Childhood Obesity, Problem at Both The Governmental and Parental Levels

Obese children and teenagers with arteries like those of middle-aged adults ought to be a wake-up call for anyone interested in public health.

The disturbing findings were documented in a study presented this week at an American Heart Association conference in New Orleans. The findings suggest that obese children have a significant risk of heart disease as they grow older.

It’s heartening that presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain made prevention a plank in their health care reform platforms.

Consensus is a good start. Any overhaul of the nation’s health care system should address prevention in a meaningful and systemic way.

It is imperative that this country deal with physical inactivity and childhood obesity both at the parental and, yes, governmental levels. Read more

Natsume Celebrates 10 Years of Its Popular Harvest Moon Series with 2 New Titles for DS and Wii

Natsume, a worldwide developer and

publisher of family-oriented video games, announced today that the

company is celebrating the ten-year anniversary of its popular Harvest

Moon franchise this summer. In commemoration of the anniversary,

Natsume is launching two new Harvest Moon titles later this quarter

and offering a host of retail promotions surrounding the launches.

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness for the Nintendo DS and Harvest Moon:

Tree of Tranquility for the Nintendo Wii will both be available at

retail later this summer, and will be branded with special packaging
Read more

Weight Loss or Fat Loss to Effectively and Healthily

When you step onto your bathroom scale every morning, what you will be reading from the scale is weight loss and not fat loss. Bath room scales are never accurate in determining fat loss.

You must know the difference if you want to lose weight or lose fat effectively and healthily.

Why? Because it measures your overall weight and not your body fat per se. If you weigh yourself in the morning before breakfast after your bowel movement, you will probably get your lowest reading of the day because your body is dehydrated through hours of non fluid replenishment when you were sleeping and after emptying your bowels, more water and wastes are flushed away so much so that you are you are lighter. After a night of sleep and not eating anything, your carbohydrate store is running low and therefore you are even lighter without the stored carbohydrate known as glycogen. What happened then? You just loss weight not loss fat! Your body fat is still there while the weight of other substances such as glycogen, wastes, water etc are depleted.

Now go weigh yourself again after dinner when you are fully replenished through meals and consumption of water and it may surprised you that you may probably weigh 2kg or more heavier and that is at least 4.4 pounds! You just gained weight and may even gained fat! Now you can see that it is such a misnomer when people think weight loss and fat loss are the same thing.

Why must you know the difference? Because for most of us, especially those who are on the fat side want to lose fat and not necessarily want to lose weight. Getting the drift?

Now for the more important part. Mere weight loss may cause you to lose muscle and in turn, make you gain body fat later. Yes, it is ironical. That is because the more muscle mass you have, the more you burn fat efficiently because muscle is an active tissue and it requires calories to function. Body fat just sit there doing nothing and thus do not burn calories on its own. So the less muscle mass you have, the less calories your body will burn. The fewer calories your body burn, the more calories ended up being stored as body fat! Therefore it is important to lose fat but not merely lose weight which may include the loss of muscle tissues.

How is it that a person may lose muscle on a weight loss program? Well for starters, we commonly hear about people going on this diet and that diet. Most diets demand a severe restriction of food or calorie intake. Your body will then signal to your mind that you are in a starvation mode and the body is designed to store fat for the impending famine and will use up your muscle for energy in your daily activities.

Some diets advocate a severe cut in carbohydrate. Carbohydrate is your body’s first source of energy. When your body is depleted of carbohydrate, it turns to your protein (muscles) and body fat indiscriminately for energy. Now to make matters worse, because of the restricted carbohydrate consumed, there will be fewer carbohydrate calories to be used as energy calories and that again will signal the onset of starvation mode again. The vicious cycle of your body cannibalizing its own muscle is set in motion again. The same applies to people on slimming pills or salon fat loss programs.

