A Welsh woman is banned from entering New Zealand to join her husband who has been hired there. Rowan Trevize’s visa had been denied because the government deemed her as too fat. Her husband has already left to New Zealand after struggling to lose two inches through crash diet in order to meet the requirement.

“When the couple first tried to gain entry to the country they were told that they were both overweight and were a potential burden on the health care system. Reference”

If Rowan still can’t lose weight in December, her husband has already stated that he would abandon the idea of moving to New Zealand and would come back to Wales.

New Zealand officials uses BMI to assess people weight require that immigrants should not be burden for the country’s health care. I completely agree with New Zealand’s policy on this issue, what’s the point of letting migrants enter when they can become potential burden for health care.

Another issue is the usage of BMI as measurement tool. Muscular people with high BMI can potentially fall into the ‘overweight’ category due to high muscular mass. Of course some would say that she should be allowed to enter with the consequence of not receiving any health care and insurance.

What do you think about such policy? Do you think she should be allowed to enter?

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A tin of sardine flavored pet food doesn't sound appealing to us, human. But it turns out that pet food isn't only good for your pet's health but also to yours as well, research suggested.

In a test conducted to measure fat, salt and sugar level in 30 human meals versus 15 brands of pet food, pet food scored better in term of healthiness compared to fast food.

Nutrition experts discovered that Gourmet Gold cat food has just 2.9g of fat per 100g ? a mouth-watering EIGHT TIMES less than the percentage found in pieces of KFC. The level of fat was also far lower than a McDonald’s Big Mac and a Pizza Hut meal. (ref)

Gourmet Cat food

Fat: 2.9g
Salt: 0.4g
Sugar: 0.4g
Protein: 7.7g
Fiber: 0.4g

KFC two chicken pieces & fries

Fat: 12g
Salt: 0.7g
Sugar: n/a
Protein: 12.2g
Fiber: n/a

Cesar dog food

Fat: 4.4g
Salt: 0.4
Sugar: 0.5g
Protein: 10.9g
Fiber: 0.7g
(ref)

If pets have the same lifespan as human, would they live longer and healthier than us? But life as pet got to be boring, imagine eating the same food for the rest of your life. Perhaps that's the reason pets die at 10 - 15 years, out of boredom.

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Do you have a soft spot for certain food? If so, perhaps your gene is the one to blame according to researchers. The researchers at Kings College found a similar eating pattern between twins.

The research itself only analyzed twin as case study, but using the research result, the researchers pointed that genetics play a great part in determining preferred foods. This conclusion challenged the belief that our food preference is formed by our neighborhood. Furthermore, the researchers pinned that 41% - 48% of our food preference is influenced by gene.

The findings, and other similar research, pointed to genetics playing a "moderate" part in the development of preferred foods. She said that it was possible that genes involved with taste, or the "reward" chemicals released by the body in response to certain foods, might play a role. People have always made the assumption that food choices are all due to environmental factors during life, but it now seems this isn't the case. (ref)

While the researchers believe that environmental factors have little effect to food choices, I disagree. Educating children about healthy food can make significant impact in their food choices.

If they live in an environment where junk food is treated as daily staple, then they will grow up thinking the same. Environment still plays a great role regardless of the genetics. This research only means that greater efforts must be placed to influence one’s eating habit and improve self control.

Full story on BBC

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Smokers beware. In addition to lung cancer, it appears that cigarette smoking alters your food taste sensitivity sensor and causes you to crave for starchy food.

A research done by Monell Chemical Senses Center found that women smokers were less sensitive to sweet taste compared to non smokers. Additionally, the researchers concluded that cigarette smoking caused smokers to crave for high fat and starchy foods. The more they smoke, the more they crave.

"We found that food cravings were associated with nicotine dependence ... the more intense the cravings for cigarettes, the more frequent the cravings for foods high in fat and carbohydrates"(ref)

The researchers studied two groups of women, smokers and never-smoker. Some of the participants had a family history of alcoholism.

The research finding stated nicotine dependence and craving was related. The more cigarettes you crave the more high fat and high starchy foods that you crave. In addition to craving, sensory buds on smokers were proven to be duller. Whether this is a good thing or bad thing in relation with weight gain, the researchers didn’t clearly state. Well, I guess if you have difficulty in recognizing sweet taste, then you would need to eat really strong sweet stuffs in order to satisfy your sweet teeth.

In regard of alcoholism history, those with family alcoholism history (both smokers and never smokers) craved more sweet foods and had stronger preference over sweet foods compared to those with no family alcoholism history.

Another reason to quit smoking?

Read the research detail here, news via Yahoo.

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Men’s Health has gathered a list of the dirtiest food. Some of the results are no brainer, while some of them are surprising.

9. Oyster
I have never missed eating oyster every time I visit an international seafood restaurant. Raw oysters taste great and they are addictive (and pricey!). Apparently raw oysters are often contaminated with norovirus and bacteria. Cheaper but similar alternative for me is to eat escargot (not sea food but at least it has shell).


8. Cold ham
It’s not the meat which is dirty, it’s the slicer. Ham slicer is often infected with listeria and the bacteria can still grow even though the ham is stored on refrigerator. The article suggested us to move the ham into another package and buy a week stock only.

7. Packaged Salad
They are often contaminated with E Coli according to the magazine. Never mind, they never sell any pre packaged salad here. And fresh salad tastes much nicer I believe.

6. Peach
Ouch, so peach is considered the dirtiest food. They taste nice and they are very expensive here since it has to be shipped from the other half of the globe. It’s considered dangerous since many producers use a lot of chemicals to clear the peach from blemish.

5. Cantaloupe Melon
Do you wash the cantaloupe’s skin before you eat it? I don’t. I don’t eat the skin therefore I just slice it directly. According to the magazine my habit makes cantaloupe become one of the dirtiest food. Cantaloupe skin is often infested with bacteria, and if you cut directly to the center then the bacteria will be transferred into the rind also. Be sure to wash the fruit with soapy water before you consume it.

4. Chicken
40% of the chicken sample they tested is loaded with E Coli. Well improperly cooked chicken is also a serious hazard here due to the bird flu outbreak recently.

3. Ground beef and ground turkey
Heavy processing makes ground beef an ideal spot for E Coli. One from four samples of Ground Turkey also contains bacteria according to the magazine. Make sure you cook them properly.

2. Egg
Raw egg is associated with 600,000 cases of food poisoning each year and more than 300 deaths according to the magazine. Raw egg is a major ingredient of popular local drink here. It is composed of milk, ginger, honey and raw egg. Many bodybuilders and athletes are also big fans of raw egg. Be sure to cook egg properly before you consume it.

1. Spring Onion
Uncooked spring onion is the perfect place for bacteria breeding according to the magazine; this nifty onion is also linked with Hepatitis A. This onion is often served raw with spring roll here. Spring onions are also widely used in soup but the thing is, they usually stay in top and not properly cooked.

Via Netscape

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Many fast food companies are making a big hit by offering jumbo sized beverages which sell pretty well.

Have we become thirstier than before? Are we accustomed to 'supersize' our drinks so that we get more value for our money? Fast food companies such as McDonalds and Burger King are selling 42 ounces beverages which contain more than 1 liter of soft drink in a glass.

I can’t imagine finishing it in a day, let alone in one meal. Here are some of the ‘hugest’ sized drinks available out there for you who want to gulp tons of calories without eating any food:


1. Hugo Soda

McDonald’s is kicking this item with a sweet deal that most people didn’t want to miss. This 42 ounces drink was available at $0.89 per glass on summer (no idea whether you can still get this at the same price). That’s a steal! This giant contains 410 calories and that’s not including all the meals and fries that people are having with this drink. I was very astonished at this fact, since the biggest cola served here at McD is ‘just’ 400ml which is just one third from the Hugo sized one.

2. Venti sized Starbucks

This big caffeine powerhouse contains 760ml of coffee which is around 300ml lesser than the grande version. And it’s more than just a caffeine powerhouse; it’s also a calorie powerhouse. Peppermint Mocha Venti with whipped cream can hold as much as 800 calories! (CC) (image from Seed of Growth).


3. 7-Eleven 64 ounces soda

This 64 ounces giant is equal to 1.9 liters! Personally I found this fact is shocking. The biggest soda here is only 1.4 liters ($2) and it will last for more than a week since it comes in resealable package. This behemoth is priced around $1.8 which is very cheap in my opinion.

That’s not all though, refill will cost you measly $1. Not surprisingly, they contain almost twice calories compared to the 42 ounces cup. This behemoth piece has already been sold for more than a decade.

