Op-Ed: Obesity an early death sentence — How did Americans get so large

Obesity is now found to claim more lives than previously known. As waistlines expand in the U.S., so do our chances of dying from being obese. But the finding leaves a question, how did Americans get so large?
According to the newest finding that comes from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, obesity accounts for three times the number of deaths in America than previously calculated.

Authors for the study say obesity rates could mean a shorter life-span for many Americans.

"Obesity has dramatically worse health consequences than some recent reports have led us to believe," first author Ryan Masters, PhD said in a press release.

"We expect that obesity will be responsible for an increasing share of deaths in the United States and perhaps even lead to declines in U.S. life expectancy."

Though there have been some declines in rates of obesity, the study authors say it’s only in certain groups.

For children and adults who are already obese, things are only expected to get worse.

Bruce Link, PhD, professor of epidemiology and sociomedical sciences says it’s difficult to ‘undo’ obesity. He adds “…it stands to reason that we won't see the worst of the epidemic until the current generation of children grows old."

For five-year olds today, obesity is much more the ‘norm’, compared to generations past, Link said.

Masters explains the study, "The Impact of Obesity on U.S. Mortality Levels: The Importance of Age and Cohort Factors in Population Estimates," published online in the American Journal of Public Health, is the first to look at how obesity affects everyone differently.

Past studies have linked obese Americans together when analyzing the impact on mortality.

This study took into account differences in age, birth cohort, sex, and race. For the investigation researchers analyzed 19 segments of the National Health Interview Survey linked to individual death records for the years 1986 to 2000.In the study, African American and Caucasian women had the highest chances of dying from obesity at 27 and 21 percent greater odds respectively.

The chance of a Black man dying from being obese was just five percent, but only because they face so many other health risks that can be fatal, including smoking and socioeconomic disadvantage. The average risk for dying from obesity for all men was 15 percent.

Because of the study type, the researchers were unable to pinpoint deaths from obesity for Asians, Hispanics and other groups.

The study author’s concluded the impact of obesity is just beginning to be felt. The effects of being obese could mean Americans will die younger than previous generations.

There are many reasons Americans are becoming obese, all of which make it difficult to accept the early death sentence.

Studies show obesity contributors include, but are not limited to:

• Getting too little sleep

• Unhealthy foods promoted by manufacturers that claim otherwise

• Unhappiness from political and economic woes that can elevate stress hormone levels to make us fat

• Lack of access to fresh food for those at a socioeconomic disadvantage

• No access to affordable health care that still prevails for millions of Americans

• Inadequate care for Americans suffering from chronic pain due to lack of research funding; many of whom are veterans or injured at work pursuing the “American Dream” by providing for their families.

• A shift to computer jobs that encourages productivity and less activity

• Urbanization that has taken away our ‘green spaces’

• More food additives that continue to be staunchly defended by the manufacturers. One major contributor might be corn syrup.

Even the study authors note everything has become ‘bigger’, including soft-drinks, clothes size and our children’s peers.

We are either gluttons for punishment or our Western lifestyle is taking the ultimate toll. Maybe it is time to step away from the “American Dream” and take an objective look at what and how too much of everything is killing us.

Another suggestion if you don’t want to die young from obesity is to get smarter about making healthy lifestyle choices for ourselves and for our children by reading food labels, taking a walk every day, saying no to overtime at work and getting the entire family away from the computer and TV a whole lot more.

 How did they really get so large? Most being predisposed to eat garbage and not exercise, the means to an end were drawn. Add to this, some morons living in their mother's basements playing video games told women this was cute.

It Takes 30 Seconds to Understand Philosophy

 It's very simple, all your life you have been experiencing happiness, sorrow, ill will and a multitude of other emotions. Each and every time this occurred you employed strategies to react or respond to the stimulus.
You did so in the "belief" that your way was the appropriate way even when you had hidden agendas.

 You engage all aspects of life in a "certain" way unique to you. With no words spoken or written, you do this because you are "living your philosphy".

Watch John McCain defend Barack Obama against a racist voter in 2008

A Minnesota woman said Obama was “Arab.” McCain took the microphone from her.
By Emily Stewart  Updated Aug 26, 2018, 8:42am EDT

Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain takes a question from a supporter, who called Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama an Arab, during a town hall meeting in Lakeville, Minnesota, October 10, 2008. McCain urged his supporters to stop hurling abuse against Barack Obama at his rallies, saying he admired and respected his Democratic rival. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Sen. John McCain died on Saturday from brain cancer at the age of 81. His legacy is perhaps a complicated one, given the span of his life: he was a former Navy pilot, Vietnam prisoner of war, and Republican presidential nominee, and spent 30 years as a United States senator.