So some people say ok, Chris, I see your point, so I will just do plenty of cardio exercises to lose weight. Another grave mistake. Have you ever wondered why marathon runners, those who run many kilometers often and are doing cardio exercises almost everyday are so skinny with no muscle tone? Because your body is a wonderful machine. It is designed to adapt. When you run or skip or swim long enough, it will say, look, I better get lighter so that I can take the stress better and improve the endurance. Guess what? Your muscles are heavier than fats and what will your body shed more when it wants to get lighter? Muscle or fat? Your body will shed both but more muscles than fats.

Anyway, why would you want to lose weight only to become a smaller you with the same body shape without any muscle tone? Why would you want to be on a weight loss program that eats your muscles and lower your fat burning rate so much so that when you are off the program, the fats come piling back on again?

Therefore, while you are on a lose weight program, you must also be on a build muscle program. That will mean a combination of correct dietary habit, cardio exercises and weightlifting exercises to maintain muscle preservation and a fat loss result.

From now on tell people you are on a fat loss program and not a weight loss program. That you are on a correct eating habit instead of just simply dieting.

With the distinction clearly in mind, you will then know how to lose fat effectively, preserve and grow your muscles and at the same time losing weight on your bathroom scale. That would be an ideal way to achieve your weight loss objective because you will lose body fat instead of muscle and mere body wastes.

If you want to any more question, you can visit Dietpills News

Weight Loss or Fat Loss to Effectively and Healthily

When you step onto your bathroom scale every morning, what you will be reading from the scale is weight loss and not fat loss. Bath room scales are never accurate in determining fat loss.

You must know the difference if you want to lose weight or lose fat effectively and healthily.

Why? Because it measures your overall weight and not your body fat per se. If you weigh yourself in the morning before breakfast after your bowel movement, you will probably get your lowest reading of the day because your body is dehydrated through hours of non fluid replenishment when you were sleeping and after emptying your bowels, more water and wastes are flushed away so much so that you are you are lighter. After a night of sleep and not eating anything, your carbohydrate store is running low and therefore you are even lighter without the stored carbohydrate known as glycogen. What happened then? You just loss weight not loss fat! Your body fat is still there while the weight of other substances such as glycogen, wastes, water etc are depleted. Read more

Tech show tackles what’s appropriate (or not) for kids

When it comes to prowling the Internet or choosing age-appropriate toys, overwrought parents have a lot to consider. Can (and should) you monitor or limit the time your children play games or hang out in cyberspace? How do you keep them safe once there? Are educational toys truly educational? Author Lisa Guernsey says there’s a high-pitch debate about whether childhood is being squandered or set free by today’s tech toys.

Guernsey was speaking at the Sandbox Summit, a first-ever event at the Consumer Electronics Show. “Digital kid” marketers, journalists and representatives from Mattel (MAT), Microsoft (MSFT), Symantec (SYMC) and Sesame Workshop were among attendees, and more issues were raised than solved. The emphasis: understanding how children play and learn, whether they’re into picture books or Facebook.
Read more

VA testing program for all-in-one medical exam

By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Defense and Veterans Affairs officials last week launched a pilot program to simplify the disability ratings process for wounded troops, trimming it down to a single medical exam, a system that could lead to faster and more generous benefits.

The concept was one of several changes recommended by commissions examining the military health care system in the wake of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center controversy earlier this year.

Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary for military personnel policy, told reporters Friday that the pilot will be a single disability evaluation conducted by VA medical personnel for wounded troops. The idea, he said, is to provide a system that is “faster, more compassionate, less adversarial and by all means more efficient.”
Read more

Obesity Linked to Increased Cancer Risk

Weight management, exercise and proper nutrition are key to reducing your risk of cancer. And the earlier in life you adopt these practices, the better off you’ll be, a new study suggests.

Factors such as birth weight, childbearing, breast-feeding, and adult height and weight also influence cancer risk, according to the report released Wednesday by the American Institute for Cancer Research and the Britain-based World Cancer Research Fund. Understanding how these factors affect cancer risk, and how to put this information to use to prevent the disease, offer promising new directions for cancer research, the study authors said.

“We need to think about cancer as the product of many long-term influences, not as something that ‘just happens,’ ” Dr. Walter J. Willett said in a prepared statement. Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, was one of 21 authors of the report, Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective. Read more

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