'via Blog this'
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
‘Porn widows’ decry smut as a relationship killer | Wellbeing | Life | National Post
‘Porn widows’ decry smut as a relationship killer | Wellbeing | Life | National Post:
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
If children are considered the future, why the smoking?
For Chinese Students, Smoking Isn’t All Bad - Businessweek: "In dozens of rural villages in China’s western provinces, one of the first things primary school kids learn is what helps make their education possible: tobacco. The schools are sponsored by local units of China’s state-owned cigarette monopoly, China National Tobacco. “On the gates of these schools you’ll see slogans that say ‘Genius comes from hard work—tobacco helps you become talented,’” says Xu Guihua, secretary general of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control, a privately funded lobbying group. “They are pinning their hopes on young people taking up smoking.”
Anti-tobacco groups say efforts in China to reduce sales.... "
'via Blog this'
Anti-tobacco groups say efforts in China to reduce sales.... "
'via Blog this'
Monday, October 3, 2011
News from The Associated Press
News from The Associated Press:
Salads are nice, but burgers are what really sell
.
That explains the popularity of KFC's Double Down, a sandwich of bacon and cheese slapped between two slabs of fried chicken. It's the reason IHOP offers a Simple & Fit menu with yogurt and fruit bowls, but its top seller remains a 1,180-calorie breakfast sampler of eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, hash browns and pancakes. It's also why only 11 percent of parents ordered apple slices as an alternative to fries in McDonald's Happy Meals.
The mixed message hasn't stopped many restaurants from offering healthier fare. After all, the government has stepped up its oversight - and influence - over the industry that it blames for America's expanding waistline. National rules about putting calorie information on menus are expected to take effect next year and Mrs. Obama touts restaurants and companies that slash calories in foods.
'via Blog this'Friday, September 23, 2011
China Endorsing Tobacco in Schools Adds to $10 Trillion Cost - Bloomberg
China Endorsing Tobacco in Schools Adds to $10 Trillion Cost - Bloomberg:
“On the gates of these schools, you’ll see slogans that say ‘Genius comes from hard work -- Tobacco helps you become talented,’” said Xu Guihua, secretary general of the privately funded lobby groupChinese Association on Tobacco Control. The schools are sponsored by local units of China’s government-owned monopoly cigarette maker. “They are pinning their hopes on young people taking up smoking.”
China has more than 320 million smokers, a third of the world’s total, and about 1 million Chinese die from tobacco- related illnesses every year. Reducing mortality in the country from cardiovascular diseases, for which smoking is a main risk factor, by 1 percent a year over the three decades to 2040 could generate economic value equal to 68 percent of China’s 2010 real gross domestic product, or $10.7 trillion, according to a World Bank report published in July.
“On the gates of these schools, you’ll see slogans that say ‘Genius comes from hard work -- Tobacco helps you become talented,’” said Xu Guihua, secretary general of the privately funded lobby groupChinese Association on Tobacco Control. The schools are sponsored by local units of China’s government-owned monopoly cigarette maker. “They are pinning their hopes on young people taking up smoking.”
China has more than 320 million smokers, a third of the world’s total, and about 1 million Chinese die from tobacco- related illnesses every year. Reducing mortality in the country from cardiovascular diseases, for which smoking is a main risk factor, by 1 percent a year over the three decades to 2040 could generate economic value equal to 68 percent of China’s 2010 real gross domestic product, or $10.7 trillion, according to a World Bank report published in July.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Sugar Blues Sugar provides 20% of calories Canadians consume
Sugar provides 20% of calories Canadians consume - Health - CBC News:
Beverages among top sources of sugar
CBC News
Posted: Sep 21, 2011 9:33 AM ET
Last Updated: Sep 21, 2011
Canadians get about 20 per cent of their calories from sugar, according to a new report.
Statistics Canada reported on sugar consumption of Canadians of all ages on Wednesday.
"The sugar that Canadians consume accounts for 21 per cent of their daily calories," Kellie Langlois and Didier Garriguet of Statistics Canada in Ottawa concluded. "Beverages are among the top sources of sugar."
The sweetener may occur naturally in fruit and milk or be added to foods and drinks.
Since the report didn't distinguish between naturally occurring and added sugars, it isn't possible to compare how much sugar Canadians take in to guidelines from the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine, the report's authors noted.
The Institute of Medicine recommends that no more than 25 per cent of total calories come from added sugars. The World Health Organization recommends a daily maximum of 10 per cent of calories from free sugars.
Sugar consumption was lowest among women aged 71 and over, at 20 teaspoons, and highest among teenage boys aged 14 to 18, at 41 teaspoons.
This study reported daily intake of sugar by food group and by the top 10 sources.
For example, the top five sources of sugar intake for Canadians age 9 to 18 were:
- Soft drinks: regular 14.3%.
- Milk: 14.0%.
- Fruit: 10.6%.
- Confectionery: 10.3%.
- Fruit juice: 9.1%.
