The China Study, Part II, Obesity.

"I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!!!"
Man, isn't that the best yelling-phrase you could use as a kid?
Well, maybe not.

"[Quote] ...Our struggle with weight is hard to miss these days. Open a newspaper or a magazine, or turn on the radio or TV - you know that America has a weight problem. In fact, two out of three adult Americans are overweight, and one-third of the adult population is obese. Not only are these numbers high, but the rate at which they have been rising is ominous (Chart 1.2, page 13).

But what do the terms "overweight" and "obese" mean? The standard expression of body size is the body mass index (BMI). It represents body weight (in kilograms, kg) [in the book's chart] relative to body height (in meters squared, m2). By most official standards, being overweight is having a BMI above twenty-five, and being obese is having a BMI over thirty. The same scale is used for both men and women...

...THE CHILDREN
Perhaps the most depressing element of our supersize mess is the growing number of overweight and obese children. About 15% of America's youth (ages six to nineteen) are overweight. Another 15% are at risk of becoming overweight.

Overweight children face a wide range of psychological and social challenges. As you know, children have a knack for being open and blunt; sometimes the playground can be a merciless place. Overweight children find it more difficult to make friends and are often thought of as lazy and sloppy. They are more likely to have behavioral and learning difficulties, and the low self-esteem likely to be formed during adolescence can last forever.

Young people who are overweight also are highly likely to face a host of medical problems. They often have elevated cholesterol levels, which can be a predictor for any number of deadly diseases. They are more likely to have problems with glucose intolerance, and, consequently, diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, formerly seen only in adults, is skyrocketing among adolescents. (See chapters seven and nine for a more thorough discussion of childhood diabetes.) Elevated blood pressure is nine times more likely to occur among obese kids. Sleep apnea, which can cause neuro-cognitive problems, is found in one in ten obese children. A wide variety of bone problems is more common in obese kids. Most importantly, an obese young person is much more likely to be an obese adult., greatly increasing the likelihood of lifelong health problems.

CONSEQUENCES FOR THE ADULT
If you are obese, you may not be able to do many things that could make your life more enjoyable. You may find that you cannot play vigorously with your grandchildren (or your children), walk long distances, participate in sports, find a comfortable seat in a movie theatre or airplane or have an active sex life. In fact, even sitting still in a chair may be impossible without experiencing back or joint pain. For many, standing is hard on the knees. Carrying around too much weight can dramatically affect physical mobility, work, mental health, self-perception and social life. So you see, this isn't about death; it really is about missing many of the more enjoyable things in life.

Clearly no one desires to be overweight. So why is it that two out of three adult Americans are overweight? Why is one-third of the population obese?

The problem is not lack of money. In 1990, medical care costs relating to obesity alone were estimated to be $70 billion. In 2002, a mere three years later, the American Obesity Association listed these costs at $100 billion. This is not all. Add another $3-040 billion out-of-pocket money that we spend trying to keep off the weight in the first place. Going on special weight-loss diet plans and popping pills to cut our appetites or rearrange our metabolism have become a national pastime.

This is an economic black hole that sucks our money away without offering anything in return. Imagine paying $40 to a service man to fix your leaky kitchen sink, and then two weeks later, the sink pipes explode and flood the kitchen and it costs $500 to repair. I bet you wouldn't ask that guy to fix your sink again! So then why do we endlessly try those weight-loss plans, books, drinks, energy bars and assorted gimmicks when they don't deliver as promised?

I applaud people for trying to achieve a healthy weight. I don't question the worthiness or dignity of overweight people any more than I question cancer victims. My criticism is of a societal system that allows and even encourages this problem. I believe, for example, that we are drowning in an ocean of very bad information, too much of it intended to put money into someone else's pockets. What we really need, then, is a new solution compromised of good information for individual people to use at a price that they can afford.

THE SOLUTION
The solution to losing weight is a whole foods, plant-based diet, coupled with a reasonable amount of exercise... "[End quote]

FYI - I couldn't do a pull- up in high school gym class during my sophomore year and I got worked over by a guy in the same weight class during the wrestling sessions (to be fair, he was the starting point guard on the JV team and already had six-pack abs) - fun times.

Brain Teaser, #4.

Suppose there are two water buckets: one that contains a gallon of water and another that contains a gallon of alcohol. A cup of alcohol from the second bucket is poured into the bucket of water. A cup of the resulting mixture is then poured back into the bucket of alcohol. Which is now true?
A) There is more water in the alcohol than alcohol in the water.
B) There is more alcohol in the water than water in the alcohol.
C) There is the same amount of water in the alcohol as alcohol in the water.

The China Study, Part I-A, Intro, Footnotes.

I just wanted to make everyone aware - while I am able to type in the words easily, adding all of the authors footnotes was not easily done. I left them out, but you can be sure that any claim, study, chart, etc. is footnoted throughout the book. His reference chapter, in the back of the book, numbers 35 pages and gives credit and credence to most of the facts listed in the text. He took time and care in making sure readers didn't think he just pulled stuff out of thin air.

