“Overweight individuals are more likely to die from all causes, including heart disease and cancer,” explains Dr. Fuhrman. Wait, it gets worse. Here’s an excerpt from the new Food Scoring Guide
The ever increasing waistline of America is not merely a cosmetic issue. This March toward national obesity is taking a dramatic toll on our health and economy, and is causing medical and financial tragedies for more and more families. At present, two thirds (67%) of American adults, and nearly one-third (31%) of our children, are overweight or obese. Over the past thirty years, the average weight of an American male has increased 27 pounds (from 164 pounds to 191 pounds). Childhood obesity has tripled over the past twenty years. Because of America’s eating habits, the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) predicts that the current generation of children will be the first in our nation’s history to live shorter lives than their parents.
That’s a daunting a prospect. Now, not to scare the living daylights out of you, but you’d think all the health complications from being obese would keep people from letting themselves go. More from Dr. Fuhrman:
Health Complications of Obesity
- Increased overall mortality
- Adult onset diabetes
- Degenerative arthritis
- Coronary artery disease
- Obstructive sleep apnea
- Fatty infiltration of the liver
- Restrictive lung disease
Getting winded when I bent over to tie my shoes made me get my act together, but it could have been worse—much worse. A new study has determined that obesity does in fact increase cancer-risk
. HealthDay News
"This is a profoundly important issue. Obviously, the obesity epidemic is a huge problem itself, and the relationship to cancer is only one of the many adverse health effects of being overweight and obese," said Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society. "The evidence has been accumulating now for over 10 years. . . This study tries to provide a quantitative measure of how much the relative risk goes up with each increment, basically jumping from one BMI [body-mass index] category to another."
Although extra fat has already been identified by research as a risk factor for several different types of cancer, Thun said, "the problem of obesity is so large and so difficult to solve that there's a very sound reason for ongoing studies of things that have become increasingly well-known, just because it helps the momentum in stimulating approaches that will actually help people maintain a healthy weight."
Whether its cancer-risk, heart disease, diabetes, or whatever, feeling better and looking better, has got to be inspiration enough—right? If not, get a load of this research in the BMJ
. From The Million Women Study
Increasing body mass index is associated with a significant increase in the risk of cancer for 10 out of 17 specific types examined. Among postmenopausal women in the UK, 5% of all cancers (about 6000 annually) are attributable to being overweight or obese. For endometrial cancer and adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus, body mass index represents a major modifiable risk factor; about half of all cases in postmenopausal women are attributable to overweight or obesity.
Honestly, things like cancer scare the crap out of me. So I after I read stuff like this, I grab some lettuce and hit the treadmill. Then afterwards, I grab some carrots and a Yoga mat. And after that, I usually collapse.