UPDATE 1-Pentagon attacks obesity with new food choices

[ScienceRocks]

UPDATE 1-Pentagon attacks obesity with new food choices
reuters.com ^ | 2/9/12 | reuters


UPDATE 1-Pentagon attacks obesity with new food choices | Reuters
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Obese Americans in the military are a national security hazard and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama wants to see that change.

Obama, who has led a healthy eating and fitness program for children for two years, lent her voice on Thursday to the military's efforts to overhaul the food it serves.

In an event at Little Rock Air Force Base, Obama announced a new Pentagon obesity and nutritional awareness campaign that will change nutrition standards across the services for the first time in 20 years.

The changes will bring more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and food choices that are lower in fat to 1.45 million troops a day at all 1,100 American military dining facilities in the coming months.

"This isn't just a drop in the bucket - this is really a big splash," Obama said.

"It's happening because our military leaders know it's not just a diet issue, it's not just a health issue. This is truly a national security issue," she said

 

[g5000]

Here you go soldier. Now that you have burned 8000 calories humping over that hill into enemy fire, you can have this yummy piece of cardboard chalk full of fiber for lunch.

I was in the best shape of my life in the military and I had to literally eat an entire table full of food just to maintain my body weight.

 

[g5000]

Oh, I don't know how much has changed since I retired, but we were damn lucky to get fresh fruits and vegetables to eat when we were overseas.

You didn't have to force ME to eat that stuff. I was grateful to have it when it was available.

And I can't tell you how much damned irradiated milk I drank. They still serve that shit?

 

[Stephanie]

Holy smokes. I am sick of this woman and her claiming first it was OUR children are National Security risk because of obesity, now she is attacking our Military..

Obese Americans in the military are a national security hazard and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama wants to see that change.

who the fuck voted for and put this woman in charge of what we eat?

 

[waltky]

Granny says dey musta come `round an' seen some of Ferd's g/f's...

US obesity 'higher than thought'
2 April 2012 - How should obesity be calculated?

The obesity problem in the US may be much worse than previously thought, according to researchers. They said using the Body Mass Index or BMI to determine obesity was underestimating the issue. Their study, published in the journal PLoS One, said up to 39% of people who were not currently classified as obese actually were. The authors said "we may be much further behind than we thought" in tackling obesity. BMI is a simple calculation which combines a person's height and weight to give a score which can be used to diagnose obesity. Somebody with a BMI of 30 or more is classed as obese. The US Centers for Disease Control says at least one in three Americans is obese.

Many more?

Other ways of diagnosing obesity include looking at how much of the body is made up of fat. A fat percentage of 25% or more for men or 30% or more for women is the threshold for obesity. One of the researchers Dr Eric Braverman said: "The Body Mass Index is an insensitive measure of obesity, prone to under-diagnosis, while direct fat measurements are superior because they show distribution of body fat." The team at the New York University School of Medicine and the Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, looked at records from 1,393 people who had both their BMI and body fat scores measured.

Their data showed that most of the time the two measures came to the same conclusion. However, they said 539 people in the study - or 39% - were not labelled obese according to BMI, but their fat percentage suggested they were. They said the disparity was greatest in women and became worse when looking at older groups of women. "Greater loss of muscle mass in women with age exacerbates the misclassification of BMI," they said. They propose changing the thresholds for obesity: "A more appropriate cut-point for obesity with BMI is 24 for females and 28 for males." A BMI of 24 is currently classed as a "normal" weight. "By our cut-offs, 64.1% or about 99.8 million American women are obese," they said.

It is not the first time BMI has been questioned. A study by the University of Leicester said BMIs needed to be adjusted according to ethnicity. Last year in the BBC's Scrubbing Up column, nutrition expert Dr Margaret Ashwell advocated using waist-to-height ratio to determine obesity. She said: "It is a real worry that using BMI alone for screening could miss people who are at risk from central obesity and might also be alarming those whose risk is not as great as it appears from their BMI."

BBC News - US obesity 'higher than thought'

Uncle Ferd says Yea?, well he bets dey got fat girls in England too.