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Do you prefer death over exercising? If you do, you are not alone. A survey done by British Heart Foundation has found that six out of ten people in UK would prefer a short life full of beer and happiness instead of a longer life full of exercises and healthy food.



These people know that they are not going to live forever and they plan to get the most out of their life. Sadly, the survey also found that only one third from UK adults do moderate exercise for 30 minutes a day.

The ever demanding career environment has literally stolen plenty of times for exercising. Combined with the availability of fast food chains and sedentary lifestyle, the effect is deadly.

These 6 out of 10 people know that they will be very miserable if they have to live a healthy life far from many things that they love, so they prefer to ‘live life to the fullest’. Sadly most often they die early.

While the word ‘exercise’ is associated with a long strenuous workout at gym, surprisingly it takes much less than that to make your life last longer. Dr. Mike Knapton, director from British Heart Foundation, has said to Daily Mail that even simple activity such as 30 minutes brisk walking, few stairs climbing and house cleaning are already enough to keep our heart in shape.

Surprisingly it’s not as much as I have ever imagined. Sure for some people 30 minutes a day may be hard to squeeze, but surely it’s not impossible. As for myself, I want to live my life to the fullest in my own way.

Sure I may be having much less ‘fun food and drink’ but at least I’ll be happy since I know I am doing something which I want to do. What are your thoughts? Is it hard for you to start a healthier lifestyle and squeeze a little more room for moderate activities?

More on this: The Observer

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It always amazes me on how people (especially celebrities) are willing to walk off the beaten path to embark on a quirky diet. Many celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are wolfing on jars and jars of baby food as a resort to maintain their figure!

The idea of baby food diet is to replace a part of your daily meals with baby food. Imagine having to choose between liquidized beef and the real thing, I’ll choose the real thing anytime. Followers of this diet may also replace their snacks with baby food to fend off unhealthy snacking habit.

Isn’t baby food supposed to make baby gain weight and become tougher? It’s often high in protein and carbs therefore it can even put on some weight upon the dieter if consumed excessively. Not to mention that babies and adults have different calories requirement. Adults may have to consume a few jars in order to feel satiated.

And this idea is just bizarre, I just can’t figure out why adult can stand to eat baby food every single day. For me the concoction looks and smells yucky (okay I can possibly stand on the fruit jar but not on the beef jar). I also begin to ponder, what’s the purpose of having teeth if you don’t use it for chewing?

Style guru, Mark Hayes, shared his example of a baby food diet plan on this website:

Breakfast: Porridge pudding or mashed banana.
Snack: Water or juice
Lunch: Chicken country vegetables or other fish jar.
Dinner: Liquidised chicken and potato.
Drank 2 litres of water a day.

An advised normal diet to aid weight-loss:

Breakfast: Porridge with banana
Snack: Protein shake
Lunch: Salad and sandwich with wholemeal bread
Dinner: Thai green curry with brown rice
Has six small meals a day

Some people may think that they aren’t that bad but then they must be missing the feeling of chewing food at the end of the day. Eating them occasionally is one thing but eating them as a routine is way too overboard for me. Well, good luck to Aniston and other people who do this baby food fad I am not jumping to the bandwagon. What about you? Do you enjoy eating baby food?

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What would you do if you know that your 15 years old daughter is on a starvation diet to shed off those ‘invisible’ pounds? If I was the parent then it means that I need to put extra effort in explaining the difference between being slim and being healthy, and I would probably have to spend hours arguing with my daughter too.

That’s the issue that many parents in UK are facing now. Approximately 1 from 3 British teenage girls is currently on starvation diet and insisting that they follow a healthy diet according to a recent story in Yahoo.



Research said that those teenage girls risk themselves on starvation diet in quest to become slim.

“

A national study shows 37% of girls aged 13-18 admit to eating less than 1200 calories a day in a bid to slim, 40% less than they need.
And while fewer boys diet, almost a quarter admit to limiting themselves to fewer than 800 calories

”

800 calories are really way too low for teenage girls who still need tons of nutrition to grow. 800 calories a day means that those girls are on starvation crash diet for fast weight loss result.

I don’t want to sound like sour grapes but in my opinion this is the result of many beauty industries marketing campaign which always feature woman as being beautiful and slender. As a result more and more teenage girls seem to think that if they are not beautiful and slender then they are not woman.

