Saturday, March 19, 2005

Today's Sleep Tip

Don't eat or drink too much too close to bedtime. Heavy meals will make you less comfortable and cause you to wake during the night. Restrict fluids close to bedtime to prevent nighttime awakenings to use the bathroom.

from the National Sleep Foundation

Thursday, March 17, 2005

The fattest generation

The New York times reports on the childhood obesity epidemic. The supersizing of America may save Social Security, but will be devastating for Medicare:

For the first time in two centuries, the current generation of children in America may have shorter life expectancies than their parents, according to a new report, which contends that the rapid rise in childhood obesity, if left unchecked, could shorten life spans by as much as five years.
The report, to be published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, says the prevalence and severity of obesity is so great, especially in children, that the associated diseases and complications - Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, cancer - are likely to strike people at younger and younger ages.
The report comes at a time when the country is embroiled in a debate over Social Security. While the report's authors say they started their research long before the current debate, they write that "the U.S. population may be inadvertently saving Social Security by becoming more obese" and dying sooner, but that "this 'benefit' will occur at the expense of the economy in the form of lost productivity before citizens reach retirement and large increases in Medicare costs associated with obesity and its complications."

Heaven and Hell

The difference between paradise and hell: you can always sleep in paradise, never in hell.

from bookofjoe, quoting Man, the Insomniac Animal — by E. M. Cioran

Monday, March 07, 2005

A New Casualty in the War against Obesity

The war against obesity is having unintended consequences:
Most girls thought that being slim would make them more popular, claimed the research in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology. They would also have no hesitation in dieting if they gained weight. The study was conducted among five- to eight-year-olds in South Australia, but experts said last night that British children felt "paranoid" about their weight - partly because of the Government's anti-obesity message.
"We want people who are overweight to do something about it. We don't want to terrorise youngsters."
The UK Eating Disorders Association said it was known that children as young as eight had been diagnosed with eating disorders and there may have been instances in younger children.