We Americans love to eat, but this week the Center for Disease Control released a report suggesting we are eating ourselves into a diabetes epidemic. Diabetes affected 11 million Americans in 1990. At the close of 1999 the number was 16 million, fully 6% of all Americans. This represents an increase of 40% in ten… Read More »
Like all people who are “a bit” overweight, I am fascinated by any scientific advance that even hints at a way to solve the problem — by which I mean some kind of magic anti-fat pill that I can take and become slim, without the bother of dieting. I’ve tried dieting, and all I’ve lost… Read More »
The Diet Wars are over. We live in a world where fat is common and thin is desired, a world where normal people, people like you and me, seek diets that will help us become less fat and more thin. But what diet should a well-meaning but only too human person pick? Diet books are… Read More »
In my mind I will always weigh 165 pounds, as I did the day I married. The bathroom scale tells a different story, somehow finding another thirty pounds. I did not ask for that weight, do not want it, and am constantly looking for a way to get rid of it. I have not found… Read More »
I never think of myself as fat. The neck sizes of my shirts are bigger than they used to be, and my middle more rounded, but I comfortably accept this larger me. In my mind, any excess weight is temporary. Like most Americans, I confidently look forward to shedding the extra weight when I get… Read More »
No one seeing the ring of fat decorating my middle would take me for a runner. Only in my memory do I get up with the robins, lace on my running shoes, bounce out the front door, and run the streets of University City for an hour before going to work. Now my 5 K… Read More »
New drugs reduce cholesterol by inhibiting a key enzyme used to manufacture it By a cruel twist of fate I was born loving steak, a 1 1/2 inch Porterhouse my idea of culinary perfection. What is cruel about this is that a few years ago my doctors informed me I have high levels of cholesterol… Read More »
I read in yesterday’s newspaper (yes, I am old enough to still read printed newspapers) that obesity is a key link to the soaring costs of health care in the United States. Americans who are 30 or more pounds overweight added an estimated $147 billion in weight-related medical bills to health care costs nationwide in… Read More »
Like so many others, I have been addicted to the Bejing Olympics, watching every evening for the last ten days. NBC has been unable to resist flashing the medal count every day, of course — at the moment we are ahead in the total count by a few medals, with China at our heels. It… Read More »
I hate fat. Particularly on me. There is a picture in our kitchen of the svelte 165 pound me that married my wife 18 years ago. I weigh 36 pounds more now, two pounds for each year, most of them adorning my middle. I hate that picture. I am not alone in wishing for a… Read More »
I’ve always thought I knew exactly where the fat is on my body. All I have to do is pinch myself at the waist to prove to myself that I wear it around me like a belt. Pounds of it. That’s what I thought until four months ago. In April I learned that I have… Read More »
Watching Barak Obama’s inaguration today, I could not help but think of energy. For two million Americans it must have been cold, standing for hours in 17 degree chill, waiting for the beginning of a brighter day. I know I shivered, just watching them shiver on television. Most of us, when we think about energy,… Read More »