The Canadian Sugar Institute said it was pleased that the report will help dispel "misinformation" regarding Canadian consumption patterns.
"In terms of how other countries are doing, we look to be about the same," Langlois said.
On average, Canadians consumed 110 grams of sugar a day, the equivalent of 26 teaspoons.
Overall, 35 per cent of the sugar that Canadians consumed came from the "other" foods category. The percentage peaked at 46 per cent among teenage boys.
Friday, April 15, 2011
John Robbins: Being Fat in America
John Robbins: Being Fat in America:
"A few weeks ago, the 575-pound spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill, a 29-year-old man named Blair River, died. It wasn't a heart attack, it was pneumonia. He had been the public face of the restaurant and the star of its advertising. He was also the single father for a five-year-old girl.
At nearly 600 pounds. Blair River ate all his meals free at the restaurant."
At nearly 600 pounds. Blair River ate all his meals free at the restaurant."
Heart Attack Grill owner Jon Basso did not deny the link between the young man's excessive weight and his tragically premature death. "I hired him to promote my food," said Basso, "(but his) life was cut short because he carried extra weight." Ironically, the restaurant's motto is "Food Worth Dying For."
Of course, no one is forcing anyone to eat at the Heart Attack Grill or to stuff themselves full of unhealthy food. It's a free country, in theory anyway, and we're free to eat ourselves to death if we want to do so.
Some would say that the Heart Attack Grill steps over a line, to the point of enabling dangerous food addictions. There is certainly nothing remotely resembling healthy on the menu. Customers can purchase cigarettes, but only the non-filtered type. On the wall are prominent displays advertising menu items such as "Quadruple Bypass Burgers" that carry 8,000 calories, and "Flatliner Fries" that are deep-fried in pure lard. Perhaps joking, owner Basso says, "We're in the front lines of the battle against anorexia."
Scantily-clad waitresses will still regularly exhort customers to eat all they can. He's making money, and thinks the restaurant is great fun.
But is it funny that we have become the most obese society in the history of the world? Two-thirds of the residents of the United States are now either overweight or obese. So many children are developing the most common type of diabetes that medical authorities have had to change the name of the disease. What was formerly called "adult-onset diabetes" is now called "type 2 diabetes." It accounts for 90 percent of the diabetes in the country, and the incidence in children is skyrocketing.
It's easy to point our fingers and pass judgment. We can blame fast food companies that aggressively market unhealthy foods to children, we can blame people who overeat for their lack of will power, and we can blame parents for feeding their kids poorly. We can blame harmful ingredients such as trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup, and we can blame the pressures of modern life that turn people into addicts of one kind or another.
We can play the blame game ad infinitum, but who does that help? Does it help those with weight problems that leave them vulnerable to disease and prone to feelings of shame?
What if we were instead to learn from those people who have taken the arduous, difficult, and ultimately joyful journey from obesity to health?
Eat a healthy plant-based diet, and your body will thank you for the rest of your life.
John Robbins is the author of many bestsellers include "The Food Revolution" and "Diet For A New America." He is the recipient of the Rachel Carson Award, the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, the Peace Abbey's Courage of Conscience Award, and Green America's Lifetime Achievement Award. To learn more about his work, visit www.johnrobbins.info"
YouTube - Our love is in your cornflakes - Not in my Cuppa
YouTube - Our love is in your cornflakes - Not in my Cuppa: "y wspainternational on Feb 11, 2011
http://www.notinmycuppa.com/takepart
WSPA has teamed up with Adam Miller, the creator of BBC 3's Mongrels, and comedian Kevin Eldon to create Molly's Story (aka: Our love is in your cornflakes) to raise a tongue in cheek awareness of the impact of factory dairy farms.
Please help keep Molly and her sisters out in fields by adding your voice at http://www.notinmycuppa.com/takepart
Sign up to the campaign and share Molly's video with your friends, and while you are at it, why not ask Molly what it is really like to be taken away to a Mega Dairy: http://www.twitter.com/MollyTheCowWSPA
Category:"
http://www.notinmycuppa.com/takepart
WSPA has teamed up with Adam Miller, the creator of BBC 3's Mongrels, and comedian Kevin Eldon to create Molly's Story (aka: Our love is in your cornflakes) to raise a tongue in cheek awareness of the impact of factory dairy farms.
Please help keep Molly and her sisters out in fields by adding your voice at http://www.notinmycuppa.com/takepart
Sign up to the campaign and share Molly's video with your friends, and while you are at it, why not ask Molly what it is really like to be taken away to a Mega Dairy: http://www.twitter.com/MollyTheCowWSPA
Category:"
Is Sugar Toxic? - NYTimes.com
Is Sugar Toxic? - NYTimes.com
...Public speaker. His critics argue that what makes him compelling is his practice of taking suggestive evidence and insisting that it’s incontrovertible. Lustig certainly doesn’t dabble in shades of gray. Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.”
If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.
...Public speaker. His critics argue that what makes him compelling is his practice of taking suggestive evidence and insisting that it’s incontrovertible. Lustig certainly doesn’t dabble in shades of gray. Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.”
