Losing Weight and Feeling Great

‘Miscellaneous’ Category

I saw an interesting article on the obese American the other day.  The article makes the prediction that if we continue as we are, 86% of all adult Americans will be overweight or obese by the year 2030.

Before that, by 2022, 80% of Americans will be at the very least overweight (if not obese).

So, what is the definition of overweight and obese?  A body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more.  Overweight is considered at between 25 and 29.9 BMI.  Just as an example, a woman 5 foot 6 inches tall weighing 186 pounds has a BMI of 30.  (Naturally that can vary somewhat, depending on how muscular you are, but any way you look at it — at the very least you’re likely overweight at that weight and height.)

Want to calculate your BMI?

The Obese American — The Study

These figures come from a study published by the journal, Obesity, which was published online July 24 of this year.

The study was authored in part by Lan Liang, Ph.D., with the federal government’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and was led by Youfa Wang, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of International Health and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

OK, credentials aside, are we doomed to be a nation of fat people?  What are some of the other numbers the study came up with?

In the Year 2048…

The possibility that 100% of Americans will be overweight or obese.  Now, researchers’ credentials aside, I find that extremely hard to believe.  There will always be people who are a normal weight, or underweight.  So the credibility of that number is far-fetched, to say the least.

But, could the 86% by 2030 be correct?  Hard to tell.  If we continue with our current habits, possibly so.  But that’s an awfully big “if”.  Anything can happen between now and then — we’re talking 22 years here.

Still, it’s a hard study to swallow (puns aside).  The fact is that unless we do decide to change our ways, more and more of us will either not lose or will gain weight in the coming years.  And what’s going to be doing to our health?  If we’re not doing great right now, what’s it going to be like once we reach 60?  70?  Do we really want to be confined to a wheelchair or bed because we didn’t take care of ourselves today?

At any rate, you can read more of the article here, and decide for yourself if you will be an obese American in 2030.  Me — I don’t intend to!

The previous post was the first 20 ways that sugar affects our health.  Anyone up for 20 more reasons?

Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.  (This is called Syndrome X.)

Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.  (Do you get enough vitamin E in your daily diet?  Or should you take more?)

Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.  (As we get heavier, our blood pressures tend to go up…we don’t need help from sugar.)

Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.  (The is the flip side of the hyperactivity sugar can cause in children; this is the infamous “sugar slump”.)

High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs)  (Sugar molecules attaching to and thereby damaging proteins in the body).

Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.  (Protein builds muscle, and it’s also important in slowing down the absorption of sugar into the blood.)

Sugar causes food allergies.  (I know it does in me!)

Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy. 

Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.  (Eczema is not only itchy, but it can be disfiguring if the patches show up on exposed body parts.)

Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.  (As our hearts and blood vessels age, they lose function — we don’t need extra help to hasten heart attacks and/or strokes.)

Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.  (This can open us up to all kinds of diseases.)

Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.  (This can be the pre-formation of cancer.)

Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen.  (We don’t need more wrinkles!)

Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness.  (I wonder if this is part of the “aging eyes”?)

Sugar can cause emphysema.  (This is a terrible disease.)

High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body.

Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.  (Enzymes are critical in the day-to-day  operation of your body.)

Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson’s disease.  (Not a fun disease; we need to do everything we can to avoid it.)

Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide and it can increase the amount of liver fat.  (This can be a pre-cursor to cirrhosis and/or cancer.)

Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.  (If you’ve ever had a kidney stone, you know how terribly painful they are.)

So, that’s 20 more reasons to take a long, hard look at your diet today.  Now I’m not saying you should ban all sugar forevermore.  What you might want to do, however, is take steps daily (or weekly if you are severely addicted) to reduce the amount of sugar you eat on a day-to-day basis.

Sugar is sweet; a healthy life is sweeter.