After losing 175 pounds, woman challenged by setback
(CNN) — Last year, Karen Daniel was feeling great about her weight. She had gone from 375 pounds to 200 in 24 months.
She was working out nine times a week and thrilled to have turned her life around. She no longer had to purchase two seats on an airplane. She went hot-air ballooning for the first time.
Daniel, one of Fit Nation’s first success stories, said in February 2009, “Fit feels so good.”
That feeling didn’t last long.
Daniel started feeling bad after a trip to New York. She had a sinus infection, upper respiratory infection and bronchitis, she said recently from her home in Arizona. She started feeling better, but then got sick again. And healthy again. And sick again.
She went to two doctors who told her that her body was in “starvation mode,” she said.
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Should some kids take fish oil supplements?
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Fish oil supplements could lower blood pressure in slightly overweight teenage kids, a new study suggests, and their hearts may reap the benefits years later.
“Starting with a healthy diet and keeping it throughout life may provide better protection than waiting until later when you are more at risk,” senior researcher Dr. Lotte Lauritzen of Copenhagen University in Denmark noted in an email to Reuters Health.
Fish oil has been shown to help lower blood pressure in adults with high blood pressure and to have beneficial effects on cholesterol levels. Lauritzen and colleagues wondered if fish oil’s benefits might be seen during the rapid growth period of adolescence.
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Obesity risks start before birth
Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times
March 8, 2010
Pam Levin’s daughter weighed less than 5 pounds at birth. But by the time the child turned 3, Levin and her husband had begun to bristle at some of the comments about her. “People would say, ‘She’s chunky’ or ‘She’s a big girl,’” Levin says.
The comments may not have been tactful, but the Los Angeles mom caught herself wondering if they were true. Was the adorable, easygoing preschooler overweight? During the child’s first year of life, she had been smaller than 95% of children her age, according to pediatric growth charts, weighing about 17 pounds on her first birthday. But her weight had increased, and kept increasing, until she was 43 pounds at age 3 1/2.
“All of a sudden she’s was on the 50th percentile, then the 75th, then 99th,” Levin recalls. “You say, ‘Wait a minute. Something’s not right.’”
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One-Third of American Adults Are Obese, but Rate Slows
By: Jennifer Corbett Dooren
WASHINGTON—One-third of American adults are obese, according to new U.S. government figures released Wednesday, but the rate of increase seen in recent decades has slowed.
Figures from the National Center for Health Statistics showed 34% of American adults age 20 and older were obese in 2007-08 while 68% were considered overweight or obese. In children ages 2 through 19, 17% were considered obese while 32% were considered overweight. Broadly, the figures are similar to rates seen in 1999-2000.
“Obesity remains high and is a significant public-health problem in the U.S.,” said Cynthia Ogden, one of the main researchers involved in tabulating the data and an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s health-statistics unit.
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