If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Many cancers avoidable with less drinking: study - Health - CBC News
Many cancers avoidable with less drinking: study - Health - CBC News
Drinking too much alcohol is blamed for a "considerable proportion" of cancer cases, a large new European study suggests.
The study in this week's issue of the medical journal BMJ said current or former alcohol consumption could be blamed for as much as 10 per cent of cancer cases in men and three per cent in women.
The conclusions were based on following more than 100,000 men and 250,000 women aged 37 to 70 in Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark from 1992 to 2005.
"A considerable proportion of the most common and most lethal cancers is attributable to former and current alcohol consumption," wrote lead author Manuela Bergmann of the Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke in Nuthetal, Germany.
"This strongly underlines the necessity to continue and to increase efforts to reduce alcohol consumption in Europe, both on the individual and the population level."
Too much drinking was also blamed for seven per cent of breast cancers in German women and 28 per cent of colorectal cancers in Spanish men, the results show.
"The effect was greater for certain cancers which we already know there's a causal relationship between …like liver, mouth, throat, esophagus and breast cancer," said Dr. Karl Kabasele, CBC's medical commentator.
Standard drink labels
Canada has a national alcohol strategy that covers alcohol pricing and availability. But labelling alcohol bottles better with specific warnings about cancer risk would help reduce its adverse health effects, said Prof. Tim Stockwell of the University of Victoria's Centre for Addictions Research.
Low risk drinking guidelines
"It's a citizen's right-to-know issue," Stockwell said in an interview. "I think it's scandalous that vested interest groups have persuaded governments that it's not necessary to inform consumers about the risks of things like cancer from this product that most of use and love."
People are warned about the risks of tanning salons for example but alcohol's risks are not clearly spelled out, Stockwell.
The Canadian Cancer Society acknowledged that cancer risks of drinking have received little attention.
"I think there's a lot of misconception about the safety of alcohol, " said Gillian Bromfield, a policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society in Toronto. "A lot of people really don't understand the risk of cancer from alcohol intake."
Alcohol labels could also carry more useful information about how many standard drinks of alcohol are found in a bottle of wine or spirits, Stockwell suggested. That way, it would be easier for people to translate upcoming national guidelines on quantity and frequency of drinking that are considered low risk to their personal behaviour.
In the study, researchers used a mathematical model to take factors such as smoking, diet and exercise into account in calculating the number of cancers attributed to drinking more than recommended.
The research was funded by several European health authorities.With files from CBC's Vik Adhopia, Amina Zafar and The Associated Press
Drinking too much alcohol is blamed for a "considerable proportion" of cancer cases, a large new European study suggests.
The study in this week's issue of the medical journal BMJ said current or former alcohol consumption could be blamed for as much as 10 per cent of cancer cases in men and three per cent in women.
The conclusions were based on following more than 100,000 men and 250,000 women aged 37 to 70 in Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark from 1992 to 2005.
"A considerable proportion of the most common and most lethal cancers is attributable to former and current alcohol consumption," wrote lead author Manuela Bergmann of the Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke in Nuthetal, Germany.
"This strongly underlines the necessity to continue and to increase efforts to reduce alcohol consumption in Europe, both on the individual and the population level."
Too much drinking was also blamed for seven per cent of breast cancers in German women and 28 per cent of colorectal cancers in Spanish men, the results show.
"The effect was greater for certain cancers which we already know there's a causal relationship between …like liver, mouth, throat, esophagus and breast cancer," said Dr. Karl Kabasele, CBC's medical commentator.
Standard drink labels
Canada has a national alcohol strategy that covers alcohol pricing and availability. But labelling alcohol bottles better with specific warnings about cancer risk would help reduce its adverse health effects, said Prof. Tim Stockwell of the University of Victoria's Centre for Addictions Research.
Low risk drinking guidelines
"It's a citizen's right-to-know issue," Stockwell said in an interview. "I think it's scandalous that vested interest groups have persuaded governments that it's not necessary to inform consumers about the risks of things like cancer from this product that most of use and love."
People are warned about the risks of tanning salons for example but alcohol's risks are not clearly spelled out, Stockwell.
The Canadian Cancer Society acknowledged that cancer risks of drinking have received little attention.
"I think there's a lot of misconception about the safety of alcohol, " said Gillian Bromfield, a policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society in Toronto. "A lot of people really don't understand the risk of cancer from alcohol intake."
Alcohol labels could also carry more useful information about how many standard drinks of alcohol are found in a bottle of wine or spirits, Stockwell suggested. That way, it would be easier for people to translate upcoming national guidelines on quantity and frequency of drinking that are considered low risk to their personal behaviour.
In the study, researchers used a mathematical model to take factors such as smoking, diet and exercise into account in calculating the number of cancers attributed to drinking more than recommended.
The research was funded by several European health authorities.With files from CBC's Vik Adhopia, Amina Zafar and The Associated Press
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)