Word: overweightness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...crisis has been a long time coming. Diet books have been selling briskly for decades, and Richard Simmons' fitness infomercials from the '80s seem positively retro. Despite a national obsession with losing weight, however, we have continued to put on pounds. Today one-third of Americans are not just overweight but obese. That's why the issue got more attention in 2004 than ever before from health experts, government agencies and the media--including Time and abc News, which jointly sponsored a conference on obesity in May. And it's why I've decided--on my own authority--to declare...
...balanced, and obesity twists those knobs in all the wrong ways. For one thing, increased body mass means higher blood volume, straining the circulatory system. Carrying extra weight also causes the heart to overwork--no favor to a left ventricle that may already be enlarged. Additionally, people who are overweight generally don't get that way eating fruits, vegetables and lean meats; their diet tends to be high in salt, fats and processed foods, just the things hypertension feasts...
...overweight or otherwise out-of-shape person is lucky enough to have mere prehypertension, the condition can often be controlled with diet and exercise. "If someone comes to me with prehypertension," says Bakris, "I pull out my pad and write a lifestyle prescription first...
...suppliers such as Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay that count on selling to schools to establish brand loyalty in kids. Like a growing number of youngsters in the U.S., kids in Texas have been getting fatter. Over a third of all school-age children in the state are overweight or obese, far worse than the national rate of 10% to 15%. By 2040, the costs of treating those kids when they become obese adults is expected to hit $40 billion a year for Texas alone. But hardly anybody seems willing to do much about the problem. Cash-strapped school districts...
...calories were needed. Could a hormonal imbalance, brought on by staying up too long, help tip your metabolism in favor of gaining weight? Maybe. Just last week researchers at Stanford and Wisconsin reported similar results in a study of 1,000 volunteers. But it's also true that being overweight often interferes with the quality of sleep. At any rate, "sleep is not only for the brain," says Van Cauter. "It's also for the rest of the body...