After news of McCain’s choosing to discontinue treatment on Friday, a video of his time on the campaign trail in 2008 resurfaced. In it he defended Barack Obama, his rival for the presidency, in the face of constituents spouting racist conspiracies about the then-senator from Illinois.

“I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not, um, he’s an Arab,” a woman said to McCain at a town hall meeting in Lakeville, Minnesota in October 2008.

McCain grabbed the microphone from her, cutting her off. “No, ma’m,” he said. “He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that just I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what the campaign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”

Of course, being of Arab descent and a “decent family man” have nothing to do with one another, and are not mutually exclusive. McCain’s response could have been better — he could have pointed out that it does not matter whether someone is Muslim or Arab or anything else — but taking away the microphone from the woman and defending his opponent was a powerful moment.

At the same event, according to a Politico report from the time, he told a supporter who said he was “scared” of Obama that the senator was a “decent person” and one who “you don’t have to be scared of as president of the United States.”

According to the report, audience members booed his defense of his rival and called Obama a “liar” and a “terrorist.”

“I want to fight, and I will fight,” he said. “But I will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, and I will respect him.”

Obama went on to defeat McCain in the presidential election in November 2008.

Obama in 2013 called McCain a “person of classic integrity” who’s “willing to say things regardless of the politics.” That wound up including McCain’s no vote in the summer of 2017 that sank the GOP’s efforts to repeal one of Obama’s signature pieces of legislation, the Affordable Care Act.

Obama on Saturday in a statement reacting to McCain’s death said that for all of his differences with McCain, the pair shared “a fidelity to something higher — the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched and sacrificed.” He said they saw their political battles as “an opportunity to serve as stewards” of those ideals.

“Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did,” he said. “But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt.”

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 *I love a racist! I already know that you aren't ever going to be competition in the big leagues!

I Don't Care Who You Are, This Is What It Boils Down To

Promoted to the Level of Incompetence

What is the 'Peter Principle'

The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach the levels of their respective incompetence. The Peter Principle is based on the logical idea that competent employees will continue to be promoted, but at some point will be promoted into positions for which they are incompetent, and they will then remain in those positions because of the fact that they do not demonstrate any further competence that would get them recognized for additional promotion. According to the Peter Principle, every position in a given hierarchy will eventually be filled by employees who are incompetent to fulfill the job duties of their respective positions.

*This applies to all individuals whether you work, hustle or beg your mom, you will graduate to your level of incompetence!

BREAKING DOWN 'Peter Principle'

The Peter Principle was laid out by Canadian educational scholar, Dr. Laurence J. Peter, in his 1968 book titled "The Peter Principle." Dr. Peter also stated in his book that an employee's inability to fulfill the requirements of a given position that he is promoted to may not be the result of general incompetence on the part of the employee as much as it is due to the fact that the position simply requires different skills than those the employee actually possesses. For example, an employee who is very good at following rules or company policies may be promoted into the position of creating rules or policies, despite the fact that being a good rule follower does not mean that an individual is well-suited to be a good rule creator.

Expanding on the Peter Principle

Dr. Peter summed up the Peter Principle with a twist on the old adage that "the cream rises to the top" by stating that "the cream rises until it sours." In other words, excellent employee performance is inevitably promoted to the point where the employee's performance is no longer excellent, or even satisfactory. According to the Peter Principle, competence is rewarded with promotion because competence, in the form of employee output, is noticeable and therefore usually recognized. However, once an employee reaches a position in which they are incompetent, they are no longer evaluated based on their output, but instead are evaluated on input factors, such as arriving at work on time and having a good attitude. Dr. Peter further argued that employees tend to remain in positions for which they are incompetent because mere incompetence is rarely sufficient to cause the employee to be fired from the position. Ordinarily, only extreme incompetence causes dismissal.

Overcoming the Peter Principle

A possible solution to the problem posed by the Peter Principle is for companies to provide adequate skill training for employees receiving a promotion, and to ensure the training is appropriate for the position to which they have been promoted. However, Dr. Peter pessimistically predicted that even good employee training is ultimately unable to overcome the general tendency of organizations to promote employees to positions of incompetence, which he refers to as positions of "final placement."

Misery Loves Company

Why we choose partners whose moods match our own. The emotional tone of relationships is set at the starting gate.

Does misery love company, or does misery make company equally miserable? Psychologists have long pondered whether couples and close friends are depressed in tandem because one person's mood poisons the well, or because people gravitate toward significant others with the same traits.