I like the “Dove Onslaught” campaign which bears the tag line: “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.” Although I don’t believe in Dove’s pure motive to educate young girls (they exist in the beauty industry too), but I like the message which is sent through the campaign.

Parents need to develop a stronger relationship with their daughter so that at least their influence can fend off the beauty industry influence.



via Yahoo

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Weight loss business has attracted many companies to invest and market their products aggressively through the use of advertisement. While the advertisements may be exaggerated, some of them are really funny and creative that they caught my attention at once. These four ads are great attention grabber that deliver the product message clearly. Here are four funniest, catchy weight loss ads that I found in Ads of the World. (Hint: Click the picture to enlarge it, use the back button to return to the page)

1. Yogurt Bikini

This advertisement for low fat frozen yogurt uses an unorthodox media for a good effect. It's a surefire attention grabber and yield an honest right on the spot message. "Good men are rare, stay on shape" "Believe me, it's not the bikini that men are looking at". Nuff said :).




2. Weight Watcher Boomerang


Instead of focusing on 'how much can you lose' like other advertisement, this ads brings a different message which focuses on keeping the fat off. The use of boomerang as a symbol is unique and simple.









3. Diet Pepsi and Cat

Easy enough to understand. The cat suddenly becomes thin as a result of drinking diet Pepsi. Instead of showing an image of lean or thin cat (which probably turns people off), it cleverly just shows a cat which can fit into a mouse hole.



4. Diet Coke Curvy Body

This ads is even simpler than all of the ads listed above, it uses the product directly as the medium and cleverly snippets a part of the bottle to give a message "No calories, all curves".

What do you think? Which one is the best among these ads and which one is the worst?

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Literally it’s completely okay to occasionally indulge yourself with some ‘sinful’ foods when you are on a diet. In fact, by indulging yourself with such food, you stand a higher chance to succeed in your diet since you will be less likely to break it on a binge ‘sinful’ eating.

But some foods are just way too sinful to be consumed even in moderation, so here are four foods which are very unhealthy yet doesn’t involve any bugs, snakes or monkey brain.



1. Poutine

This dish is a popular dish in Canada. In a nutshell, it consists of deep fried fries served with fresh cheese curds and topped with thick piping hot gravy sauce. One serving of Poutine by Harvey (fast food joint) contains approximately over 600 calories with half of them come from fat (ref: Calories Count).

And if we look at the ingredients, that completely makes sense! Cheese, deep fried potato and liberal amount of gravy. Not to mention that you are likely to eat a second helping.

Read a Poutine recipe by Janet.

2. Deep Fried Mars Bar

If processed sugar sounds bad to your health, what if it’s combined with a batter and drenched in a hot oil to make an oily dish. This Mars Bar was initialy served at Chip Shop in Scotland according to Wikipedia (ref). (although I have seen people selling it occasionally in a food bazaar here).

It consists of a frozen mars bar, covered in a batter and deep fried until the inside has melted. Literally you can use other chocolate bar similar to Mars bar. If this doesn’t sound ‘sinful’ enough


Recipe:
Mars Bar
Baking soda (just half a teaspoon)
All purpose Flour (a cup)
One beaten Egg
A can of beer (you probably won’t need to use them all)
Oil

Mix the flour and the baking soda while continually pour the beer and whisking the concoction slowly. Stop adding the beer when the batter is thick enough, then add the egg and whisk the batter again. Dip the Mars Bar and then fry it until it’s brown.

One mars bar contains approximately 234 calories (tips: pretend that the oil and the beer batter don’t add additional calories, you will feel less guilty). If you are really in for a kick then try serving it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

3. Chocolate Pork

This weird dish originated from Ukraine (ref). It’s made from, well, pork and chocolate. Since chocolate is a comfort food, adding the pork’s fat will transform it into a euphoria inducing food.

I don’t know how many calories that this dish contains. Just imagine eating a whole pork fat covered in sweet glazy chocolate at once! It’s salty on the inside but sweet on the outside, said one of the diner as quoted by BBC.

Recipe from BBC:
* Cut off a section of pork fat (but avoid the rind unless you are really adventurous.)
*Carve the meat into a shape of your choice.
* Cover in melted chocolate and store in the freezer.
* Once the chocolate has set, eat and enjoy.

4. Cheese Doughnut Burger

Since American think that pork fat is way too unhealthy, the folks from Gateway Grizzlies baseball team comes up with an feeble idea to make a healthier version of such dish. This burger is just your usual cheeseburger with one catch, it uses sweet glazed donut as the hamburger bun!

