I've been watching BBC2's The Men Who Made Us Fat

I watched Part 1 of The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC2 last week. I must say it's a refreshing change to have some evidence-supported information about important causes of the dramatic rise in the incidence and severity of obesity and obesity-related ill-health instead of the usual incorrect propaganda.

In Part 1 it was explained how sugar is a major contributor to obesity and how since the second world war the USA's food industry has been ladling sugar, sugar and more sugar, into its processed junk food products, be they sweet or savoury. And another even more-dangerously obesogenic sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is also added to their food junk and their ghastly soft drinks. This corn product use is massively profitable for America's corn farmers and massively damaging to the health and weight of American citizens. - Especially when it is coupled with the ill-conceived (blame Ancel Keys) misinformation that low-fat food is a good way to lose weight (it isn't and it doesn't work) and that low fat intake is good for our health (it isn't). 

So those of us who were paying attention learned that although America purports to be a democracy and proclaims, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," these days it's more like, "Government of the people, by the farm industry's political stooges, for the farm industry's profits, and to Hell with the well-being of the 'American people'".

On Thursday night I watched Part 2, in which it was explained that not content with changing America's food to obesogenic mass-manufactured highly-addictive crap, Big Business perverted civilised eating to a fast feeding process, with fast food outlets serving food fast to customers, who ate it fast (it didn't take too much chewing), sloshing it down with over-sweetened soft drinks, having queued for 'counter-service', so much speedier than table service. And furthermore, they increased portion sizes to ludicrous levels. - I found the gargantuan size of the drinks especially horrifying! 

Well America's citizens are now mostly pretty huge - well huge, certainly, but not so pretty... And they are so big that they almost look like another species. - And what does the food industry suggest as a remedy for this gross obesity problem caused in large part by the food industry itself? - Well, blame it on the victims of course! Like rapists used to do. - The victims need to eat less fat and take more exercise! (NOT)

But it is not lack of exercise that causes obesity, so taking more exercise does not and will not reduce obesity. Obesity causes inactivity, not the other way round, as I explain in my Mensa article. And as Professor Terry Wilkin of the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry. explained in Thursday's programme. 

Professor Wilkin led a pioneering study into childhood weight gain and found that children do not gain weight because of inactivity and do not lose weight by taking exercise. The study had been commissioned by the government of the time, but the findings were unwelcome, so they were buried and funding stopped, and successive governments, few among them scientists, chose to heed the falsehoods of the food industry, i.e. cut down on fat, especially saturated fat, and take more exercise! - Oh dear! - Do you think it's too much like America's plight? - Government of the people, by Big Business interests, for the profits of the Food Industry and its mates? - What do you reckon? - We've got the Dept of Health being advised about how to tackle obesity by the food and drinks businesses who promote obesity. - Looks like we're gonna be getting more and more obese with all this crap food and crap advice, doesn't it?

And when are they going to get on to SALT? and anti-depressants? and other prescription drugs that cause weight gain?

If you value your children's health, do not feed them salty food.

When young children develop a taste for salt and salty food, that preference tends to stay with them for life and they will find it difficult in later years to cut down on salt. They may even find that they need more and more salt in order to find food 'tasty'. This is a sort of 'addiction' to salt. But high salt intake increases the risk of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, cancer, depression and a host of other illnesses. These health problems are occurring in younger and younger people, partly because young people these days tend to eat a lot of salty snacks - like crisps, salted nuts, etc.

The main and most common health problem caused by high salt intake in children is child obesity, which of course almost invariably leads on to a lifetime of obesity and the misery and harm caused by obesity and by dieting.

Protect your children's health! Keep their salt intake low.

See Children and Obesity

See also FAT RETENTION

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

Primary care health workers fail to reduce child obesity

BBC News reports that GPs and practice nurses said time pressures, lack of treatment options, and parental reluctance to address weight problems prevented them from solving the problem of childhood obesity.

Well I've got the solution:

Tell the public the truth about what causes child obesity, i.e. eating salty food, and the truth about how to reduce obesity, i.e. avoid salt and salty food.

