Word: australian
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...Western populations, adults are on average 7 kg heavier than they were 25 years ago. Nor does anyone dispute that, according to the standard measuring tool of body mass index, or BMI (which is calculated by dividing body weight in kilograms by height in meters squared), the majority of Australian and New Zealand adults are either overweight or obese. Based on its National Health Survey 2004-05, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that 62% of men and 45% of women are above their ideal weight range (up from 52% and 37% respectively in 1995). Nor is there any argument...
...Another habit of obesity alarmists is to conflate those labeled as overweight with those classed as obese, and talk about them as a single group. For example, instead of saying that about 1 in 5 Australian and New Zealand adults is obese, many experts tend to say that more than half of both populations are overweight or obese. There'd be no problem with that if the two groups' different BMI classifications put them at equal risk of early death. But that's not the case. Indeed, there's compelling evidence that those defined as overweight (with a BMI between...
...another, so if you can't turn one down, you turn others in the chain and you end up with the same sort of result." If you must fret about one risk factor, adds George Institute senior epidemiologist Rachel Huxley, then make it smoking, which more than 20% of Australian adults do regularly. "You've got a 50:50 chance of it killing you," she says. Statistically speaking, "if you and your best friend smoke, one of you will be killed...
...same vein, Adrian Bauman, director of the Australian Centre for Health Promotion, notes that high blood pressure and cholesterol, as well as physical inactivity, are more prevalent in the population than obesity. "Yet obesity has captured the hearts and minds of the media," says Bauman. "And it's done that because it's graphic. It is depictable. It's boring to show physical inactivity, because it's just people being inert." Likewise, increasing weight is relatively easy to measure, he says. "So all of a sudden we have an epidemic of obesity interest. Not that we haven...
...best known in the world for being Australian, Steve Irwin carried a burden. The action man's death on Sept. 4, after he was speared in the chest by a stingray's barb, has exposed his country's cringe-its tendency to seek foreign validation. The self-styled crocodile hunter made his mark elsewhere before anyone took notice of him in Australia; his khaki-costumed animal-adventure act and "Crikey!" cry were at first deemed over the top for local audiences. As well as selling himself, Irwin was promoting ideas-narrow ones, to be sure-about Australia: a land...