 

[waltky]

Mebbe dey can't fit past the bathroom door?...

Texas hospital reportedly bars obese workers -- and it might be legal
April 05, 2012 | Not everything should be bigger in Texas.

A Texas hospital has reportedly instituted a hiring policy barring potential employees who are obese -- and officials at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission tell FoxNews.com that the practice is not explicitly discriminatory. The policy, which was instituted last year at the Citizens Medical Center in Victoria, requires potential employees to have a body mass index of less than 35. That equates to roughly 210 pounds for someone who is 5 feet, 5 inches tall or 245 pounds for someone who is 5 feet, 10 inches, the Texas Tribune reports. An employee’s physique “should fit with a representational image or specific mental projection of the job of a health care professional,” including an appearance “free from distraction” for hospital patients, according to the policy.

David Brown, the hospital's chief executive, did not return several messages seeking comment on the policy, but he told the Texas Tribune that the hospital's patients have "expectations" regarding personal appearance that cannot be ignored. “We have the ability as an employer to characterize our process and to have a policy that says what’s best for our business and for our patients," Brown said.

Justine Lisser, a senior attorney and adviser at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said the Americans with Disabilities Act would prohibit discrimination against the morbidly obese since that can be a covered impairment. "There are, however, people who may have a BMI that is higher than what the hospital required, but not so high as to constitute morbid obesity," Lisser wrote in an email to FoxNews.com. "Unfortunately, these people would not be covered by our laws prohibiting discrimination because they would not have a covered disability."

One of the hospital's justifications for its policy, Lisser wrote, is that its patients expect some sort of professional appearance that, presumably, does not include being overweight. "Under any other one of our laws, customer preference is absolutely no justification for discrimination except in very limited and narrow circumstances," her email continued. "So, for example, as happened in one of our recent cases, a home health aide service may not refuse to send out African-American nurses aides in response to customer requests; however, if the aide were to be involved in intimate care of women, it would be permissible to restrict the position to women."

Read more: Texas Hospital Reportedly Bars Obese Workers -- And It Might Be Legal | Fox News

 

[starcraftzzz]

Holy smokes. I am sick of this woman and her claiming first it was OUR children are National Security risk because of obesity, now she is attacking our Military..

Obese Americans in the military are a national security hazard and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama wants to see that change.

who the fuck voted for and put this woman in charge of what we eat?

I see so according to you making it so that military members have to option to eat healthy food means Obama is telling people how to eat.
It really amazes me. If Obama support cracking down on gang crime republicans who call it an infringement on their liberties and something about job killing.
However Stephanie isn’t really a republican/conservative he’s just a liberal trying to make conservatives look like total dumbasses

 

[waltky]

Pregnancy obesity link to autism...

Obesity in pregnancy linked to autism
9 Apr.`12 - Mothers who are obese or have diabetes during pregnancy may be more likely to have babies with autism or other developmental delays, said a US study published on Monday.

The findings "appear to raise serious public health concerns," said the study in the journal Pediatrics, which comes amid an obesity epidemic in the United States with recent research showing autism strikes up to one in 88 children. Researchers examined 1,004 mother-child pairs from diverse backgrounds in California -- about half of the children had autism, while 172 had other developmental problems and 315 were considered normal. While the study did not say whether the mother's weight or diabetic status caused the children's developmental problems, it did find strong associations between the likelihood of such ailments and the mother's health in pregnancy.

For instance, mothers who were obese were about 67 percent more likely to have a child with autism and more than twice as likely to have a child with some kind of disorder than normal-weight moms without diabetes. More than 20 percent of the mothers of children with autism or other developmental disability were obese. Just 14 percent of the mothers of normally developing children were obese at the time of pregnancy, it said. Also, the autistic children of diabetic moms appeared to have more severe disabilities -- with greater deficits in language and communication skills -- than the autistic children of normal-weight moms. "Over a third of US women in their childbearing years are obese and nearly one-tenth have gestational or type 2 diabetes during pregnancy," said lead author Paula Krakowiak, of the University of California, Davis. "Our finding that these maternal conditions may be linked with neurodevelopmental problems in children raises concerns and therefore may have serious public health implications," she said.