The China Study, Part I, Intro.

I'm going to share some sections of a book titled The China Study over the next few weeks. I picked it up after a friend recommended it, knowing how much I like to eat and that I also generally try to watch my weight (cycling, fitness, blah blah blah). I'll let you know right off the bat that some of it may sound a bit outlandish and you may stop reading, that's fine with me. For the people that do keep reading, you may want to pick up the whole book.

Here's the first section I chose, from his introduction:

"[Quote]... After a long career in research and policy making, I now understand why Americans are so confused. As a taxpayer who foots the bill for research and health policy in America, you deserve to know that many of the common notions you have been told about food, health, and disease are wrong:
- Synthetic chemicals in the environment and in your food, as problematic as they may be, are not the main cause of cancer.
- The genes that you inherit from your parents are not the most important factors in determining whether you fall prey to any of the ten leading causes of death.
- The hope that genetic research will eventually lead to drug cures for diseases ignores more powerful solutions that can be employed today.
- Obsessively controlling your intake of any one nutrient, such as carbohydrates, fat, cholesterol, or omega-3 fats, will not result in long-term health.
- Vitamins and nutrient supplements do not give you long-term protection against disease.
- Drugs and surgery don't cure the diseases that kill most Americans.
- Your doctor probably does not know what you need to do to be the healthiest you can be.

I propose to do nothing less than redefine what we think of as good nutrition. The provocative results of my four decades of biomedical research, including the findings from a twenty-seven-year laboratory program (funded by the most reputable funding agencies) prove that eating right can save your life.

I will not ask you to believe conclusions based on my personal observations, as some popular authors do. There are over 750 references in this book, and the vast majority of them are primary sources of information, including hundreds of scientific publications from other researchers that point the way to less cancer, less heart disease, fewer strokes, less obesity, less diabetes, less autoimmune disease, less osteoporosis, less Alzheimer's, less kidney stones, and less blindness.

Some of the findings, published in the most reputable scientific journals, show that:
- Dietary change can enable diabetic patients to go off their medication.
- Heart disease can be reversed with diet alone.
- Breast cancer is related to levels of female hormones in the blood, which are determined by the food we eat.
- Consuming dairy foods can increase the risk of prostate cancer.
- Antioxidants, found in fruits and vegetables, are linked to better mental performance in old age.
- Kidney stones can be prevented by a healthy diet.
- Type 1 diabetes, one of the most devastating diseases that can befall a child, is convincingly linked to infant feeding practices.

These findings demonstrate that a good diet is the most powerful weapon we have against disease and sickness." [End quote]

The following posts will take small sections from different chapters of the book. If anyone wants to leave comments on any of the posts, please feel free.

Discuss, Poll #36, BMI.

Use the chart below to find your Body Mass Index (or BMI). Then, chose your result on the poll.

You can also find a more accurate "calculator" for this figure online.

Some other posts I'm working on will tie into this weeks' poll.

Results, Poll #35, Celebrity News.

[for the 2nd time, I'm rewriting this whole post after doing something that Blogger doesn't like while editing the original. As I perform this editing, it removes/cuts the whole post, then Blogger "automatically saves" the entire, newly blank, page. It's an awesome Blogger feature.]

Anyways, here's what we all said about Celebrity News:
> 6 people (40%) chose 'yes, i'm addicted, all the websites are in my faves' - yikes, you should drop your venti latte and click over to salon.com.
> 8 people (53%) chose 'yea, i see some b/c it's everywhere, but i don't seek it out' - wow. it's certainly harder to stay away from this kind of news now than in the past. you can see it almost everywhere, besides the checkout line at the grocery store (which are now superstores). in fact, i've noticed a "celebrity" segment on many local news channels - yes, thanks for reporting the timely, topical, news of the day.
> 1 person (6%) chose 'not really, i try to steer clear as much as possible' - if you have some tips for us regarding how you do this, i'd like to hear 'em.
> 0 persons (0%) chose 'no, never' that's bad juju' - a bit telling, no?

So, is it the news sources fault for shoving it in our faces? Or are we all partly to blame? Kind of a shame really - I think it's a waste of our time and (some of) their talents.

An Old-Timey Place.

If you ever have the chance, stop by the Courier Cafe in Urbana, IL. They have great food for both meat and non-meat eaters (it is liberal Urbana), a great historical building, good service, and an old-timey feel that just can't be matched in most places.


Not a too-small space, but not so big (ahem, Cheesecake Factory) that you feel uncomfortable or get lost on the way back from the bathroom either.


They don't "make these like they used to". In fact, they've been replaced by computers... Progress?


And what little dude (or dudette) wouldn't want to push in a recently begged quarter and watch this contraption pick up and deliver a shiny new gumball? Not many.