The World Health Organization has just published a list ranking 36 nations in order of the share of their populations that have a normal bodyweight. Any guess where the United States falls? Third from the bottom, at 35.13 percent. The rest of Americans had a body mass index--a ratio determined by accounting for an individual's height and weight--above what's considered healthy.
Only Kuwait and the United Kingdom were fatter than the United States. Wealthy Saudia Arabia didn't rank much higher. It has ony 7% more healthy-weight individuals than we do.
Topping the healthy-weight list was the Lao People's Democratic Republic at 77.14 percent, followed by Ghana (72.4%), the Phillippines (69.51%), Japan (68.9%), the Republic of Korea (68.7%), India (62.5%), and Kyrgyzstan (61.25%).
Somewhere in the middle, all with about 50 to 54% of their populations at a healthy weight, were Colombia, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, and Finland.
Of course, it's not a complete list. There are some 200 countries. However, it says something fairly disappointing for America that Morocco, Estonia, Malaysia, and Kyrgyzstan have almost twice the proportion of healthy-weight adults that we and several other wealthy and powerful nations do. Obviously, it suggests a lot about how we spend out wealth--avoiding exercise in our automobiles and chowing down on low-cost fast food.
Source: World Health Organization Global Database on Body Mass Index (http://www.who.int/bmi/index.jsp), which was updated as of May 18, 2007.
Showing posts with label Obesity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obesity. Show all posts
Friday, May 18, 2007
Hot Flash Newsflash
A recent report in the Journal of Women's Health suggests a way to limit the risk of developing hot flashes during menopause that is definitely not what the doctor ordered: Spend your 30s as a couch potato.
Brian W. Whitcomb and his colleagues at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in Baltimore, suspected physical activity might limit menopausal symptoms, including the often embarassing and always-miserable hot flashes. So, they administered detailed questionnaires to 512 menopausal women, querying them on their activities between the ages of 35 and 40.
The disappointing findings: highly active women were 70 percent more likely to have experienced moderate to severe hot flashes, and 80 percent more likely to suffer hot flashes daily, than were women who had remained largely inactive.
With the epidemic of obesity ravaging populations worldwide, physicians increasingly implore their patients to eat only as much needed to sate hunger--and to exercise regularly. Because regular exercise also helps cut risks of many chronic diseases, from heart problems to diabetes, the researchers caution that "our study results should not serve as an admonishment against regular participation but rather contribute information to the understanding of hot flashes."
The data appear in the journal's January issue. Normally, papers in this journal are available only to subscribers. However, in support of National Women’s Health Week, last week, the publisher is offering free online access to all issues of this peer-reviewed publication through June 15. To see this paper or any other in the journal, go to: http://www.liebertonline.com/jwh.
Brian W. Whitcomb and his colleagues at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in Baltimore, suspected physical activity might limit menopausal symptoms, including the often embarassing and always-miserable hot flashes. So, they administered detailed questionnaires to 512 menopausal women, querying them on their activities between the ages of 35 and 40.
The disappointing findings: highly active women were 70 percent more likely to have experienced moderate to severe hot flashes, and 80 percent more likely to suffer hot flashes daily, than were women who had remained largely inactive.
With the epidemic of obesity ravaging populations worldwide, physicians increasingly implore their patients to eat only as much needed to sate hunger--and to exercise regularly. Because regular exercise also helps cut risks of many chronic diseases, from heart problems to diabetes, the researchers caution that "our study results should not serve as an admonishment against regular participation but rather contribute information to the understanding of hot flashes."
The data appear in the journal's January issue. Normally, papers in this journal are available only to subscribers. However, in support of National Women’s Health Week, last week, the publisher is offering free online access to all issues of this peer-reviewed publication through June 15. To see this paper or any other in the journal, go to: http://www.liebertonline.com/jwh.
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