It contains whooping 1000 calories according to CBS and it tastes pretty good. So next time you are hosting a BBQ party, you know what to serve right?

Two sweet glazed donuts
Meat of your choice
A slice of cheddar cheese
Sauce (BBQ, gravy, mustard etc)


So those are four foods what you may consider to consume regularly if the idea of heart attack doesn’t trigger any unpleasant feeling on you.

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We tend to associate people who are infected with serious disease to be thin or at least not obese. According to recent news published in Yahoo, it’s actually the opposite which becomes a norm lately. The news said that almost two thirds of HIV patients are currently struggling with obesity. This news made me think about the effect of obesity toward those who already have immunity deficiency disease. Obesity is linked with various diseases which they could have prevented in the first place.



The researchers studied 663 patients with HIV and found that 63% of them were overweight or obese. The good news was, nobody was thin enough to be called wasted (which was the common thing to happen to HIV patients 20 years ago).

This result came as a surprise since the respondents were from military that tend to be more health conscious than other.

“

"These folks are in more ways than not becoming like everyone else. If they're overeating, they're going to get fat," said Dr. Michael Saag, director of the AIDS Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who had no role in the study."

(ref)

Two decades ago, AIDS patients were encouraged to eat a lot of food in order to prevent wasting. But with the presence of modern drug that keep the immunity deficiency virus at bay, patients become healthier in the first place therefore they are not exposed to wasting as much as their predecessors. This comes with a price though, weight gain.

Obesity itself has been linked with various heart problems, cholesterol and risk of diabetes. And it’d be really distressing if they end up surviving HIV but die on the diseases caused by obesity which actually can be prevented.

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You’ve probably heard and agree that money is the root of all evil; nowadays it seems that money also becomes the root of weight loss. Confirming the move of Mayor of Varallo and Agora Publishing who offered money to people who lose weight, researchers have examined the effect of money incentive to weight loss. The researchers compared money incentive versus healthier cafeteria and onsite fitness center and found out that money incentive is more effective compared to better cafeteria and onsite fitness center.

Unlike the Mayor of Varallo who offered 50 Euro to lose 8 pounds in a month (approx US$ 67) and 200 Euro (approx US$268) to maintain it and Agora who gave US$1000 to the employee who lost the most weight, the researchers only offered meager US$7 – US$14 for participants each time they lost a percent of their weight. So if a person lost one percent of his weight then he would be rewarded with either $7 x 1 or $14 x 1.

Over 200 overweight employees were involved and they were divided into three groups. The first group received no incentive while the second group received $7 for one percent of his weight; the third group received $14 for one percent of his weight. Take note that all of them weren’t given any specific help on how to lose weight.

The first group who received no incentive lost an average of 2 pounds over three months, the second group lost 3 pounds on average and the third group lost 5 pounds.

As conclusion, the researchers agreed that the group who was offered $14 was five times more likely to lose weight and giving financial incentive to their employees to lose weight was a good investment for companies.

In my opinion, companies should also think of a way to reward their employees who are already healthy so that everyone can get their share of the cake. In addition, more emphasis and perhaps more reward should be given to those who manage to maintain their ‘healthy’ weight instead to those who manage to lose the most weight.

Although the result is nothing to write home about, this research has evidently showed that people are more excited when you say “Pals, boss is going to pay us $14 to lose weight” compared to “You will face a serious heart disease risk and cancer if you maintain your unhealthy lifestyle."

I guess the prospect of becoming $100 richer is indeed more lucrative than becoming healthy!

The research overview can be viewed here.

Via Yahoo.

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I came across this interesting research from Men’s Health which talked about World’s Healthiest Countries to live in.

This research examined several factors which contributed to the ‘healthiness’ of a guy. Around 20,000 men from worldwide were asked to participate in this research. The conclusions were also very interesting, they came up with 5 categories such as fitness, stress, sex, nutrition and health then they analyzed which countries ranked as the World’s Healthiest for each category.


1. Fitness
Netherlands ranked as the first while Canada came close in the second place. It’s easy enough to predict what made Netherlands touted as the best country in term of fitness, the bicycle!
Most people in Netherlands rely on bicycle to do their activities. And there’s only one outcome which results from hours and hours spent on cycling, sexy abs!

