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 October 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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Study: Obesity, smoking reduce some women's life expectancy
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, observed interim Public Health Officer Dr. Claudia Jonah, looking over the data. "That really is very encouraging," she said. "I see that Kern could very well avoid going down the road of some of these other places." Here is some of Kern's data broken out, starting with the first year info is available:
High blood pressure as well as obesity and smoking are responsible for the decline in women's life expectancy, the study says. "I think this is a harbinger. This is not going to be isolated to this set of counties, is my guess," said Christopher J.L. Murray, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington, to The Washington Post. Murray led the study. Jonah says the fact Kern's life expectancy hasn't declined shows that people are taking their health more seriously. "It's always been tricky with high blood pressure," she said, because people often disregard blood pressure as just a number. "That number represents silent things and damage going on in the body." Jonah said. "I think there’s a lot of willingness to hear about we need to do to take better care of ourselves." People also aren't looking at bad health as an eventuality, which is encouraging, she said. This shows that simple messages about eating a healthy diet and getting exercise are getting through to people. — Emily Hagedorn, health reporter
1 comments from 1 users
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posted by
johnburnssucks
on Apr 22, 2008 at 07:09 PM
Study: Obesity, smoking reduce some women's life expectancy Some women's life expectancy? I would venture to guess that an obese woman who smokes like a chimney would have a certain reduction in her date expectancy, also! Ah, all of those nights that I lay awake fantasizing about an obese, chain-smoking gal from Appalachia...NOT!
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