Kansans and Friends In Weight Loss

I opened up my email this morning and saw this story about bloggers who are blogging themselves to death. “Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.”

I was disturbed at this trend in how we are becoming such a slave to the PC and Internet that we are willing to die for our work. Not only that but die at an early age. This got me thinking about what other trends in health are on the rise over just the course of a decade or so. According to National Center for Health Statistics,and National Vital Statistics Reports between 1999 and 2001 the leading six causes of death due to diet and inactivity were heart disease,cancer, stroke,diabetes,kidney disease, and hypertension.Further in a 2000assessment people who led sedentary lives had 23.2 days in a 30 day time period where they felt healthy. They reported 3.9 days out of the month were they felt sad, blue or depressed and 8.1 days having trouble sleeping.”Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.” These numbersdefinitely support on some level the New York post’s information regarding blogging till you drop.

I looked into some other statistics and what I found was just more confirmation that our sedentary lifestyles are not helping us but hurting us instead. In the most recent study I could find from the CDC I found this:

The percentage of adults who spent most of their day sitting increased from 36.8% in 2000 to 39.9% in 2005. A similar increase was seen among both men and women, adults aged 25 years and over, and non-Hispanic white adults. Overall, the percentage of adults who spent most of their day standing or walking decreased between 2000 and 2005. A similar decrease was seen among adults aged 65 years and over and non-Hispanic white adults.

Kansas Jumped from 5% reporting unhealthy days of more than 14 days to 9% from 1993 to 2006

Kansas also jumped from 6.5% to 9.1% reporting mentally unhealthy days of more than 14 days to 1993 to 2006

Overall in Kansas there has been an increase of 4 days to 5.4 days of being physically or mentally unhealthy.

Between 1998 and 2006 Kansas reported fair or poor self rated health initially in 1993 of 12.0 to 17.3 in 2006

These numbers are from

Health, United States an annual report on trends in health statistics.

On the plus side smoking has decreased for men and women nationally with smoking by men at 50% in 1965 to just under 30% in 2005 and just over 30% in women to about 20% within the same time frame. Even smoking by pregnant mothers declined from 20% in 1995 to 10% in 2005

Between 1999 to 2004 adults between 18 and 44 eat 1 to 3 meals out at a rate of just over 50% while they eat 4 or more meals out about 35% of the time

Overweight including obese has risen from 45% to 70% for the 20 to 74 yr old age group between 1960 to 2004

Arthritis/musculoskeletal, heart/circulatory, mental illness, diabetes are the top 4 conditions reported between 2004 to 2005 that cause activity limitations

Last but not least Antidepressant use by men increase from about 3% between 1988 to 1994 to about 7% between 1992 to 2002 and by women from about 4% between 1988 to 1994 to about 13% between 1999 to 2002

So you can see some pretty disturbing trends here. I love to blog and at the moment I am not getting paid huge bucks to blog, but I can’t see running my health into the ground to get a jump on the competition. I am in bed no later than 12:30 each night with the rare exception that I am working on a design, I keep healthy foods around to snack on like whole wheat bread for peanut butter and jelly sandwich’s , carrots, grapes, bananas, yogurt, skim milk, diet soda just to name a few. I make sure I get at least 30 min of fairly intense activity about every other day. At the moment that is taking the form of house work and playing out doors with my kid. I too am on antidepressants so I really have to work at keeping my body in good shape so the antidepressants can properly do there job.

You can see why now is it is crucial to focus on preventative health measures instead of treatment. Because in the case of the bloggers who blogged themselves ragged their deaths could have been prevented if in fact their sedentary lifestyles contributed to the cause of their deaths, in which reading this article it appears that it did.

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Study Suggests That Body Composition Is Key Player in Controlling Cancer Risks

By: University of Alabama at Birmingham Published: Jan 1, 2007 at 09:05

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Scientists have long thought that limiting the calories a person consumes can prevent, or at least slow the progression of certain cancers. But research at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) using mice suggests that body composition “ whether a person is lean or obese“ actually is key to reducing cancer risks.In other words, how the body handles calories is much more important to controlling cancer risks than how many or how few calories are consumed-a finding that could have strong implications for preventing and treating cancer in humans.

In findings published in the Jan. 1 issue of Cancer Research, the UAB team found that transgenic mice predisposed to prostate cancer that were lean had a much slower progression of cancer than did heavier mice.

“This study suggests that body composition, being lean as opposed to being obese, has a greater protective effect against cancer,” said Tim R. Nagy, Ph.D., UAB professor of nutrition sciences and study principal investigator. “Excess calorie retention, rather than consumption, confers cancer risk.”

Nagy’s team placed transgenic mice into two controlled environments, either 27 degrees centigrade or 22 degrees centigrade, and fed them equal amounts of food. The mice living at the cooler environment needed more energy to regulate their internal temperature and so burned more calories simply to stay warm. These mice lost weight and were leaner than the mice kept at the warmer temperature.

The mice kept at 27 degrees were heavier and had more fat mass. Cancer in these mice progressed at a much greater rate than in the lean mice. The heavier mice also had higher levels of leptin, a hormone associated with obesity that promotes cancer, and lower levels of adiponectin, a hormone that appears to protect against cancer.

“We believe this is the first study to show that the beneficial effect on cancer risk by reducing the number of calories in the diet is more closely related to leanness or obesity than previously thought, and not a factor of food intake or total calories ingested,” Nagy said.

Nagy’s team kept two other groups of transgenic mice in the 27 and 22 degree environments. These mice were allowed to eat as much food as they wished. The mice in the cooler environment ate 30 percent more food than the mice in the warmer environment, indicating they required the additional calories to maintain body temperature.

The body composition for both of these groups of mice remained the same; and both had the same level of cancer progression, indicating that the increased calorie intake from the cooler-temperature mice plays no role in cancer protection.

This research was supported by funding from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

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If junk food cost more, would it discourage you from buying it? That’s the question prompting the idea of a “fat tax,” proposed by Yale University psychology professor Kelly D. Brownell. He suggests slapping a 7 to 10 percent tax on unhealthy foods like chips and soda, hoping to “offset” the higher cost of healthier foods like fresh fruits and vegetables. The money could go toward programs to educate the public on the basics of eating right, and higher prices for empty- calorie foods would lead people to reach for healthier options, he says.

But critics aren’t yet convinced — they argue that similar “sin taxes” on products like alcohol and cigarettes have not had the desired effect. Others say such a tax would penalizes those with the least amount of income by making food more expensive.

It’s a novel idea, but why wait for the government to take action? Start boycotting these foods now! Paying a little more for fruits and veggies buys you and your family good health — and that’s something you can’t put a price on!

Ok if we boycott unhealthy junk food instead of putting a tax on it, then it would make more sense. Say for example one store sold 12 cases on avg of snack cakes with each case containing 12 boxes of snack cakes and sold them for 1.75 a box.that is 21.00 per case. If no one bought that case full of snacks that would mean the rest of the cases would potentially not sell and if there was a pallet of 36 cases of the snack cakes then the snack cake company would take roughly a 756 dollar hit in rejected merchandise just for one store. Now imagine a chain of stores in one town that had four chains that would be about $3024 worth of rejected sales. I would think instead of punishing the consumer by initiating a tax and still rewarding the snack cake company via the trickle down effect, that the company should be penalized. Yes it would mean a loss of wages eventually for the company employees and more importantly may shut the company down if they choose not make a healthier line, however, it would certainly make the corporate junk food companies stand up and take notice if one of their competitors took that drastic of a beating by the consumer.

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This was from a blog post from my 360 page a few months ago I wanted to repost it here as I thought it is still something worth keeping on the front burner.

Kids’ Advertisers Bolster Defenses at ANA Conference

Lawyers Warn Marketers to Prepare for a Litigious 2007

By Stephanie Thompson and Lisa Sanders

Published: January 17, 2007

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Lawyers are rolling up their sleeves for the bounty of work in the children’s advertising arena this year surrounding obesity and, likely, a whole lot more.

Despite intimating that no peace is in sight for an industry trying to protecting itself against potential litigants, John Feldman was adamant that food marketers not be constrained by critics and regulations.