Canada is ranked on second because there is a great number of parks and public spaces in that country. I guess that motivates people to exercise or just to do a great number of walking regularly.

Most sedentary country: Romania

2. Stress
Spain is the country where stress is not too apparent amongst its fellow employees and workers. One of the reasons is the habit of Spanish to take meeting outside their corporate fortress.
They prefer to have their coffee produced in their favorite coffee shop instead of the office’s pantry. Well, I am sure if I can work in this company which allows its employee to exercise during work hours then I’ll wave stress goodbye without hitting Starbucks.

World’s most stressful country: India

3. Nutrition
Portugal ranked in the top spot of this category while Spain ranked as the runner up. People in Portugal eat around one serving of fish a day due to the fact that fish is easy to get there (it’s a coastal county). Fish is rich in Omega 3 (the good fatty acid) which I am too lazy to write about.

Place where diet is the worst: Ukraine.

4. Sex
United Kingdom ranked as number one, followed by Poland. British men know how to use their mouth according to this research. Don’t think dirty, that means British men always communicate with their partner in order to make sex enjoyable for both of them. Sex plays an important rule in our life and also in our diet. Better sex will reduce your stress level thus enabling you to cope with your diet better. Remember that stress mostly lead to overeating and making unwise decisions regarding to food.

Where sex is ugly: Italy.

I seriously think that this research will stir controversies, especially in listed countries. However, I still find this research is highly interesting although it may not be really accurate since the opinions from the respondents may not reflect the actual condition in the particular countries. Just enjoy this as a good read and take the leaves out of all the number one countries listed above.

Read more about the research in Men's Health and MSNBC.

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What will you say if I tell you that you can lose 40 pounds within three months just by eating burrito without doing any exercises at all? Unless you are living in a cave, then you probably will regard this fact with skepticism. Well the truth is, Justin Hall, as reported by MyFox has lost 40 pounds on burrito and salad without any exercises at all!

The staggering fact is, he lost 40 pounds without any exercises at all! He planned to continue this diet until the end of the year. My only concern is, I am not sure whether or not the producer of the burrito that he consumed is behind this whole fad diet story (Justin did mention a specific brand in the news).

So a burrito diet consists of eating a burrito, fruit and salad in a day. So you can’t have anything else beside those three things, and take note that you are only allowed one burrito each day. It’s perfectly understandable since the burrito itself contains a whooping 1300 calories! What I don’t understand is how a man can survive on this extremely boring menu for a long time!

Theoretically it should work. By restricting your calories intake to a certain amount, you can literally lose weight (that’s the principle behind sacred heart diet). But it’s quite hard and possibly unhealthy to stick with this kind of starvation diet for a prolonged amount of time. Not to mention that it’s boring as hell.

But I have my skepticism on this kind of thing, especially when the dieter blatantly mentions a specific brand of food that he uses. I

Is this a marketing pitch disguised behind a dieter story or is this a real confession from a dieter with no money involved. What do you think?

Read the news (and video) here.

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There are a lot of excuses for gaining weight once you work in an office such as snacking happy neighboring colleague and boredom. But you’ll find that you have no reason ‘not to work out’ if you are employed by Agora Inc, a Baltimore based company. The company offered a whooping $1000 for each female, male and team who lost the most weight during 12 weeks challenge.


This breakthrough was inspired by a reality show “the biggest loser” by NBC and sure enough, not less than 84 employees lost a total 1,000 pounds by the time the contest ended. Although this contest promotes a slimmer waistline and better health, the effect on productivity is questioned.

The company spent around US$90,000 for 12 weeks to start this contest (that’s not a small amount). Most of the money was spent to hire personal trainer and paying unlimited access to a local gym for the employees.
In the end, two people lost more than 40 pounds over 12 weeks. That’s roughly 3 pounds a week!

What’s good from this contest was, the employees were allowed to workout during their daily work schedules!

The only drawback from this contest was, employees who didn’t need to lose weight had less chances of winning the contest. But that didn’t stop them from participating and taking the kickboxing classes that the company provided, so if I were them I wouldn’t complain.

I hope more companies followed Agora’s lead and started giving incentive for their employees to stay fit and healthy. They should learn from the Mayor of Varallo (a city in Italy). Not only that the Mayor gave bonus for citizen who lost weight, he also gave bonus for them who managed to maintain it! The contest would do little use if the participants ended up as yo-yo dieter.