Stop claiming that exercise reduces or prevents obesity. - It doesn't.

Make it clear that dieting and calorie reduction do NOT reduce obesity.

Ban food manufacturers from producing breakfast cereals high in added salt.

Here is the truth about child obesity: Children and Obesity

See also Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Nursing mothers who breastfeed for longer are helping to prevent their baby from becoming obese.

Breastfeeding for longer helps to protect your baby from obesity

The main reason for this is that human breast milk is low in salt/sodium. Sodium is more harmful to children than to adults because of their small size, and it is particularly harmful to babies.

See Children and Obesity

See advice for pregnant mothers

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Overweight children as young as 3 are showing signs of cardiovascular disease risk factors

Toddlers are overweight at 3 years old and showing signs of heart problems
article on Medicine.Net.com

It is important to protect small children from the bad effects of a salty diet because salt does much more harm to children than to adults and also because if they develop a taste for salty food early in life it will be harder for them to lower their salt intake as they get older.

Childhood obesity associated with heart disease results from a diet too high in salt.

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health.

Unfortunately bread contains a lot of salt and most families eat quite a lot of bread because of using it for sandwiches in packed lunches, and for toast, etc. Because of its high salt content bread is not a healthy food for little children or for anyone who is overweight. Some bread manufacturers have lowered the salt content of certain loaves, but most bread still usually contains 0.5g or more of sodium per 100g. This is too much. - Always check on the packet; look for the lowest sodium content.

Cheese is often recommended as being good for children because it contains calcium, but cheese is not really good for children because it has a high salt content. So don't give them a lot of it. Children can get plenty of calcium by drinking milk and by eating yogurt (but avoid the sort of yogurt that has lots of chemical additives).

There are no calories in salt - but if you cut down on salt you will easily lose weight. If you cut down on calories you will not lose weight.

See Children and Obesity

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Figures on child obesity, NHS waiting times and house price data are to be investigated after a row about the Home Office's use of knife crime figures

Watchdog to vet figures covering childhood obesity, NHS waiting times and house prices
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The news comes after the UK Statistics Authority accused the Home Office of making "unsubstantiated" claims and "selective" comparisons that drew "inappropriate" conclusions about knife crime figures.

Yesterday the authority said it had identified 340 sets of official statistics which may have to be judged against a new code of conduct on how the Government presented data.

Twenty sets of figures are judged so important that the authority has launched an immediate investigation into whether they are being presented properly.

They include NHS waiting times between referral by a GP and treatment, accident and emergency waiting times, the official house prices index, statistics on race and the criminal justice system and figures on obesity, physical activity and diet.

Only figures which meet the new code would in future be approved by National Statistics, the official body in charge of releasing Government data.

Sir Michael Scholar, the chairman of the authority, said he hoped judging official figures against the new code - which includes criteria on how figures are presented - will improve trust in official Government data.

He said: "We now have the guiding principles in place against which we will assess official statistics to determine whether they meet the standards necessary to be labelled as National Statistics."

I have a particular interest in the figures on "obesity, physical activity and diet", since for decades official advice and medical advice about the causes of obesity have been incorrect and damaging. We have been told, and we continue to be told, that we should cut down on fat and sugar and eat fewer calories in order to lose weight. We have also been told to take more exercise. - None of these measures will reduce obesity; they are likely, on the contrary, to increase it, as indeed they have been doing for some years now. This is because obesity is not caused by eating too much fat or sugar or too many calories, nor by taking too little exercise. - And there has never been any evidence to back up the advice that has been meted out to us over the years. - Imagine that! - Not a scrap of evidence to back up the misinformation so confidently and so insistently dinned into us! - "Just eat less and exercise more", the patronising mantra has been repeated ad nauseum. - But it doesn't work!

Obesity is not caused by eating fat or sugar or too many calories. Nor is it caused by inactivity/laziness. It is caused by weakened veins leading to fluid retention in the bloodstream, i.e. sodium retention and water/fluid retention, and thereby to excess weight/obesity.

