If you know Andrew and me, you know we are not sports fans. While I try to know enough to at least be conversant, I rarely follow a team (or a sport for that matter) much beyond the latest headlines and controversies. This indeed has its benefits. We watch less TV and our emotional well-being is never tied to a scoreboard. The downsides? Well, for starters, Andrew has earned the nickname "Sporty" and he recently confessed to me that he'd be interested in having a Cubs hat but is afraid that it might invite conversation about baseball. For Andrew, that's pretty much social suicide. I, however, being a woman, pretty much get off the hook. Fair or not, it's true.
Here are a few interesting websites I've happened upon.
By Alfred Lubrano | The
9:04 AM CDT, May 19, 2008
And with food prices rising, the problem is likely to get worse.
Tianna Gaines, who describes herself as impoverished and obese, knows this. At 5-foot-3 and 242 pounds, she lives on public assistance and eats junk food because it's cheap and more readily available in her neighborhood than carrots and apples.
Besides, said Gaines, 28, and a mother of three, "I don't have the money for Bally's fitness clubs. And I can't run here. They shoot you."
More poor people may suffer Gaines' fate, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicting food prices will be up 4.5 percent throughout the year, due to high fuel costs, weather problems, and the growing diversion of corn crops to make ethanol. Globally, prices will rise nearly 50 percent, according to the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
"The food crisis will make obesity and attendant diabetes even more rampant," said
"Obesity is the toxic consequence of a failing economy."
While more people from every economic background are becoming obese around the world, the poor are still outpacing the better-off.
A recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study found that women in poverty were roughly 50 percent more likely to be obese than those with higher socioeconomic status.
In
And a study by Drewnowski last year showed that obesity rates in poor
Poor people frequently live in "food deserts" — neighborhoods with few supermarkets. They rely on corner stores and convenience marts for groceries, said Carey Morgan, director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger.
These are great places to buy chips and soda, not so good for asparagus.
Concentrating on filling their stomachs, poor, hungry people go for high-fat, high-sugar foods. "They're not thinking about health — just getting through the day," said Mariana Chilton, a hunger expert at the Drexel University School of Public Health, and principal investigator for the Philadelphia GROW Project, which deals with nutrition and physical development among poor children.
Derek Felton, a community organizer with the Coalition Against Hunger and a former poor, obese person, agreed.
"I was the oldest of seven, with a lifetime of no breakfasts to eat," said Felton, who is 5-foot-9 and went from 247 pounds to 185. "When we had the chance to eat, we ate white bread to feel full."
All that corner-store processed food is relatively inexpensive — artificially so. Researchers say that many junk foods contain high-fructose corn syrup, made from government-subsidized corn crops. Federal help keeps the cost of syrup-containing foods such as sodas, fries and even burgers down. Drewnowski said that healthful, unsubsidized foods like spinach cost five times more per calorie to produce, thus driving up the price.
Food stamps are supposed to help. But Chilton's research shows that the allotments families in
As a result, families often run out of food stamps by the second or third week of the month, Chilton said.
The hunger can be excruciating, said Gaines, who lets her three children under age 4 eat whatever food is left after the stamps are gone.
It makes her all the more voracious at the beginning of each month, when the new stamps arrive.
"You go without eating, then gorge," Gaines said. "Then you go to sleep with a full stomach. That's how the weight picks up."
It works that way for lots of people. And with the current food inflation, even cheap foods are getting more expensive.
"What choices can poor people afford now?" asked Stella Volpe, a nutritionist at the
Interventions to improve the eating habits of the poor in
"We've told kids to eat fruit and walk," she said. But fruits are scarce and walking in poor neighborhoods can be dangerous, Lipman added.
Current school programs, like dance aerobics, are making some inroads toward health, she said. And Students Run Philly Style, which teaches poor kids to run in supervised settings, is creating good results, said Heather McDanel, director of the National Nursing Centers Consortium project, which works with Students Run.
"BMIs are down and kids' self-esteem is up," she said.
Still, experts say that if food prices continue to explode, even the better-off will seek more fast-food meals.
"Bad, cheap foods may become an even greater cultural mainstay," Volpe said, "with the middle class going for less expensive food. And becoming more obese."
from chicagotribune.com
Saturday's Derby was not what we anticipated.
sports. For those 2 minutes, those horses are all that matter. You've met the trainers, owners and jockeys. You've heard about the horses' challenges and victories; you know who has a chance and who has the long odds. You've picked your favorite and you watch as it runs with all it has along the final stretch, hurtling toward that wreath of roses. For those 2 minutes, I'm convinced that anyone can be a horse racing fan.
We watched. We watched as Big Brown pulled from behind in the fourth turn to gain a wide lead in the final stretch. We watched with pride as Eight Belles (toward whom we were most partial) maintained a steady 2nd place. We watched as Big Brown won, clinching his first victory in pursuit of the Triple Crown. And we watched as the camera panned over to a collapsed Eight Belles and then discovered, to our great dismay, that she had broken both front ankles and had to be immediately euthanized. Within 2 minutes, she had gone from potential victory to ultimate defeat.
In the past year or two, I feel I have come a long way in terms of how I view food, and more specifically, the food I eat. But before I launch into what I have learned and how I have changed, I should provide some clarifications in the way of a disclaimer:
