I believe we are becoming more active . . . which is good. However, as a country, we are still hooked on poor eating habits, which is not necessarily our fault. The unfortunate result of this poor diet is excess weight gain which has been proven to cause uncontrolled blood sugar or diabetes. The following article was taken from USA Today. It points out some of the dangers of our poor dietary habits.

If you think Americans are getting fatter, the feds say: ‘You’re right, all of us are’

Americans have gotten heavier and thicker in the 21st century, with the numbers on the scale going up for men and women of all ages, according to a new federal report released Thursday.

Waistlines have ballooned, too, the National Center for Health Statistics said. In general, women’s waists grew more than 2 inches, from 36.3 in 1999-2000 to 38.6 inches in 2015-16. By comparison, men’s middles increased just over an inch, from 36.3 to 38.6 inches during the same period.

The new report offers hard data for a phenomenon plainly visible on city streets, schoolyards and workplaces: In the past 30 years, obesity has risen to epidemic levels in the United States, but the nation still hasn’t been able to correct the problem. Being overweight can contribute to a cascade of other health problems, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Dana Duffie of Orlando learned that first hand. She had been comforting herself with food since she was little and then wound up with Type II diabetes after her daughter developed cancer in the 1990s. After her daughter died at 16 in 2002, stress eating became an even bigger problem. She hopes talking about it will encourage her to address it.

“My father was an alcoholic, and as an adult I had a light-bulb moment when I realized I had learned some unhealthy things from watching him: I was hiding empty family-size candy bags or empty Little Debbie boxes or even the wrapper of that second sub that was supposed to be tomorrow’s lunch, all went underneath the other trash in the kitchen trash can after everyone else went to bed.,” says Duffie  “It’s what got me where I am today, which is insulin dependent.”

The report was based on data gathered through the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which looked at weight, height, waist circumference and body-mass index in about 45,000 Americans 20 and older.

“It’s what your grandma would have told you, and hearing it from a professor now is no less important,” said Dr. Shailendra Patel, chairman of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. “You need a varied diet, a balanced diet, with smaller portions. Your plate should look colorful, and you need to be exercising at least three times a week.”

Christine Rufkahr of St. Louis is just trying to do her own version of that, in a transition she describes as going from a “junk food vegan diet to a whole food plant-based diet.” This diet has no meat, eggs or dairy but also eliminates most processed foods, added sugars or sweeteners and fats including olive oil.

Rufkahr believes many, like herself, “self medicate” for her mental health which wouldn’t happen “if people had access to effective treatment.”

The waistline news is particularly grim for women.

A March study in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the women who carried more weight around their middles had a 10% to 20% greater risk of heart attack than women who were just heavier over all. This weight was measured by waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or waist-to-height ratio. The study involved about 500,000 people (55% of them women), aged 40 to 69, in the United Kingdom. The researchers took body measurements of the participants and then kept track of who had heart attacks over the next seven years.

The analysis showed that compared with body mass index (BMI) – a calculation of weight in relation to height – a waist-to-hip ratio was 18 percent stronger as a heart attack predictor in women compared to 6 percent stronger in men.

To view the entire article go here.

P.S. To help you increase your calorie burning abilities, I have put together a proven fitness routine that will help you lose the excess weight in no time. Go here to get a copy.

If you are interested in joining our community of warriors against a killer disease go here.