As we, the entitled, sit on our big fat asses in the drive-thru …

As a Canadian, I am absolutely ecstatic when the warm weather FINALLY arrives.  The past month has been beautiful with sun & perfect temperatures of 15-20 degrees Celsius.  It is not totally bizarre that already at least half of the drivers have their windows closed tight with the air conditioning on?  The drive-thru line ups [...]

Exerpt from Peak-Oil Prophet James Howard Kunstler on Car Dependancy & the Obvious Link to Obesity in North America

KT: A study has just come out showing that although the French spend two hours eating each day — roughly twice as long as we do — they’re among the slimmest of the 18 nations in the study. Americans were the fattest, with more than 1 in 3 Americans qualifying as obese. How would you [...]

Council bans new fast-food outlets in South L.A.

From the Los Angeles Times

The one-year moratorium, proposed by Councilwoman Jan Perry, is aimed at attracting restaurants serving healthier fare to the area, where a study found 30% of children are obese.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and David Zahniser
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
July 30, 2008
A law that would bar fast-food restaurants [...]

Plan for ‘fast food’ toys ban, a step closer

Jul 10 2008 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post
LIVERPOOL last night moved a step closer to introducing a unique by-law banning fast food companies from promoting unhealthy meals in the city with toys.
Both Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors agreed to act on the findings of an inquiry earlier this year which accused burger giants [...]

We Will Reverse the Epidemic of Childhood Obesity – Report

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An excerpt from the report:
In 1965, 43 percent of us smoked cigarettes.17
Today only 20.9 percent of us light up.18
In 1982, drunk drivers killed about 22,000 people.
In 2005, the toll had fallen to just over 12,000.19
In 1983, only 24 percent of us used seatbelts.20
Today 82 percent of us buckle up.21
These statistics tell a story of radical [...]

Study finds growing diabetes epidemic among children

By Libby Cluett
lcluett@mineralwellsindex.com
Health care experts warn about serious and lasting health complications for future generations of Americans stemming from increasingly expanding children’s waistlines.
In an article in the July issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Joyce Lee warns that the most damaging [...]

The Impact of the Built Environment on the Health of the Population

Over the past 150 years, clear connections have emerged between our health and the
environment in which we live. But it has not been until the last several decades that
research has been able to provide evidence of these connections. The evolution of the
profession of public health in North America has in large part been all about [...]

The Role of Built Environments in Physical Activity, Eating, and Obesity in Childhood

The Future of Children, Vol. 16, No. 1, Childhood Obesity (Spring, 2006), pp. 89-108 (article consists of 20 pages)
Published by: The Brookings Institution

The Role of Built Environments in Physical Activity, Eating, and Obesity in [...]

THE CITY PLANNER’S GUIDE TO THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC: ZONING AND FAST FOOD

Health Aspect of Drive-thrus in relation to our current obesity crisis
in North American society, including Canada, which has reached
unprecedented obesity rates, particularly in children.
As a predominantly North American phenomenon, the drive-through
culture has been widely maligned as a major cause of obesity. In a
2004 issue of American Journal of Preventative Medicine, a study found
that an [...]

A Message from Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health

healthy-weights-healthy-lives-112404

An epidemic of overweight and obesity is threatening Ontario’s health. I am alarmed to report that, in 2003, almost one out of every two adults in Ontario was overweight or obese. Between, 1981 and 1996, the number of obese children in Canada between the ages of seven and 13 tripled. This [...]