Previous research has linked diabetes in pregnancy to development problems in children, but the association between autism and maternal diabetes has been inconsistent. Scientists think that fetal problems may result from the prolonged exposure to high levels of insulin in diabetic moms, which requires greater oxygen use and may cut the necessary oxygen supply to the fetus. Diabetes could also cut the needed levels of iron to the fetus, resulting in poor brain development.

According to Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, the study raises important questions but should not be interpreted as finding that metabolic disorders cause autism. "Although other researchers are making headlines reporting advances in identifying genetic causes for autism, we must remember that environmental and other factors also likely play some role," said Adesman, who was not involved in the research. "To the extent that there is an increase in diabetes and obesity in adults and likewise an increase of autism and related developmental disorders in young children, one cannot infer from this study that these metabolic conditions are the primary reason for the rapid increase in the incidence of autism."

Obesity in pregnancy linked to autism - Yahoo! News

 

[Dot Com]

Holy smokes. I am sick of this woman and her claiming first it was OUR children are National Security risk because of obesity, now she is attacking our Military..

Obese Americans in the military are a national security hazard and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama wants to see that change.

who the fuck voted for and put this woman in charge of what we eat?

you really are worked- up potty mouth.

Why obesity is a national security threat - CNN.com

Editor's note: David Frum writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002, he is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," and is the editor of FrumForum.

 

[GoneBezerk]

It's called Fitness Tests.....if they want to weed people out like Bodecca.

Don't mess with the chow hall where greasy cheeseburgers are good for 20 year old guys needing to recharge their batteries.

I couldn't woof down enough calories during boot camp, SERE school, etc....

 

[Ed Spacer]

No mcdonalds on bases?damn that bitch....

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Here you go soldier. Now that you have burned 8000 calories humping over that hill into enemy fire, you can have this yummy piece of cardboard chalk full of fiber for lunch.

I was in the best shape of my life in the military and I had to literally eat an entire table full of food just to maintain my body weight.

When you were in the military the cavalry still used horses as their primary mode of transportation, you had to be in better shape than these days.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Oh, I don't know how much has changed since I retired, but we were damn lucky to get fresh fruits and vegetables to eat when we were overseas.

Of course not. It took weeks for anything to get anywhere before air travel.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Holy smokes. I am sick of this woman and her claiming first it was OUR children are National Security risk because of obesity, now she is attacking our Military..

Obese Americans in the military are a national security hazard and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama wants to see that change.

who the fuck voted for and put this woman in charge of what we eat?

Why do you want our military be obese?

I am sick of this woman

Ahh. That's why. Got it.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Holy smokes. I am sick of this woman and her claiming first it was OUR children are National Security risk because of obesity, now she is attacking our Military..

Obese Americans in the military are a national security hazard and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama wants to see that change.

who the fuck voted for and put this woman in charge of what we eat?

I see so according to you making it so that military members have to option to eat healthy food means Obama is telling people how to eat.
It really amazes me. If Obama support cracking down on gang crime republicans who call it an infringement on their liberties and something about job killing.
However Stephanie isn’t really a republican/conservative he’s just a liberal trying to make conservatives look like total dumbasses

Whatever the Obamas do - the right will be opposed to it. They aren't interested in what's best for the nation - they just hate the Obamas.

FACT: If Obama came out tomorrow morning and said "I've changed my mind on a few things, I think we should cut taxes on the rich and cut spending on social programs by 90%" the right wing would all of a sudden favor raising taxes on the rich and expanding welfare.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

It's called Fitness Tests.....if they want to weed people out like Bodecca.

Don't mess with the chow hall where greasy cheeseburgers are good for 20 year old guys needing to recharge their batteries.

I couldn't woof down enough calories during boot camp, SERE school, etc....

Unfortunately if they raised fitness standards the military wouldn't have enough bodies to send to all the wars that Republicans start.