Hays Kansas 2nd Annual Pound Plunge

30 12 2007

Resolutions ready? Take the plunge

12/29/2007By KALEY LYON

Hays Daily News

It’s back!

As 2008 draws near, The Center for Health Improvement is preparing for a repeat of what turned out to be its most popular event yet, Pound Plunge.

The program, which encourages locals to eat healthy and exercise right, shocked staff members and the entire community when about 1,500 people signed on last year to drop the pounds.

While it’s too soon for exact numbers, the second annual event is expected to be another big one, said Stephanie Schaffer, fitness manager.

“They keep coming in every day,” Schaffer said of this year’s registrations. “I’m expecting a lot more.”

The 12-week weight loss program will begin on Jan. 10 and end April 3. Each team must consist of four members, and the deadline to register is Jan. 6.

The beginning of the year is a good time to have such an event — New Year’s resolutions often help keep participants motivated, she said.

“New Year’s is a time when a lot of people in our country set goals,” Schaffer said. “The big thing is to lose weight and to exercise. It’s just a perfect time of the year to implement a team like this.”

Overall, the routine will be about the same as last year. Participants will receive a weekly nutrition or exercise tip to help them drop pounds and keep them off, she said.

The teams also will weigh in each week to track their progress, and at the end of the program, the team with the highest percentage of weight lost will receive a prize.

Unlike last year, when only the first place team received a financial award and free membership to the center, the top three teams will be rewarded.

Also unlike last year, team members will have the opportunity to weigh in on new digital scales, and individuals’ blood pressures will be recorded at the beginning and end of the program to gauge improvement, Schaffer said.

The program isn’t limited to the center — it strives to include the larger community and encourages participants and other local entities to get involved, she said.

“It’s just about getting people moving,” Schaffer said. “It’s just to teach people about fitness and exercise and nutrition, and they love it.”

Schaffer said she expects many of last year’s participants to try it again, and there also are many new team members already signed up.

“I think we’ll have people who did it last year who had great success. They’ll come back,” she said. “I think you’ll have people who did it last year and maybe have found out they need to do it a different way this year. And then you’re going to have the people who are going to come back, and this motivated them to lose weight and keep weight off.”

Deanna Staab, Hays, is one such individual. She participated in last year’s health challenge and has continued losing weight ever since.

At November’s Pound Plunge reunion, Staab took first place for having lost, and kept off, the highest percentage of body weight since the challenge began in early 2007.

Staab lost 13 pounds during pound plunge, and by continuing to eat and exercise healthy since then, has lost an additional 24 pounds.

“I really enjoy it,” she said. “I feel better and started exercising regularly, so that was the key — just to lose a little at a time.”

Staab’s team dubbed themselves the “hot tamales,” and the team support is what kept her going, she said. Her goal for Pound Plunge 2, which she has already signed up for, is to lose an additional 10 pounds, she said.

“I’m just happy about it,” Staab said. “It’s a good deal and everybody should sign up. It just gives you an idea of where you’re at and what you should be doing.”

Reporter Kaley Lyon can be reached at (785) 628-1081 Ext. 138, or by e-mail at klyon@dailynews.net.

New Legislation to give FDA a major boost.

21 09 2007

This story ran Wednesday and I just got to read it today. I thought I would share it with my readers because it affects all of us. I think that this is going to be a positive step in the right direction for getting big pharma to take more responsibility for it’s advertising practices. This new legislation will also allow for better access to generic drugs a measure I could have used last year when I found out that Zoloft had gone generic by my case worker at voc rehab instead of through my medical card provider who actually encourages the filling of prescription drugs in the generic form first before going with the brand name. As it was they didn’t even pay for my Zoloft I had to go through voc rehab to get that expense covered or go through my nurse practitioners office to get samples. Yeah it has been about a year now since this not so nice roadblock in my depression treatment was thrown in my way, and I should build a bridge and get over it, however, I have to keep reminding people of this because it could have happened to them. I hope that in the future that somewhere along the line people who are on a state medical card will get access to information about the prescritopns they get covered regularly through the medical card such as when it will be offered as a generic, when and perhaps a few other things.

So with that being said here is the story that ran this week.

House Approves FDA Bill That Leaves Out Ad Curbs

Legislation Doesn’t Impose More Restrictions on DTC Messaging

By Ira Teinowitz

Published: September 19, 2007

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) — The House of Representatives today voted 405 to 7 to endorse new drug-approval procedures that allow the Food and Drug Administration for the first time to fine marketers for misleading direct-to-consumer drug ads.

Curbs, including a ban on ads for all new drugs in a products first two to three years, did not make it into the bill passed today in the House.

Ad groups today hailed the legislation, which could be considered by the Senate tonight and sent to President George W. Bush next week, as a major win for the industry because it avoids ad curbs that had been initially a threat. The final compromise legislation leaves out a number of curbs that could have had a significant impact on the more than $4.5 billion spent annually on DTC ads.

‘Significant victory’
“It is one of the most significant victories for advertising and commercial speech in the past two decades,” said Jim Davidson, lobbyist for the ad and media groups. “It was an earned victory attributable to very hard work on the part of a broad coalition of media and advertising associations and companies.”

Originally both House and Senate leaders had suggested the FDA be allowed to ban ads for new drugs in a product’s first two or three years and further proposed that all ads for new drugs carry a special logo and a warning that not all side effects may have been found. There had also been proposals to require drug makers to devote more ad space to warnings and strike a better balance between positive and negative messages.

None of those made it into the final bill.

Instead, as passed, the legislation’s main effect is to boost the number of people at the FDA who will review ads. It also gives the FDA new authority to fine advertisers up to $250,000 a day for continuing to run any ads challenged as misleading and up to $500,000 a day for a second instance within three years.

In addition, the bill gives the FDA resources to study whether requiring ads to include a phone number to report drug problems would be beneficial.

Range of FDA issues
The new limits are part of broad legislation that also affects how the FDA inspects foods and drugs and tracks reports of drug problems and the fees marketers pay to get FDA approval.

Advances in some of those other areas were praised by representatives and senators. “This bill will give FDA urgently needed new resources, strengthen FDA’s ability to protect consumers from dangerous drugs, provide important incentives to develop drugs for children, safeguard the food we give our families and feed to our pets, help reduce the cost of medicine by ending abusive practices that deny consumers access to generic drugs, and address many other urgent priorities that face the nation,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who chairs the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee.

Though he said he wasn’t happy with some of the compromises made, “after so many recent instances in which Americans have been harmed by unsafe prescription drugs and contaminated food, America cannot afford inaction on this important measure.”