The way to reduce/prevent obesity is to avoid salt and salty food, and to avoid prescription drugs as far as possible because these are a major cause of the the blood vessel damage that precedes the salt sensitivity/fluid retention.

You may wonder why the 'experts' continue relentlessly to give the wrong advice? - Well they may be embarrassed to admit that for decades they have been harming the health and causing avoidable disabilities and early deaths of millions of people - not just their patients - and are hoping that by adding 'cut down on salt' to their fat/sugar/calories/exercise misinformation, somehow the advice about salt will override the cutting down on calories message. - I very much doubt that it will...)o: - They are guessing again, just as they guessed, wrongly, about overeating being the cause of obesity, and were so arrogant that they didn't bother to put their assumption to the test...)o: - Most people have been conditioned pretty well all their lives to believe the falsehood that greed and laziness cause obesity; the message about salt scarcely impinges on the unfortunate overweight people. They are too busy damaging their health and destroying their lives and happiness by constantly trying unsuccessfully to lose weight by eating less (i.e. going hungry) and exercising (becoming exhausted).

Well it may be embarrassment by the professionals - or it may be fear of being sued - or worse - for causing the ill-health and early deaths they have caused and are causing!

Maybe they cling to the hope that the truth will not become clear until after they die... - Well not if I can help it!

Why not help with disseminating the truth yourself? - If you have any friends who are overweight and know from experience that dieting does not work, tell them about my blog or send them a link to my website. - Better still, tell your MP about my website. - I'm afraid my own MP is as much use as a chocolate teapot...)o:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Parents will be accused by the Government of "killing their children with kindness" in a new anti-obesity campaign, it has been reported.

Parents 'killing obese children with kindness', says Government
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"The campaign is said be based on on an unpublished report by the Department of Health that has been sent to senior NHS managers. According to The Observer, the report says three million young families must be better informed about nutrition to prevent their children becoming obese.

It reportedly features a photograph of three young children with the caption: "One of us will die of heart disease or diabetes when we're older because of the foods our parents let us eat now."

In a section headed "Killing with kindness", it reportedly says: "It's hard to say no to your kids, but if you give in every time you're not being kind, you're killing with kindness. Kids who eat the wrong sorts of food and sit around all day are more likely to get heart disease, cancer, diabetes and to die young. Some will die younger than their parents."

It continues: "Parents do not value physical activity or accept responsibility for children's activity levels. Parents believe their children are already sufficiently active at school.

"Sedentary activity is encouraged by parents. Parents believe it is too unsafe to play outside. mums lack the confidence to take part in physical activity with their children.""

It is not 'killing with kindness' nor is it sedentary activity that is causing child obesity. - It is the continued misinformation that the government and the medical profession churn out about how to reduce obesity. Obesity is not caused by overeating or inactivity, so it cannot be reduced or prevented by eating less and/or exercising more.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention, caused in turn by salt sensitivity. So obesity can be prevented or reduced by addressing the problem of fluid retention. The simplest way to do this is to avoid eating salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Childhood obesity is set before the age of five...

Obesity 'set before age of five'
article on the news pages of the BBC website

Extract:

"The EarlyBird Diabetes study of 233 children from birth to puberty is being published in the journal Pediatrics.

One in four children aged four to five in England are overweight, latest figures show.

Disease 'of our time'

At birth, the children in the study were of similar weight to babies 25 years ago, but had gained more fat by puberty compared with children of the same age in the 1980s.

The bulk of this excess weight was gained before the children were five.

Weight at five years bore little relation to birth weight, but closely predicted weight at nine years old."

"Lead researcher Professor Terry Wilkin, of the Peninsula Medical School, Plymouth, said: "When they reach the age of five the die seems to be cast, at least until the age of puberty.

"What is causing it is very difficult to know."

He said there must be a factor now that was not there 25 years ago which is making today's children obese."

There are more factors than one. Here are the main ones:

1) Children these days eat far more salt and salty food than formerly. Human breast milk is not high in salt/sodium, so breast-feeding a baby for as long as possible helps to protect the baby from becoming overweight. The younger the baby or child, the more harm salt causes. I expect that 25 years ago a lower proportion of mothers of young babies went to work, and so possibly breast-feeding was continued for longer than today.