Via: Ocala

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Winter is always associated with rising oil price which lead to rising gasoline prices. In addition to winter, the rising tension in Middle East and hurricane can also trigger higher gasoline prices. While the rising gasoline prices have always been greeted with gloom since it means people should tighten their budget, dieters have the chance to tighten their waist line too.

A study by Courtemanche Charles concluded that each $1/gallon increase in gasoline prices can reduce the obesity rate by 15% over five years. Take note that obesity is deemed as having more than 30 Body Mass Index. Charles based his study over historical data of average state gas prices and health behavioral trends as documented in government surveys from 1984 to 2004. Charles also said that during 1979 and 2004, falling gasoline prices were the cause of 13% obesity rate increase.

Quoted from Washington University: it means that $1 increase in gasoline prices can save 16,000 lives and $17 billion a year.

If we view this logically, rising gasoline prices can indeed force people to use public transportation which needs to be reached by walking. People may also opt to use more traditional form of personal transportation such as bicycle or walking. As a result, people will burn more calories and may end up healthier also.

The rising gasoline prices can ‘force’ people to do more walking and can really help fight the rising obesity rate across the nation.

In addition to that, people will also prefer to prepare their food at home instead of dining out since they want to save their fuel. The food which we prepare ourselves tend to be healthier than the food that we get outside (provided they have the basic ingredients for healthy food), therefore people can make wiser choice regarding what they put inside their bodies.

The study can be viewed here.

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Technology can be helpful and scary at the same time. Technology did always change the way we live and deal with our problems. Perhaps the future of weight loss industry will also be changed in the coming 30 years with this recent research. Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered that a single gene might be the reason behind your weight gain.

If you ever have a friend who just seem to remain thin although he or she doesn’t really exercise or watch their caloric intake then your friend may be one of few people who have the ‘skinny’ gene in their bodies. The gene is called adipose and it will tell your body whether to store or to burn the fat.

Scientists did some throughout experiments involving cells, flies and mice. First they tried to delete the adipose presence in a cell and the cell quickly became a ‘fat cell’ because the cell accumulated fat droplets. Then the scientists observed flies which have the ‘skinny gene’, and the flies that happened to have the skinny gene were thinner than other flies. Their latest experiment was to try analyzing the effect of this gene in mammals which are very identical to humans in metabolism (mice). The mice which were given adipose stimulant ate same or much more food than the normal mice but they were thinner and had better control on insulin.

Clearly we can see where this research will be heading to. It won’t be long before they are finally able to inject this gene stimulant into human body. When the first appetite suppressant was invented, the idea of artificially suppress your appetite was sickening. But over time, appetite suppressant pills have become very popular.

Perhaps it’s just me but I found the idea of artificially modify our gene is horrible. People are always looking for a quick solution and when this ‘skinny gene’ is ‘available for sale’; I’ve no doubt that it will become a big hit. I hope that technology won’t change much about the way we deal with weight problem. Do you think the idea of injecting your body with gene is revolting?

Source: UT Southwestern Medical Center

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These are interesting photographs which were shot by Peter Menzel for his book, Hungry Planet. Although these photographs stories are a little bit old, but they are still as fascinating as ever. In my opinion the pictures describe clearly the contradiction between expenditure and the freshness of the food. When people spend more money for food, they get more processed food.

Aboubakar family from Chad. They spend $1.23 for a week food supply. We can see that they consume a sack of grain, vegetables and a little fruit.






Ahmed family from Egypt. They spend around $68.53 for their food in a week. Lots of meat, a lot of green vegetables with a little potato.








A family in Mexico. They spend around $189 for food every week.
A lot of USA influence in this family, we can see some bottles of Cola lined up in the background and cornflake. But majority of their food is still composed of vegetables and some processed food.








A family in Mongolia. They spend around $40 per week. We can see a large chunk of mutton meat there accompanied with a lot of bread, eggs and just few vegetables. Too bad they didn't include the goat in the picture.







A Japanese family spend around $317 per week for their food. Basically their table is filled up with fishes and fishes. Few fruits and vegetables are visible. Well they just need nori and rice.







A family in USA spend around $341 per week for their food.
The pizza quickly stole my attention. I am actually surprised to see such large pizza. In here the largest pizza is only 3/4 of the pizza showcased here. We can see dunkin donut beverages and potato chips on the right side too.


From: Boredom is Your Fault via Information Aesthetics.

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