this article about depression and “metabolic syndrome” being tied to unhappy marriages. Or to be more precise: While both men and women in “strained” unions, those marked by arguing and being angry, were more likely to feel depressed than happier partners, the women in the contentious relationships were more likely to develop high blood […]
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Big and Healthy
As the media frequently points out, people are bigger now. What is often not pointed out is that we’re also taller and longer lived. The Rotund’s post on the definition of health and yesterday’s discussion on redefining illnesses reminded me of this 2006 New York Times article from Gina Kolata. Scientists used to say that the […]
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Another voice on incontinence
From Dana Jennings, writing about the incontinence he dealt with after prostate surgery: At age 51, I wouldn’t choose to be incontinent, to wear “male guards,” but in the end it’s just a biomechanical flaw. Same with impotence. Don’t get me wrong, I like the physical life. It’s important to me. I regularly walk five […]
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Not Just “Obese” Was Redefined…
As Fillyjonk reminded me, this chart shows how the diagnosis criteria for diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol were also changed in 1997 and 1998. In the case of high cholesterol, this nearly doubled (86% increase) the number of people who officially have “high cholesterol”. I don’t know the science behind these changes. I’d like […]
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Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession
I’m reading Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession. I think the book is trying to be shocking. The first essay is about fat in Nigerian culture (good if you’re female, bad if you’re male). Another is on the Andean legend of the pishtaco, a bogeyman whose objective is to extract fat from the bodies of his victims. […]
Living ~400lbs 