2) The advice about reducing obesity is wrong. And people are bombarded by this wrong advice. - Obesity is not reduced by eating less food/fat/calories, because obesity is not caused by greed or 'over-eating'. Obesity is caused by fluid retention, caused in turn by sodium retention, and can only be reduced by reducing the fluid retention and that is done mainly by reducing salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of food that is rich in potassium. Fruit and vegetables contain a lot of potassium. Potassium displaces some of the sodium, and the water that always accompanies it, from the body.

3) Sodium retention depletes the body of essential minerals, mainly calcium, magnesium and potassium, and this mineral loss has many adverse consequences - fat retention and bone weakening being the main ones.

4) Dieting increases body weight because it increases fluid retention.

5) Exercise does not result in weight loss, no matter how many people insist that it does.

6) There are far too many pharmaceutical drugs prescribed and taken, and many of these cause or exacerbate fluid retention.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

One in ten British five-year-olds is obese - official figures. This is because the experts are giving the wrong advice.

One in ten five-year-olds is obese - official figures
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Doctors are concerned at the figures as overweight and obese children are storing up health problems for the future and are more likely to develop diabetes, and die early from conditions like heart disease and cancer.

It is feared that the growing obesity epidemic will mean today's children will be the first to be outlived by their parents.

Obesity amongst children is calculated using height and weight but also takes into account their growth and so is best measured by an expert."

"Dr Tim Crayford, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, said the regional differences in childhood obesity should be judged with caution as they are based on voluntary weighing in schools. But nevertheless there are differences in the rates of obesity around the country.

He said: “Systematic surveys of obesity in adults has found big regional differences and for that to be magnified in children would not be surprising.

“Obesity is quite strongly linked to deprivation and it can also reflect the ethnicity of the population.”

Dr Crayford added that a child’s risk of being obese is strongly linked to the health and weight of their parents. If neither parent is obese there is just a one in ten chance the child will be, compared to a four in ten chance is one parent is obese and an eight in ten chance is both are obese.

“It is about the ethos of the family,” he said. “It is about what the family eats, what activities they do, if for example they go out and play sport at the weekend or play computer games.”"

Dr Crayford, like most doctors, clearly still believes that lack of exercise is a cause of obesity, despite the fact that research has repeatedly shown that exercise does not reduce obesity. - Don't the 'experts' EVER read research findings?

Children, tragically, are becoming obese because the experts are giving the wrong information and advice about obesity. - Obesity is not caused by overeating and/or inactivity. - Obesity is caused by fluid retention and is easily and speedily reduced by reducing salt intake.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Children and Obesity

See FAT RETENTION

If you need my help, I can be contacted from my website. - My help is free.

Salt intake is the biggest risk factor in the development of asthma in children.

Too much television 'is an asthma risk'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The study of 20,000 six and seven-year-olds, published in the medical journal Epidemiology, confirmed a strong link with asthma and obesity, but found that salt was the biggest risk. Those with the highest intake were two and a half times more likely to develop asthma."

The main cause of obesity in children is, of course, eating salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

Breast-feeding makes children significantly smarter and helps to improve reading and writing, according to the biggest study of its kind.

Breast-feeding boosts a child's IQ, says study

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Researchers looked at almost 14,000 children over a period of more than six years and found that those who had been breast-fed performed far better in IQ tests.

At the age of six-and-a-half, children who had been exclusively breast-fed in infancy scored 5.9 points higher on average in tests of overall intelligence. Teachers also rated these children significantly higher academically than control children in reading and writing.

Previous studies suggested a link between breast-feeding and IQ but they were treated with scepticism because of claims that the findings said more about social factors generally than breast-feeding itself.

"Our study provides the strongest evidence to date that prolonged and exclusive breast-feeding makes kids smarter," says Prof Michael Kramer at McGill University in Canada.

He said the findings should help boost efforts "to promote, protect and support breast-feeding"."

