Never before in history have so many high calorie foods been so widely available and so inexpensive. Is it surprising, then, that over 300,000 Americans die from overweight related conditions per year?
The National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the American Heart Association, and the American Medical Association will all tell us, in concert, that eating more than we need is leading us into a national trend of being overweight that is unprecedented. We are heavier on the average than we have ever been, and worse, our children are heavier too, particularly among the tallest, fastest growing young children.
What does being overweight mean to our health overall? For starters, to put it bluntly, it appears that people who are overweight are more likely to die early. In a report published in the July 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a study of 90,000 women over 50 years old showed that being overweight raised the risk for mortality by 25% to 75%, depending on how overweight the individual was. The reason? There seems to be a connection between a need for weight loss and such things as coronary heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension just to name the worst. It's starting to sound a little more serious isn't it? Let's look at those numbers again. 25 to 75 women out of each 100 in the study group died earlier than the rest of the women in the group who had low body mass indexes.
So, what can be done about it? Unfortunately, there are overwhelming numbers of answers, most of which involve exchanging large amounts of money for a bottle of pills that carry some vaguely stated mythic capacity. These and other wonder remedies are endless. Their unproven ability to help you lose weight and, most importantly, keep weight off is poor. The answer, it seems, is to know better.
Be informed. Find out what you are up against. Discover ways of finding support during a time of adjustment. Challenge vested interests. Question prevailing myths. Spend time on the Internet. It's a great source of information and a very efficient distributor of knowledge, except for one problem. There is just too much of it. The web contains galaxies of sources available for any one subject you might choose. For example, the search for "weight loss" on Google will return around 170 million results. That's 170 million possible locations for good or bad information that someone needs to sift through. Granted, that's a lot of websites, but before you start feeling overwhelmed, you need to know that there are plenty of good consolidators on the web that can help you begin collecting the specific information you need including our own web site, Personal-Fit-Weight-Loss-Guide.com.
Here are a few:
ftc.gov/redflag This site was created by the Federal Trade Commission to help media companies recognize bogus claims in advertising.
nature.berkeley.edu/cwh This site comes to us from the School of Public Health at University of California, Berkeley. If you want to expand your weight loss research into the academic realm, this a good place to begin. Start with "Organizations and Links".
nutrition.gov The U.S. Department of Agriculture has built this site to post current publications from other government health agencies. Weight loss is a prominent subject as well as articles and links to all things having to do with nutrition.
You will find that you can generate a lot of resolve with a little bit of knowledge. So, dig in and get smart about losing weight. Don't end up on the wrong side of the mortality statistics.
Remember, too, that this article is for information purposes only. If you have or think you have a health issue, including weight or diet issues, consult your primary care physician for proper diagnoses and treatment.
Personal Fit Weight Loss Guide dx.doi.org/10.2121/Weight-Loss-Guide-0821063
© 2006 Healthiness, Inc.
This article may only be reprinted in its entirety, unedited, and with all links intact.
