04 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Other Columns
Smaller country = better health.
The U.S. was hampered by excessive obesity, depression, inactivity and other items, Davies said.
What could those “other items” be? Surely nothing a little new green socialism won’t cure, right?
11 Friday Jan 2019
Posted in News and Notes
Another great coronary corollary you won’t find anywhere else:
07 Monday Jan 2019
Posted in News and Notes
Better ban cigars, right?
13 cancers – in addition to diabetes, heart problems, etc. – are linked, substantially, to obesity:
According to new studies, excess body weight is an established cause of cancer, currently known to be linked to 13 cancers.
A new study looking at the share of cancers related to obesity finds the proportion of cancer cases that could be attributable to excess body weight reflects variations in obesity rates in the U.S.
More on this topic later in the week, at TPC. And, hey, given that we know abortion is the leading cause of death, we’d better ban guns too…
21 Friday Dec 2018
Posted in News and Notes
There was that funny (and prophetic) Garfield panel from the 1980s. This one:
Jim Davis
In modern Amerika, life imitates art: On average, people are shorter and fatter.
The average U.S. adult is overweight and just a few pounds from obese, thanks to average weight increases in all groups – but particularly whites and Hispanics.
Overall, the average height for men actually fell very slightly the past decade. There was no change for women.
One factor may be the shift in the country’s population. There’s a growing number of Mexican-Americans, and that group tends to be a little shorter, said one of the report’s authors, Cynthia Ogden of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The findings come from a 2015-16 health survey that measures height and weight. More than 5,000 U.S. adults took part.
CDC records date to the early 1960s, when the average man was a little over 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighed 166 pounds. Now, men are almost 1 inch taller and more than 30 pounds heavier. But today’s average height of 5-foot-9 is about a tenth of an inch shorter than a decade ago.
The average woman in the early 1960s was 5-foot-3 and 140 pounds. Now, women are a half-inch taller and about 30 pounds heavier, on average. The average height is about the same as it was a decade earlier: 5-foot-4.
Other survey findings:
• In the last decade, the average weight of men rose about 2 pounds, to 198. For women, it rose 6 pounds, to nearly 171.
• Men have 40-inch waistlines, on average. Women’s waistlines are a little under 39 inches.
So, today’s big beautiful women are heavier, despite being a half foot shorter, than the men of yesteryear. And, with the average for both sexes bloating towards obesity, that means that a considerable percentage are obese, many grossly, morbidly so.
Because you asked, I’m right around the average male height but 20 pounds under the average male weight and six inches off the belt size. This, with a much lower than average BMI, half the body fat, and around twice the general physical strength.
It’s hardly surprising that these changes are coupled with shortening lifespans and the wild increase in various physical and mental maladies. Factor in the decreasing IQ’s and lack of education, and we have a problem.
I wonder how much of the increased average weight is tattoo ink?
12 Wednesday Dec 2018
Posted in News and Notes
Where’s Rita Coolidge? We need a serenade here.
As the US average IQ drops dangerously towards Central American levels, we can at least take comfort (foods) in the fact that the now much duller Amerikans are the largest set ever.
The nation’s obesity rate has reached the highest-ever level this year, according to the United Health Foundation’s 2018 . Obesity is a leading contributor to cardiovascular disease, cancer and other conditions. Additionally, an increase in drug deaths, suicides and cardiovascular disease deaths is contributing to an increase in premature death.
Better ban guns and cigars…
The obesity rate exceeded 30 percent of the adult population for the first time in America’s Health Rankings history, up 5 percent in the past year (from 29.9 percent to 31.3 percent). Premature deaths increased 3 percent (from 7,214 to 7,432 years lost before age 75 per 100,000 people).
Livin’ large. Adding in the merely overweight civies, we’re at something like 75% of all persons within the nonborders of the former nation. The trend GROWS (pun). Soon, maybe within a decade or so, the percent of tubbies will equal the average IQ.
USA! USA! USA!
Go supersize something.
PS: Please read all about that amazing money-waster of a program they’re pushing! Sure to be as effective as that last election Y’all enjoyed.
03 Monday Dec 2018
Posted in News and Notes
So says a new UNC study, based on five key factors:
The prevalence of what doctors consider good metabolic health is shockingly low in American adults, a new study finds.
Researchers from the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health say that just 12 percent of the country’s adult population is considered metabolically healthy. That means a vast portion of the population is at greater risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, or other dangerous health conditions over time.