I believe the main factor that makes breastfeeding advantageous for babies is that breast milk is low in sodium/salt. This also helps to prevent infant obesity. See Children and Obesity

Is your child overweight/obese? - Here is the safe, healthy answer - and it's not dieting...

Children need to avoid salt and salty food to reduce the fluid retention that is causing them to be overweight.

See Sodium in foods and Children and Obesity

Also see FAT RETENTION

Fat people will be offered cash incentives to lose weight and take regular exercise under a radical Government strategy to tackle the obesity epidemic

Obesity crisis: get paid to lose weight

Extracts from Telegraph report:

"Fat people will be offered cash incentives to lose weight and take regular exercise under a radical Government strategy announced yesterday to tackle the obesity epidemic.

Leader: Battle of the bulge Your view: Should fat people be paid to lose weight? Employers will be encouraged to set up competitions with money, vouchers and other rewards for people who give up junk food in favour of healthy eating and living. Those losing the most weight would earn the biggest prizes. Ministers believe that by giving people incentives to do something about their weight now, it will help avoid larger costs associated with treating cancer, heart disease and diabetes caused by obesity. Similar schemes have worked well in America and British medical insurance companies already offer discounts for people who go to the gym regularly. Experts say that most of the population will be obese by 2050 unless urgent action is taken and the associated rise in ill health would cost the NHS £50 billion a year. The Government wants Britain to be the first major nation to reverse the rising tide of obesity and said it would focus on reducing within 12 years the proportion of children who are overweight back to the 2000 level of 26 per cent. At present, 30 per cent of children are obese or overweight." "The Government is investing £372 million over three years to implement the strategy and annual progress reports will be published. Dr David Haslam, the clinical director of the National Obesity Forum, said the incentives scheme smacked of "desperation". There was little evidence that payments would work and it would be difficult to check whether people were regularly taking exercise. A recent analysis of nine research studies which used financial incentives found there was no effect on weight after 12 months. Aberdeen University's Health Services Research Unit said eating more fruit and vegetables was more effective than paying for weight loss." The trouble with offering cash incentives to lose weight is that it will encourage people to eat less food/diet, and dieting does not reduce weight; dieting usually causes weight gain and is very harmful to health. The best way to reduce obesity is to tell the truth about how it is caused and how to reduce it safely. - Dieting (reducing calorie intake) does not reduce obesity because obesity is not caused by overeating. Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are vulnerable/sensitive to salt. These people can lose weight easily and fast by avoiding salt and salty food. - They can lose excess weight even more rapidly by eating plenty of fruit and vegetables because these foods contain a lot of potassium,and potassium helps to remove excess salt from the body - i.e. potassium displaces sodium in the body. - See vulnerable groups

Even BABIES are being taken to gyms because of growing concerns about obesity!

Obesity worries fuel baby gym boom

Extract from Telegraph:

"Babies as young as four months are being taken to special gyms amid growing paranoia about obesity, it emerged yesterday.

An American chain has signed hundreds of babies and toddlers in Britain for "developmental gymnastics".

Demand for places has surged as government figures show that one in five London children under 11 is obese."

This is ridiculous! - Gymnastics for babies! - All that is necessary to prevent or to lessen child obesity is to ensure that children have low salt/sodium intake. - Exercise has little effect on child obesity. - See this article from the Guardian: Glasgow University Study finds that increasing exercise does not reduce child obesity.

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Obese children are 'suffering high blood pressure'

Obese children 'suffering high blood pressure' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Scientists who studied 14,187 children aged between three and 18 found that more than three per cent had high blood pressure but three quarters of them had not been properly diagnosed.

The team warned that doctors need to be more aware of the condition.

It comes as one quarter of children in the UK are classed as overweight and the obesity epidemic is growing.

Having hypertension as a child increases the risk of heart disease in adulthood as the longer blood pressure is elevated the greater the risk.

Children are also being diagnosed with type two diabetes which is usually associated with being overweight.

