A friend of mine has a new blog and it is a good one, with lots of good info:
Junkfood Science:
The truth about food, fat and health. Learn the science that mainstream media doesn't report and how to critically think about the junk they do that's not fit to swallow.
Sandy Szwarc knows what she is talking about. She's had a series of great articles on Tech Central Station on the issues of the so called obesity epidemic and food scares, many that have been posted on this blog.
So check out her new blog and her articles.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Monday, March 07, 2005
Father Knows Best?
Father Knows Best?
By Sandy Szwarc
Published 02/28/2005
TCS
If ever there was reason to reconsider the wisdom of having our healthcare and insurance under employment or government mandate, the "war on obesity" is it.
The surge of employer-based health insurance, which didn't happen in other insurance markets such as automobile and life insurance, and the creation of federal-based Medicare and Medicaid insurance in 1965, has contributed to skyrocketing medical costs and insurance rates for everyone, according to a just-released analysis by Robert B. Helms, director of health policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Receiving health insurance through employers removed the competitive marketplace which would have encouraged providers and insurance companies to keep costs down. It's also resulted in a plethora of untaxed health benefits, which at first glance seemed a good thing for recipients, and employers didn't mind since they could deduct benefits as a business expense. But it's also mostly benefited higher-income people with employer-provided perks, according to Helms, while meaning greater costs to our wallets, freedoms and choices.
Lawmakers have also played a significant role in raising costs of healthcare. State legislatures have passed more than 1,800 mandated health insurance "benefits," with 295 new mandates introduced in January of last year alone, according to a new report by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. "For almost every health care product or service, there is someone who wants insurance to cover it so that those who sell the products and services get more business," they explain. Lawmakers justify their support by asserting that mandates won't cost much or that they'll save money, but "we have overwhelming evidence mandates virtually always cost money rather than save it," CAHI says. They estimate mandated benefits increase the cost for basic health insurance for all consumers by 20% to more than 50%, depending on the state. Worse, a number of these cost-raising, mandated covered treatments are frivolous, fraudulent or alternative -- unsound, ineffective, unproven or potentially dangerous.
-snip-
By Sandy Szwarc
Published 02/28/2005
TCS
If ever there was reason to reconsider the wisdom of having our healthcare and insurance under employment or government mandate, the "war on obesity" is it.
The surge of employer-based health insurance, which didn't happen in other insurance markets such as automobile and life insurance, and the creation of federal-based Medicare and Medicaid insurance in 1965, has contributed to skyrocketing medical costs and insurance rates for everyone, according to a just-released analysis by Robert B. Helms, director of health policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Receiving health insurance through employers removed the competitive marketplace which would have encouraged providers and insurance companies to keep costs down. It's also resulted in a plethora of untaxed health benefits, which at first glance seemed a good thing for recipients, and employers didn't mind since they could deduct benefits as a business expense. But it's also mostly benefited higher-income people with employer-provided perks, according to Helms, while meaning greater costs to our wallets, freedoms and choices.
Lawmakers have also played a significant role in raising costs of healthcare. State legislatures have passed more than 1,800 mandated health insurance "benefits," with 295 new mandates introduced in January of last year alone, according to a new report by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. "For almost every health care product or service, there is someone who wants insurance to cover it so that those who sell the products and services get more business," they explain. Lawmakers justify their support by asserting that mandates won't cost much or that they'll save money, but "we have overwhelming evidence mandates virtually always cost money rather than save it," CAHI says. They estimate mandated benefits increase the cost for basic health insurance for all consumers by 20% to more than 50%, depending on the state. Worse, a number of these cost-raising, mandated covered treatments are frivolous, fraudulent or alternative -- unsound, ineffective, unproven or potentially dangerous.
-snip-
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Fat phobia makes us sick
Fat phobia makes us sick
2005-02-23 / Knight Ridder / By Kathleen LeBesco
During National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (February 27 to March 5), we hear a lot about the devastation that anorexia, bulimia and compulsive overeating can wreak on the lives of our citizens. However, in the midst of our everyday media messages, what we often miss is a sense of how our hostile attitudes toward fatness and fat people fuel disordered eating.
Today's media, for instance, point to the values of our culture, and make examples out of those who conform and those who transgress. A host of programs centered around bodily transformations - from "The Biggest Loser" to "The Swan" to "Extreme Makeover" - remind us that fat folks, those icons of the obesity epidemic, should not exist as anything but the ghosts of "before" pictures.
-snip-
2005-02-23 / Knight Ridder / By Kathleen LeBesco
During National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (February 27 to March 5), we hear a lot about the devastation that anorexia, bulimia and compulsive overeating can wreak on the lives of our citizens. However, in the midst of our everyday media messages, what we often miss is a sense of how our hostile attitudes toward fatness and fat people fuel disordered eating.
Today's media, for instance, point to the values of our culture, and make examples out of those who conform and those who transgress. A host of programs centered around bodily transformations - from "The Biggest Loser" to "The Swan" to "Extreme Makeover" - remind us that fat folks, those icons of the obesity epidemic, should not exist as anything but the ghosts of "before" pictures.
-snip-
Fit for life: why fat is not the problem
Fit for life: why fat is not the problem
February 24, 2005
YOU can be fat and healthy. It sounds like heresy, but it's the message of a leading Sydney nutritionist and author, who says our medicos and politicians have created a moral panic about obesity that could be doing more harm than good.
Sydney University's Jenny O'Dea is outraged at claims this week by University of Queensland researcher Alan Lopez that obesity is the new tobacco.
And she has a message for those self-satisfied stick insects out there.
Fat, fit men have a much lower risk of heart attack than slim, couch potato men.
Yes, wait for it, fat is not the root of all evil. You can also be thin and unhealthy.
O'Dea, who has written a book, Positive Food for Kids, says the approach of blaming the victims for the nation's weight gain is backfiring badly.
Her research has found overweight patients are deterred from going to the doctor because they don't want to be lectured by a profession they believe is prejudiced against them.
The media hype over obesity has spawned an explosion of fad dieting, which research shows will only add to long-term weight gain.
And by focusing on weight loss as the goal, the obesity-is-bad juggernaut has diverted attention from what should be the real message – the promotion of a healthy, active lifestyle as the means to preventing medical problems.
-snip-
February 24, 2005
YOU can be fat and healthy. It sounds like heresy, but it's the message of a leading Sydney nutritionist and author, who says our medicos and politicians have created a moral panic about obesity that could be doing more harm than good.
Sydney University's Jenny O'Dea is outraged at claims this week by University of Queensland researcher Alan Lopez that obesity is the new tobacco.
And she has a message for those self-satisfied stick insects out there.
Fat, fit men have a much lower risk of heart attack than slim, couch potato men.
Yes, wait for it, fat is not the root of all evil. You can also be thin and unhealthy.
O'Dea, who has written a book, Positive Food for Kids, says the approach of blaming the victims for the nation's weight gain is backfiring badly.
Her research has found overweight patients are deterred from going to the doctor because they don't want to be lectured by a profession they believe is prejudiced against them.
The media hype over obesity has spawned an explosion of fad dieting, which research shows will only add to long-term weight gain.
And by focusing on weight loss as the goal, the obesity-is-bad juggernaut has diverted attention from what should be the real message – the promotion of a healthy, active lifestyle as the means to preventing medical problems.
-snip-
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