In the first longitudinal comparison of mood in romantic partners and roommates, Chris Segrin, a professor of psychology and communications at the University of Arizona at Tucson, found that emotional tone is set at the starting gate.

Segrin surveyed 153 dating couples and 170 pairs of roommates for three months. He concluded that women's emotional states—positive or negative—were unrelated to changes in their boyfriends' moods and vice versa. Moreover, couples that had been dating longer were no more likely to mirror each other's emotional states than were newly minted partners. "I was surprised by how similar the partners' moods remained over time. I thought there'd be much more fluctuation," says Segrin.

There was evidence of short-lived emotional contagion: Severely depressed subjects were more likely to have a roommate whose mood declined over a six-week period than were less depressed subjects. But subjects cheered up noticeably when they spent time away from their miserable roommates. "Emotional contagion doesn't last for weeks; it is more fleeting and transient," says Segrin, who thinks people believe otherwise because "the idea that you 'catch' emotions like you catch the flu is seductively simple and parsimonious."

While this study focused on depressive mood, Segrin's results were the same for people with sunny dispositions. "Couples were as matched on positive affect as on negative affect. Happy people seek out happy people, and those who are down and out seek the same."

Specialized Launches Globe Brand *Make Me an Offer

In mint comdition.

The Specialized Globe line of bicycles has been around since the early nineties with a focus on short distance commuter and city bikes. With the recent economic downturn, rising gas prices and a renewed interest in urban riding, Specialized has taken the bold step and converted the Globe line into a complete brand. The new Globe brand, which will launch in 2010, was introduced Thursday in the bike friendly city of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The new Globe brand is big departure for Specialized, which has built its reputation on road and mountain bike race courses around the world. Instead of using the Specialized name to drive sales of Globe bikes, Globe is now separate and focused on changing the way people use bicycles in their daily lives. The Globe brand’s vision is to ‘Inspire everyone to a cycling lifestyle.’ To achieve this vision Globe as its own team of designers and engineers separate from Specialized and dedicated solely to the Globe’s vision.

When developing the brand the Globe team set out to create a line of bikes that they hoped will become integrated into people’s lives, essentially replacing their cars whenever possible. To establish the brand, the Globe team created a line of five bikes that while all serving different functions are united by the brands vision and several unique design features.

The consistent theme throughout the Globe line is the ultra clean design and muted color palette that was inspired by the classic Volkswagen bug. Another theme of note is the absence of branding on the frame and components. Without looking closely at the head tube badge it is virtually impossible to tell the make of the bicycle. This is a refreshing change compared to the heavily branded offerings of other manufacturers. There are also subtle chevron shaped elements on the seat clamp, fenders and head tube badge. The head tube badge is another element that is carried through the Globe line and is unique in that allows the rider to insert a 2 x 3.5-inch business card or picture for a bit of customization ? see Chewy above.

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Just some of the dishes I create

 Not bad for a systems engineer, would you like them all?

Here

Now what's the excuse?

Let's Go

Managing your emotions can save your heart

We often think of the heart and brain as being completely separate from each other. After all, your heart and brain are located in different regions of your body, and cardiology and neurology are separate disciplines. Yet these organs are intimately connected, and when your emotions adversely affect your brain, your heart is affected as well.

The negative impact of emotions when your heart is already vulnerable

There are two kinds of stress that impact your brain. Helpful stress (also known as eustress) can assist you with getting things done by helping you focus your attention. Unhelpful stress (distress), on the other hand, can be so severe that it can lead to fatigue and heart disease.

If you have coronary artery disease (CAD), your heart may be deprived of oxygen. This deprivation, called myocardial ischemia, can occur in as many as 30% to 50% of all patients with CAD. It can be further exacerbated by emotional stress. In fact, if you have any type of heart disease, any strong emotion such as anger may also cause severe and fatal irregular heart rhythms. Expressions like “died from fright” and “worried to death” are not just hyperbole — they are physiologic possibilities. Furthermore, when patients with newly diagnosed heart disease become depressed, that depression increases the risk that a harmful heart-related event will occur within that year.

The negative impact of emotions when you have no heart disease

Of course, stress can have a big effect on your heart even if you don’t have heart disease. Here’s just one example: In 1997, cardiologist Lauri Toivonen and colleagues conducted a study of EKG changes in healthy physicians before and during the first 30 seconds of an emergency call. They saw changes that indicated oxygen deprivation and abnormal heart rhythms.

More recent studies have also observed these changes in the setting of with stress, anxiety, and depression — all of which are, of course, brain-based conditions. Even in people with no prior heart disease, major depression doubles the risk of dying from heart-related causes.