“2007 will be a year of focus on kids’ advertising,” said John Feldman, partner at law firm Reed Smith, at the Association of National Advertisers’ Advertising Law & Business Affairs Conference that began today. At the conference, Mr. Feldman announced the creation of KidAdLaw.com, a website offering news and updates on regulatory activities pertaining to marketing to children.

Right now, he said, the scrutiny is on food marketers’ advertising to children, but a number of other self-regulated categories could be next on the docket. “Politically,” he said, “what gets traction better than kids?”

‘Children’s Advertising in the Crosshairs’
Mr. Feldman and C. Lee Peeler, president-CEO of the National Advertising Review Council, appeared in a panel dubbed “Overweight and Overwrought: Children’s Advertising in the Crosshairs.”

At issue were what Mr. Feldman calls the “rules of the sandbox” for marketers of children’s products or services amid newly revised guidelines for the Children’s Advertising Review Unit and the creation of a Children’s Food & Beverage Advertising Initiative led by the top 10 marketers in the kids’ package-goods space.

Despite intimating that no peace is in sight for an industry trying to protecting itself against potential litigants, Mr. Feldman was adamant that food marketers not be constrained by critics and regulations. “If you’re in the business of selling candy, sell candy; if you’re in the business of selling burgers, sell burgers,” he said. Where marketers need to tread carefully in this high-stakes game of “gotcha” is in dressing up products as healthy when they’re not.

“If you make something that is a treat, full of fat and calories, any implication that it’s healthy is dangerous,” he said.

‘The No. 1 commercial pariah’
Indeed, if food marketers aren’t careful, said Guy M. Blynn, VP-deputy general counsel, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., they could end up like his employer, which he called “the No. 1 commercial pariah in America.”

Mr. Blynn, along with Geoffrey K. Beach, a partner at law firm Jones Day, spoke on a panel called “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire.” They shared lessons learned and advice going forward for attendees, such as those from Big Food, who may find themselves in similar situations.

For example, Mr. Beach suggested several approaches to writing and keeping documents that may help marketers in the case of a lawsuit. When even a memo outlining a brainstorming session can come back to bite a company in court, “context is key,” he said. One little explanatory paragraph at the start of a document could be enough to show the true weight of a printed statement. It is also important to remember that documents will be around for a long, long time, so “mean what you say, and say what you mean.”

The ultimate key to staying out of the courts, however, may lie in permission-based direct marketing, they said. It’s all about making it hard to opt in and easy to opt out. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco’s age-verification process is multitiered and backed up by either face-to-face proof or third-party verification — but that’s a lot to go through to buy a box of Oreos.

We need education in society to make healthy food choices it is sad when we have left common sense so far at the end of the universe that we now have to have regulatory measures to keep us from buying junk food not only for us but our children. Furthermore what the hell is up with letting children control the junk food that comes into the house and the marketing anyway. Just say no to your kids they will get over it. They dont need moon pies, candy bars, snack cakes, and all that other crap. I say no to my kid at least a thousand times if not more when it comes to junk food and the purchase of it in the store or wherever we may be. We have at minimum ice cream on a regular basis around here. I did buy him Yogos the other day but I rationed them out to him. I don’t let him have all the candy he gets at Halloween, and Valentines day. I go through it pick out the junk and then let him have what I consider the healthier of the lot. Then I trash the rest of it. He is better for it and he has demonstrated at school to his teachers that he can make healthy food choices at breakfast and lunch.

It starts in the home parents need to get the kids out from in front of the TV anyway if they arent in front of the TV 24/7 then they arent exposed to the ads pure and simple. I let my son watch maybe two hrs a night tops of tv. On the weekends it is negotiable depending on what there is on TV that I want to watch. Moderation is also key if you really feel that it is going to be detrimental to your relationship with your child to never let him or her have junk food then learn how to ration it out to them so they dont make gluttons of themselves.

I am on a limited income but just because I am on a limited income doesnt mean I have to eat junk. I can still eat healthy. Instead of macaroni and cheese and hot dogs with white bread have a lean hamburger with low fat sliced cheese and a vegetable it really does cost about the same maybe just a little more but it is worth it to spend more on healthy foods than junk foods.

I want to hear your thoughts fire away and hold nothing back. Just try and be respectful and no name calling at the very least.

Joe

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