A blog about Food & Eating, Health & Wellness, and Kern County.
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Your top tunes to tone up to Bill bans weight, height discrimination Welcome to the 'calorie valley' Study: Obesity, smoking reduce some women's life expectancy Taking away recess is 'cruel and unusual' Schlosser gives some food for thought Author talks fries, farming, immigration Who's to blame? Bill: Do not feed the obese In her words January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 This blog accompanies The Califiornian's series of stories on obesity. To read the stories, go to www.bakersfield.com/weigheddown. 
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I get loads of press releases for the latest supplement, latest treatment, latest surgery, latest fad, etc.
And I got this one a couple of weeks ago:
Enter Heidi Roizen. A former Silicon Valley software company CEO and venture capitalist with a love for boardroom snacking, Heidi was tired of being overweight. On her quest to regain her slender waistline through diet and exercise, she teamed with a Grammy-winning producer David Malloy to develop fun, pop-chart quality tunes sung by emerging...
A Massachusetts bill aims to add weight and height to the list of characteristics people cannot use to discriminate with.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Currently, people can seek protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but they must prove their obesity is a disability and, in some cases, that it is caused by physical traits beyond their control.
"Right now, fat is just a marker of bad character, an undesirable personal trait that people bring on themselves," said...
In reporting the story yesterday about Kern being No. 3 for its concentration of fast food and convenience stores, I came across a couple of buzz words.
Fast food jungle. Food desert.
Considering we live in neither a jungle nor desert — well, most of us anyway — I came up with my own: calorie valley.
A new study released today has Kern third, among the most populous California counties, with 5.23 times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores than supermarkets and...
For once, we're not among the worst.
A new study has found that women's life expectancy declined significantly in 180 U.S. counties from 1983 to 1999.
And, happily, Kern County isn't among those.
Most of the counties are in the deep South and Appalachia, according to the study, which was done by researchers at Harvard University, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Washington.
There wasn’t a big change in our life expectancy over the last 40 years,...
Diabetes is a condition that has unfortunately been passed down through families, said one Southern California pediatrician.
Dr. Patricia Riba, a pediatrician with the Community Care Health Center in Huntington Beach, spoke at a recent Latino and health care workshop put on by the California Chicano News Media Association that religion/general assignment reporter Louis Medina and I attended.
She had several interesting insights into diabetes, obesity and schools.
Riba has been working with...
If you saw Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser speak last night at Cal State Bakersfield, you probably left a little smarter and a little more grossed out by hamburgers.
Some things he mentioned that I checked up on:
Schlosser mentioned that McDonald's is marketing beef in China by referencing the Chinese belief that beef enhances virility. After watching one of these ads on YouTube I feel thoroughly scandalized. As one of my coworkers put it, this ad makes hamburgers orgasmic. The...
Eric Schlosser is an out-and-proud carnivore.
His favorite meal: cheeseburger, French fries and a chocolate shake.
But that doesn't mean the "Fast Food Nation" author goes easy on the burger-and-fries industry. If you know anything about him or his New York Times bestseller, you know he's brought watchdog journalism to fast food like how Upton Sinclair brought muckraking to the meatpacking industry.
As part of One Book, One Bakersfield...One Kern, Schlosser will be talking about...
The debate over who's to blame for obesity — society or the individual — is an interesting one many of you have been involved in on this blog.
It makes me think of this passage from Fed Up! Winning the War Against Childhood Obesity by Dr. Susan Okie. The first sentence is a little technical, but stick with it:
The control centers for tracking energy balance and regulating body weight are located primarily in the hypothalamus, a small part of the brain that specializes in...
When I first saw this bit of news, I thought it was out of The Onion.
A Mississippi bill wants to make it illegal to feed the obese.
From the text of House Bill No. 282:
Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The...
The Californian gave Brooke Stanley, one of the teens featured in the Weighed Down series, an audio recorder to use between interviews.
We used one of the audio entries in her photo slideshow.
Attached are some more of her thoughts, including her opinions on surgery, gym class and going to the doctors office.
She brings up issues related to her weight most people might not think of.
— Emily Hagedorn, health reporter
(661) 395-7510
ehagedorn@bakersfield.com
After a year of work, "Weighed Down," The Californian's project examining obesity and the young people it affects, is complete.
Look for the stories today through Monday in the newspaper, or read all the stories online right now.
We would love to hear your thoughts on the project.
Want to know more about obesity, nutrition, fitness and bariatric surgery?
Here are some places to turn to for more help.
What is obesity?
National Institutes of Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Information on women and obesity from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
What is body mass index and where can I get mine?
CDC BMI calculator
BMI table from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute
Where can I get tips and learn more about nutrition...
Consider this:
"As obscene as it sounds, a generation or two ago, black people were considered to be inherently ugly, stupid, unsanitary, lazy and enslaved by creature comforts. Today, fat people are assumed to be inherently ugly, stupid, unsanitary, lazy and enslaved by creature comforts. Such stereotypes are reinforced by both the media and the public. Even in 'politically correct' circles, where one would never hear derogatory remarks about people of color, gays and lesbians or...
The previous post on Fast Food Nation and obesity provoked such a discussion that I decided to expand that into this post as well.A lot of the conversation so far has focused on fast food's role in the rise in obesity rates.Well, here are the points made by groups on either side of the debate. (The PDFs I pulled this info from are attached.)The anti-fast food side from the Center for Science in Public Interest: Increases in Americans’ caloric intake over the past two decades are due...
In a county obese with burgeoning waistlines, choosing Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal as the next “One Book One Bakersfield...One Kern” installment seems all too fitting.
This latest "One Book" effort kicks off Thursday.
Here are some facts to consider:
Bakersfield topped the list last year for California cities with the most fast food and convenience stores compared to supermarkets and produce vendors. Bako has 6.63 times as...
Welcome to Weighed Down, the blog that will accompany the Californian's upcoming series of stories exploring obesity.
Overweight and obesity has exploded over the last 30 years, becoming an epidemic facing over 60 percent of Kern County residents alone.
To see how obesity affects people's lives and the difficulties they face, we decided to look at how it begins, with children and teens.
For the past year, we have followed four local kids with weight issues.
Brooke Stanley,...
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