The five factors identified as indicators of good or bad metabolic health are: blood glucose, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference. If adults can maintain optimal levels of these indicators without medication, they are deemed metabolically healthy.
Makes the 70+% obesity thing look tame by compaison.
17 Saturday Nov 2018
Posted in News and Notes, Uncategorized
The following won’t be of much interest to 80% of the population.
Lifting weights is healthier for the heart than going for a run or a walk, new research has found.
Scientists looking at the health records of more than 4,000 people have concluded that, while both forms of exercise reduce the risk of developing heart disease, static activities such as weight lifting or press-ups have a greater effect than an equivalent amount of dynamic exercise such as running, walking or cycling.
The research challenges commonly held assumption that so-called “cardiovascular” pursuits like running are of greatest benefit to the heart.
However, it backs up previous studies which suggest that heavy static exercise gives the circulatory system a better workout because the oxygen expenditure is more intense.
This, of course, is why I seldom if ever run…
05 Wednesday Sep 2018
Posted in Other Columns
WHO: 1.4 Billion adults unnecessarily at risk.
More than 1.4 billion adults are putting themselves at heightened risk of deadly diseases by not getting enough exercise, doctors are warning, with global activity levels virtually unchanged in nearly two decades.
With richer nations enjoying an increasingly comfortable, sedentary lifestyle, a study by the World Health Organization said a third of women and a quarter of men worldwide are in the firing line for killer conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer unless they up their physical activity.
NHS: Four out of Five Adults Unhealthy.
Leading doctors said the number of people with a heart “older” than their actual age was “really alarming” and should spur people to quit smoking, eat better and exercise more. The revelation reflects in part Britain’s high levels of obesity and physical inactivity and previously high smoking rate.
Almost four-fifths (78%) of more than 1.9 million people in England who have taken Public Health England’s new online “heart age test” were found to have a heart that was older than their chronological age.
A third (34%) of those who answered the 16-question survey turned out to have a heart age that was at least five years above their actual age, while for one in seven (14%), it was at least 10 years higher.
Normally I don’t put too much stock in socialist studies and findings. These, however, fit with the trends. Note: I took the survey and found it a little off – though my heart age, by their standards, coincides with my actual age. Good enough.
Also, we know that physical condition and mental condition are somewhat related. So, it’s interesting the way the following story was contexted: Cognitive Power Peaks in Autumn.
Human cognitive powers have a seasonal rhythm, and for those living in temperate regions in the northern hemisphere they are strongest in late summer and early autumn. The effect is large enough to tip some older people over the diagnostic threshold for dementia if their cognitive tests are carried out in winter or spring.
Andrew Lim, a neurologist at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre at the University of Toronto, and his colleagues analysed data from 3500 participants aged 60 or over. All of them had undergone tests …
I’ve known this, about myself, for about two decades. Mentally, I get more done in the mid to late fall. This, in miniature, mirrors the boost to IQ usually experienced in the mid 20’s (maybe +5%). Some facets of mental prowess may increase around age 60, just in time for the afore-noted conditions to set in.
It’s interesting, given the demographic changes in aging populations, that they framed the study in terms of dementia rather than peak power for the younger generations. Either way, in a week or two you should feel a little smarter. Use it to arrest the disease risk. That will stave off many conditions – possibly to include dementia. This is a self-feeding loop. Work it, folks.
24 Friday Aug 2018
Posted in News and Notes
Tags
Olive Garden offers a limited $300 annual pass to the pasta trough.
Olive Garden is bringing back its Never Ending Pasta Pass this year for the fifth time. The offer now comes with an annual option that enables you to get all the spaghetti and meatballs, salads, and breadsticks you can handle for 365 days a year, for a mere $300, MarketWatch reports.
Nom, nom, nom. Yo, G! BMI’s up, IQ’s down!
While slop supplies last.
18 Saturday Aug 2018
Posted in News and Notes
And this is not a good trend.
One in four adults reported they have a disability that impacts major life activities with the most dominant one affecting mobility, according to a report issued Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, data were studied from the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. This is the first CDC report of the percentage of adults across six disability types: mobility, cognition, hearing, vision, independent living and self-care.
“At some point in their lives, most people will either have a disability or know someone who has a one,” Dr. Coleen Boyle, director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said in a press release. “Learning more about people with disabilities in the United States can help us better understand and meet their health needs.”
And much of this, so much, is preventable. Keep popping the pills, watching the TeeVee, and eating everything in site. Will work out (no pun…) just fine.