Cardiac psychology: Tending to your emotions for your heart’s sake

It is important to control your worry and stress, not just because you will worry less and feel better, but because less worry means less stress for your heart. This applies to the entire range of stressors, from a small episode of acute panic to a larger context such as living through a natural disaster. For all the reasons outlined above, a new emotion-based approach to heart health, called cardiac psychology, is receiving increasing interest.

You really can change your brain and get a healthier heart in the process. Here are some ways to get started:

• Seek professional help. Don’t ignore stress, anxiety, depression, excessive worry, or bouts of anger that overwhelm your life. Seek professional help. If you meet criteria for a diagnosis, treatment can help reduce symptoms, thereby protecting your brain and your heart.
• Available treatments in cardiac psychology. Aside from more traditional psychiatric treatment and exercise, psycho-educational programs, educational training, stress management, biofeedback, counseling sessions, and relaxation techniques should all be considered before or after a heart-related event. Newer treatments such as acceptance and commitment therapy and expressive writing can also be helpful.
• Exercise. Physical exercise can help you have a healthier heart and brain — in the right doses. For example, many recent studies have demonstrated that aerobic exercise can help you be more mentally nimble by helping you think faster and more flexibly. Even frail older adults have improved their thinking and overall psychological well-being from exercising for one hour, three times a week. And people in rehabilitation after being diagnosed with heart failure report clearer thinking when their fitness levels improve.As clinical research scientist Michelle Ploughman commented, “exercise is brain food.” Various types of aerobic exercise, including jogging, swimming, cycling, walking, gardening, and dancing, have all been proven to reduce anxiety and depression and to improve self-esteem. This is thought to be due to an increase in blood circulation in the brain, and the fact that exercise can improve the brain’s ability to react to stress.

A starting point for better brain — and heart — health

If you struggle with stress, anger, anxiety, worry, depression, or problems with self-esteem, talk to your primary care physician — or a cardiologist, if you have one. A consultation with a psychiatrist may be very helpful. Together, you can explore which of these potential therapies might best protect your psychological state, your brain, and your heart.

Related Information: Positive Psychology: Harnessing the power of happiness,…

Problem Competition: Who is Worse Off?

Jay Lake recently wrote an intriguing blog post about his theory of problems. To summarize, he states that problems cannot  be compared–that just because his problems (fighting cancer) are very serious, that doesn’t mean that other people’s “less serious” problems don’t matter too. He goes on to say that he still cares about his friends and that sometimes it can be a relief to talk about something besides cancer, even if the something else isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. (There is more interesting discussion in the comments, so you should check it out.)

I am in complete agreement. It is impossible to compare problems or lives, even though people try to do it all the time. It isn’t a contest with all of us competing to see who can have the biggest sob story to tell, who can be busiest and most stressed, who can have their behavior excused because gosh darn it, life hasn’t treated them well. Ultimately, we are each responsible for our own actions regardless of the problems we face. And each of us has the problems we have, and since we can’t literally be in someone else’s head (at least not yet!), we can’t know how our suffering truly compares.

I didn’t always understand this essential fact. I had a tough childhood and adolescence; my mom dying while I was fairly young was just the tip of the iceberg. It was easy to compare myself to others and minimize their problems in my head. “So his parents divorced years ago. That’s not a big deal. Why can’t he just get over it?” I know, I know, I wince to recall it. It’s embarrassing, and my only comfort is that at least I don’t remember usually saying such things out loud. Everyone is deserving of compassion for the hardships in their lives, and problems hit different people in different ways. What may be, for one person, a relatively insignificant event, may be a life-changing catastrophe for someone else.

And honestly, even if it were a competition for who has the worst life, why would you ever want to win such a contest?

Speaking as someone who, for many years, had “worse” problems than many of those around me, I never wanted to shut people down. (Perhaps this is why I had the minimal wisdom to try to keep my mouth shut during my occasional uncharitable moments.) I rarely discussed most of my problems, partly because I dreaded the initial reaction and partly because I didn’t want my experiences to change the way people related to me. I was already isolated enough; I didn’t want further barriers between me and the rest of the world. I wanted whatever normalcy I could get.

It’s a tricky business, because when we know someone is struggling with major problems, we don’t want to burden them with our own concerns, which in comparison seem to middle away into insignificance. But when we aren’t honest about what’s going on with us, when we choose to protect someone instead of share with them, what we’re really doing is pushing them away.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive to be tactful and considerate. If a friend is retching in the toilet, that probably isn’t a great time to start bemoaning an inability to find the perfect juice squeezer. Someone who is ill might very well lack the energy to do certain activities with you. And sometimes there are subjects better left alone for a while. Raving about an amazing romantic relationship to someone who is going through a bitter divorce? Well, maybe not so much. But if you talk to that same friend about problems with your aging parents, it might not burden them so much as build the mutual connection between you. It may give your friend a break from dwelling on her own problems. It may make her feel less alone. Or she may tell you it’s not a good time to talk, and that’s okay too.

