The shape of things

Sometimes I surprise even myself on the opinions I have about certain topics. Great example - my feelings on the New York law requiring some restaurants to label calorie counts on their menu boards - I was totally against it read here why.

The reason I surprise myself is because on the surface, it would seem that I would have this or that opinion about a health-related issue - but upon further research and investigation I realize that staying on the surface just isn't enough.

Case and point. I was browsing through some articles yesterday and found this photo collage of women (and a few men)  and their BMI categories. Basically this woman asked people to send in pictures of themselves and their stats. She put together a collage that labeled people as the BMI index would label them (underweight, normal, overweight or obese).

Before going to see the pictures I thought that this perhaps could be a great tool for showing the flaws of the BMI - because it does have flaws (like not taking into account that muscles weigh more than fat, etc).

But upon further investigation I found that the collage was, well, accurate. The women who were labeled normal, looked normal. Those who were labeled overweight and obese looked overweight and obese. Now, they weren't ugly - in fact many of them were beautiful - but the BMI isn't judging beauty, it's judging the body mass. Then there were a few women labeled "underweight" and (surprise, surprise) they looked like skeletons. 

It got me thinking about American society and our HUGE problem with obesity. I realized that it's things like this collage that just keep us stuck in our ways believeing that all is ok, and we're all great and beautiful creatures.

If we keep turning our eyes from the problems of obesity - for fear of hurting feelings - we're going to continue to dig our own grave. In fact I read today that  twice as many people are obese in U.S. compared to Europeans. Shocker.

BUT, the thing is our health care costs are the highest because of this obesity because it causes people to suffer more often from cancer, diabetes and other chronic ailments. It pushes our costs for health care to treat these problems to $100 billion to $150 billion! That's a lot of money.

Point: we need to stop being so nice and start being real. We need to recognize that there is a problem and try to solve it, not come up with even more excuses for people who are obese. 

What do you think? 

I found some interesting health-related articles today. I'll post briefly about a few of them:

1. Doctors now say that there are symptoms that point to ovarian cancer (in the past they thought you couldn't detect the cancer until later stages). If you or any of our loved ones experience these symptoms daily for a few weeks, please go to the doctor. Read an article about it.

Experts say these health problems may be symptoms of ovarian cancer:

• Bloating
• Pelvic or abdominal pain
• Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly
• Feeling a frequent or urgent need to urinate

2. This past weekend a teenager died of an overdose of muscle cream - the scariest part is that she didn't ingest it orally, she just used too much on her leg muscles following a grueling cross country training regime. Some doctors and experts are urging the FDA to require "BenGay" and "IcyHot" to have stronger labels that warn of this overdose (this is the first death they've ever documented from muscle cream). Currently the labels only say to stop using them if "condition worsens or symptoms persist for more than seven days." Read about it here.

3. An expert panel calls for pediatricians to stop using "fuzzy language" with obese children. The panel made recommendations that children and their family should be told that they have a medical condition and it is called obesity and the doctors should work with the families to help the children get to a healthy weight.

I agree. We need to stop sugar-coating this epidemic. If kids and their parents aren't told of the risks involved of being obese, they will continue to be obese into adulthood - most likely. This paragraph from the article was pretty shocking:

• "About 17 percent of U.S. children are obese and one-third are overweight, using the committee's recommended definitions. Those numbers are rising, putting children at risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems and other ailments more commonly found in adults" Read the article here.