The authors of a study of children in Ohio, America and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association said: “Hypertension in children has been shown to correlate with family history of hypertension, low birth weight, and excess weight. With the increasing prevalence of childhood weight problems, increased attention to weight-related health conditions including hypertension is warranted. Several lines of evidence suggest that blood pressure in US children and adolescents is increasing in parallel with weight.”

Of the 14,187 children and adolescents studied between June 1999 and September 2006 in the outpatient clinics 507 children and adolescents (3.6 per cent) had hypertension. Of those 131 (26 per cent) had a diagnosis of hypertension or elevated blood pressure documented in the electronic medical record meaning three quarters had not been formally diagnosed. "

It is fluid retention that causes the obesity and the high blood pressure in these children. And fluid retention in children is caused by eating food high in salt. - It is not caused by overeating or by lack of exercise. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html Here is an extract from the page:

"When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body."

Lose weight and improve your health by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! - How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

Soaring rate of childhood obesity will continue relentlessly because the 'expert' advice is catastrophically WRONG.

Half of all boys will be obese, warns leaked report - Observer

Extract:

"The government's pledge to halt the soaring rate of childhood obesity within three years in fact cannot be achieved until 2050, warns a damning report commissioned by ministers to help them tackle the problem.

The number of six- to 10-year-olds who become obese will keep rising relentlessly until the late 2040s, with as many as half of all primary school-age boys and one in five girls dangerously overweight by 2050, according to the document.

Health campaigners last night said the dramatic findings showed that Britain is facing an unprecedented public health crisis. 'They are frightening preliminary findings and the implications for both the NHS's budget and, more importantly, for children's health are really disturbing,' said Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrats' shadow health secretary. 'I'm not entirely surprised by the direction of the trend but I'm shocked by the scale of it, which is horrifying.'

The confidential document was commissioned by the former Department of Trade and Industry. The paper predicts that both adult and childhood obesity in England will continue rising unless there are dramatic changes in official policy and people's lifestyles. It foresees big increases in heart problems, strokes and diabetes if current upward trends in obesity are not reversed. Few experts expect that to happen.

The 74-page draft document, dated 22 June 2007, also estimates the NHS will have to spend billions more pounds every year on treating patients with obesity-related illnesses. 'A target on childhood obesity was introduced to halt the year-on-year rise in obesity among children aged under 11 by 2010 in the context of a broader strategy to tackle obesity in the population as a whole. As yet there is almost no evidence that the rise in obesity levels is changing.'

And the report goes on to say: 'There is evidence that among children aged six to 10 years, males will be more obese than females, with an estimate of 50 per cent being obese by 2050, compared with 20 per cent of female children. Among children aged 11 to 15, the prediction is different: 23 per cent for males and 37 per cent for females.'

I find it somewhat ironic that it was the former Department of Trade and Industry that commissioned this report, because I wrote to the Department of Trade and Industry over two years ago, explaining that obesity is caused not by overeating, but by salt sensitivity, often caused by prescription drugs, and that reduction in salt intake, rather than dieting, is the way to reduce obesity. I wrote several letters to them, including to Sir David King and to Dr Chris McFee. I informed them about the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7423/1085 which reports actual research on what happens when the standard medical advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and loads of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight. - Clearly my information was not acted upon, inasmuch as the harmful and counterproductive dieting advice continues to be given to the overweight and obese victims of the government's and the medical profession's misinformation, and parents of overweight children will no doubt continue to be blamed for their children's weight problems, when it is actually the 'expert' advice that is to blame for this catastrophic incidence of obesity and its attendant ill-health. Doctors are giving the wrong advice.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Is fat a middle-class issue? - No: it's a consequence of misinformation by the 'experts'...

Fat: a middle-class issue - Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Middle-class mothers who work long hours increase the risk of their offspring being overweight or obese, according to an astonishing new study.

Research revealed by The Independent on Sunday for the first time will turn perceived wisdom on its head with the revelation that the nation's higher-paid working mothers bear much of the responsibility for the country's ticking obesity time bomb, and not the poorer working-class families who are usually blamed.