In my experience, everyone has problems, even those people who look like they have perfect lives. We all have bad days mixed in with the good, we all have setbacks, we all make mistakes, and we all have to live with the hard parts of being human. But ideally the people with whom we move through life can make the hard parts more bearable and the good times sweeter.

What do you think? Do you find yourself comparing problems? If someone has a really big problem, does that make you feel that you can’t speak freely to them?

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Tired of People Lying to You? Here's Why They're Doing It

Honesty is supposed to be one of the key components of integrity (you know, doing the right thing when no one is looking, that thing that's so critical to building the relationshipsthat help your business thrive). Yet, according to Bella DePaulo, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Virginia, lying is on the same par with brushing your teeth. Most people lie to someone else at least once or twice a day, and over a week, they lie to 30 percent of the individuals they interact with. And as with any bad habit, if you're going to stop people from lying to you, you have to understand what's motivating the behavior.

The function behind lying

Doctor and author Alex Lickerman asserts that, in general, lying serves a protective function. What we strive to protect through fibbing can vary considerably, though. We lie to protect ourselves, such as when we don't want to feel shame or experience some type of abuse. We do it to protect material and non-material interests, such as money or attention. We try to protect our image, covering up the flaws we think others will think less of us for. Sometimes we don't want to lose resources, including our energy. And lastly, we lie to give those same protections to the people we care about.

But it goes a little deeper than that. What are we really after, for example, in a bid for attention? Why is it so scary if others to have a lower opinion of us? What does all that protection get us?

Ultimately, when a person lies to you, they're holding onto something extremely basic--survival. They're afraid that, if they don't lie, they risk rejection and isolation, not having enough. Even though they know there's a risk of consequences if found out, because they frequently don't suffer consequences when lying, they see fibbing as a relatively safe way to keep those deep fears from coming to fruition. All this matters because, if you see the person who's lying to you as being vindictive rather than insecure, you'll likely lose out on a chance to respond with compassion and miss the mark on how to get them to stop their dishonest behavior for good.

Spotting liars

Understanding the above, part of the reason lies get to us is because we're actually pretty lousy at detecting them. A meta-analysis of some 253 studies of people distinguishing between truth and lies found that people are accurate barely over half (53 percent) of the time. We rebel when we catch someone in a lie because their behavior calls into question how accurate we've been in the past, making us feel foolish and incompetent. But if you know what to watch for, you're less likely to get duped. Former CIA officers Philip Houston, Michael Floyd and Susan Carnicero identify the following as tipoffs to dishonesty:

• Behavioral pause or delay when an immediate response would be expected
• Verbal/non-verbal disconnect (e.g., nodding while saying no in a narrative response)
• Hiding the mouth or eyes (literally shielding themselves from the reaction that might come from the lie, covering up the falsehood)
• Clearing the throat prior to response
• Hand-to-face activity (the autonomic nervous system tries to address the spike in anxiety from the lying, draining blood from the face, ears and extremities and producing feelings of cold or itchiness)
• Grooming or tidying behaviors (e.g., straightening a tie or skirt, suddenly repositioning paperwork on the desk; these distractions can alleviate the anxiety of lying)

So you've found a liar...now what do you do?

Once you're sure that someone's been stingy with the truth, you have four main options for how to handle it, as psychologist, emotional intelligence expert and author Dr. Travis Bradberry outlines:

1) Do nothing (sometimes the cons of calling the person out outweigh the pros).

2) Deflect with humor (acknowledges the lie but gives the liar a chance to admit the dishonesty without fearing you'll retaliate).

3) Play dumb (asking lots of questions to get details can force the liar into admitting the dishonesty without you calling them out).

4) Point out the lie (best done privately with directness).

Within these options, given the self-protective purpose of lying, seize opportunities to be reassuring and encouraging in ways that get to the root of the behavior. Empathy goes a long way. For instance, if you know that someone is strapped for cash but they lie and say it's no problem covering your bill at lunch, you can say something like, "Gosh, I appreciate that, but no--I can't contribute to an empty wallet when I remember what broke feels like myself!" The more you can convince a liar that the threats they're consciously or subconsciously perceiving aren't an issue, the more they'll probably relax, trust you and put their two-faced ways behind them.