Category: health & fitness

chow down wide load

On By Rick McIn food, health & fitnessLeave a comment

I try to avoid big holiday feasts.

But I’m invited to American Thanksgiving at the Masons. That means vegetarian Thanksgiving.

homerjacketsmall.gifI thought the statistics were — adults gain a pound a year every year, on average.

No? Yes?

Then there’s the 10 pounds you gain then lose over Christmas.

New York Times health answer man Anahad O’Connor takes hard look at the widely-held convicition that holiday eating adds up to five to ten new pounds a year. Not quite, says O’Connor. In fact, not even close. The Times reports that most studies on the subject show that the average person gains one to two pounds from (American) Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day.

… To the surprise of no one, those who were the most active had the least gain, and those who were already overweight gained the most.

SportsGeezer: Holiday Weight Gain, Facts and Fictions

A pound is nothing! Gimme another tofurkey drumstick.

Possibly related posts.

nutrition – is corn killing me?

On By Rick McIn audiocasts, books, food, health & fitnessLeave a comment

I’m no wimp when it comes to nutrition.

But with my processed food diet, sounds like I won’t live long enough to read a 400 page book about food: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

But the Slate.com book review club delivered a terrific audiocast. Stephen Metcalf is a particularly eloquent and articulate reviewer. Listen to that podcast.

For reasons historic and political, corn is used to feed American cattle. Unfortunately a corn diet can kill a cow. Thankfully we have drugs to keep the poor beasts alive until slaughter date. (About 18-months-old, I believe.)

Consider a McDonald’s lunch. Corn feeds the cow that turns into the burgers. Corn is the oil that cooks the fries. And corn syrup sweetens the shakes and the soft drinks. Corn even makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients in Chicken McNuggets.

If you wisely avoid Rotten Ronnie’s, know that a quarter of the products in your grocery store contain corn.

Avoiding corn is as easy as avoiding things made in China.

This cannot last much longer. So much petroleum is needed to keep the corn economy running that the corn economy is not sustainable long-term. Something must change.

New Zealand was held up as a non-corn-based model. They dropped all agricultural subsidies long ago.

Omnivore\'s Dilemma

does TV cause autism?

On By Rick McIn audiocasts, bad news, health & fitness, TVLeave a comment

Sounds crazy?

Child autism rates have been rising over the past few decades. What’s causing it?

autism.jpgGregg Easterbrook paints a pretty convincing argument:

Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3.

The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders.

TV Really Might Cause Autism – Slate.com

Listen to the Slate.com audiocast.

medical / dental tourism

On By Rick McIn economics, health & fitness, travel, travel MexicoLeave a comment

dentist-smile.jpgI’m still shopping for a dentist in a developing country, likely Mexico.

Dental work in Canada is over-priced in my opinion. How many can afford $400 / hour for sitting in a chair?

More than 500,000 Americans traveled out of the country last year for medical or dental work, according to the National Coalition on Health Care. In those numbers are cases of heart bypasses, orthopedic surgeries and expensive dental treatments.

ContraCostaTimes.com | 10/08/2006 | Need care, will travel

airport screeners at Newark fail to find 20 of 22 “weapons”

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, travelLeave a comment

More on “security theatre”.

The Newark Star-Ledger reports that security screeners at Newark airport flunked 20 of 22 security tests operated by undercover federal agents last week. They failed to spot items including concealed bombs and guns at checkpoints throughout the international airport’s three terminals, according to federal officials.

Boing Boing: Airport screeners at Newark fail to find 20 of 22 “weapons”

“security theatre”

On By Rick McIn government, health & fitness, travel, traveloguesLeave a comment

Like every tourist in Page, Arizona, I popped in to visit Glen Canyon Dam. I’ve really enjoyed similar tours of other large dams.

And the impact on the environment caused by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam is more controversial than most. It sounded interesting.

Glencanyondam.jpg

But I was turned off by over-zealous security officials.

After a slow line-up, turned out I was not allowed to carry anything into the facility. They rushed and flustered a bus load of French tourists too. Everyone present was painfully aware that there was zero security risk. It was an embarassment.

This going-through-the-motions has been called security theatre. Too right.

Rather than this useless song and dance, why don’t we study what the Israelis do? The security procedures of El-Al airlines, for example. El Al has has had no successful terrorist attack on board any of its aircraft for over 35 years.

Major dams are terrorist targets. They deserve the highest level of security. But hassling tourists does not help. Shut the facility down from tourism completely, if necessary. Shut down the highway, if necessary.

But don’t pretend you are preventing a serious attack by preventing me carrying in a wallet.

» next travelogue post on this trip – when did Halloween get … BIG?

exercising while travelling

On By Rick McIn gymnastics, health & fitness, travel, traveloguesLeave a comment

The worst part of travel is the inconsistency of exercise and food. You have far more control over your life at home.

I would like to be riding a bike to a gymnastics gym (or weight room) but — instead — I’m jogging to playgrounds.

This one (VitaCourse) in Vegas is of the best playground gyms I’ve found.

playground-gym.jpg

» next travelogue post on this trip – leaving Las Vegas

how will you die?

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, Islam, travelLeave a comment

Shouldn’t we spend more on reducing vehicle deaths? Less on hassling airline travellers?

According to this data, you are more likely to be killed by an American policeman than by a toothpaste-wielding foreign jihadist.

Flu, hernia, or police more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda – BoingBoing

death.jpg

tobacco companies increased nicotine

On By Rick McIn bad news, health & fitness, product complaintsLeave a comment

Surprise, surprise.

Tobacco companies increased nicotine in kids’ and minorities’ cigs

A new study shows that tobacco companies have been quietly increasingly the nicotine in the brands most smoked by kids and minorities for the past decade, increasing the toxicity and addictiveness of their products.

Boing Boing: Tobacco companies increased nicotine in kids’ and minorities’ cigs
2006