More shockingly, the risk of childhood obesity soars in direct correlation with family income. Children in families where household income is greater than £33,000 are significantly more likely to be overweight or obese than youngsters from families with the lowest incomes, the new study shows. And in higher income households, the longer a mother worked each week, the greater the risk of the child being overweight.

"Long hours of maternal employment, rather than lack of money, may impede young children's access to healthy foods and physical activity," say the researchers from the Institute of Child Health at University College London (UCL) and Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh), writing in the International Journal of Obesity this week.

Children from families with incomes of £22,000 to £33,000 were 10 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese than children from families in the lowest income group, the study found. "For every 10 hours a mother worked, children from households with an annual income of £22,000 or higher were more likely to be overweight than children from the lowest income group," researchers wrote.

Where the annual income was £33,000 or more, children from those households were 15 per cent more likely to be overweight than children from the lowest income group.

Compounding the misery for working mothers, the study found that children's weight problems got worse if mothers relied on a nanny to hold the fort while they pursued their careers.

Children in childcare are 24 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese than children cared for by their mother or her partner."

Fancy! - As well as obesity 'experts', there is even an International Journal of Obesity! - Not doing much good, are they? - The more they give their standard advice, the higher the incidence of obesity rises! - That's because their advice is WRONG...)o:

Read here http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html for what causes childhood obesity and for suggections about preventing or reducing it.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...

One in four children overweight by age three

One in four children are overweight by age three - Guardian

Extract:

"Almost one in four children are overweight or obese by the age of three, a UK-wide survey reveals today.

The study, the biggest of its kind, measured the height and weight of 14,000 children aged three. Preliminary results reveal that 18% were overweight and a further 5% obese.

The head of the research, Professor Carol Dezateux, said the findings were "of great public health concern".

The government has made cutting childhood obesity a priority after research showed levels had trebled since the 1980s. It is committed to improving diet and boosting physical activity to halt the year-on-year rise in child obesity by 2010.

Today's study found children in Northern Ireland and Wales were more likely to be overweight or obese than those living in England and Scotland. But those in less advantaged areas of England and Scotland were slightly more likely to be overweight or obese than those living in more advantaged areas."

It's incredible that the 'experts' still do not realise that child obesity is caused by children eating food with a high salt content. They become bloated with excess water. Exercise does not reduce obesity in children. - See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2006/10/exercise-has-little-effect-on.html

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Breastfeeding - here's another reason that it is good for your baby.

There are many reasons why, if you are able to manage it, breastfeeding is best for your baby. Here is a reason you probably do not know about. - Human breast milk is very low in salt/sodium.

A low sodium intake at the beginning of a baby's life helps to protect the baby from becoming obese. The longer you continue to breastfeed, the better the protection from obesity and the stronger your baby's blood vessels will be. - six months would be good; longer still would be better still. - A low salt intake is best for mothers too...(o:

Read about the damaging effect (obesity) of high sodium intake on children on my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Aborigines will help fat teenagers to survive on a new BBC reality TV show.

Aborigines help fat teens survive on TV - Telegraph

Extract:

"Obese British teenagers will have to spear wallabies, trap lizards and skin snakes when they go hunting with Aborigines in a new BBC reality television show.

Drawing on 40,000 years of knowledge, Aborigines will teach 10 overweight young Britons how to survive on bush tucker in the series Fat Teens Can't Hunt.

The participants will have to swap burgers, chips and pizzas for lizards, mangrove worms and charred kangaroo. If they fail to find food in the wild, they will go hungry.

The programme, due to start filming in the Northern Territory in August, will feature five boys and five girls, aged 16 to 19. The six one-hour episodes are expected to be screened later this year or early next year."

Well, if these young people live on the food they catch, they will lose weight, because fresh food contains only low concentrations of salt/sodium. - I hope they are not going to be given salt to use in cooking it!

The production team clearly think that increased exercise will help the young people to become less obese. - It won't. - Obesity in children and young people is almost always caused by eating food with too much salt in it. - They can easily lose excess weight (which is actually fluid retention) by eating less salt, and, preferably, plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)