Tough on crime (in theory)

Sorry, Barry, but decreasing immigration won’t solve the problem. Those using the illegal drugs bought from violent drug dealers are mostly otherwise law-abiding Canadian citizens. I would bet that some of those people screaming for harsher laws for drug related crimes think nothing of having an occasional drag on a reefer or a snort of cocaine. One would think that we had learned a lesson from the Prohibition disaster that created the Mafia. Short of a mandatory death penalty for anyone caught with or selling an illegal drug, it is impossible to stop consumption of a drug desired by huge segments of a population. Ironically, it is the legal addictions to tobacco, alcohol, casinos and junk food that kill orders of magnitude more people than all the illegal drugs combined. So the solution to drug related violence is legalization and control of all drugs and intensive treatment and research into addiction.

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Tough on crime (in theory)

National Post
27 Feb 2009

Will the federal Conservatives’ new package of anti-gang m e a s u r e s make a difference on the street? It’s hard to say. The implementation of criminal justice depends on a chain of trust including not only elected legislators, but judges,…read more…

Related:
Mountie says he was sorry for the death of Robert Dziekanski

Tech Tags: National Post newspaper Editorials

Escaping the dungeon of our own desire

Why do we need to keep having to prove for ourselves that Seven Deadly Sins, codified 1500 years ago are still valid? Every few generations we forget the power of the addictions to which the human brain is prey and become convinced that some form of technology will save us from the consequences of self-destructive lifestyles. One hopes we and our descendants have learned the lesson that constant vigilance is lifestyle choices is and will always be essential, regardless of the technological sophistication of a society.

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Escaping the dungeon of our own desire
MICHAEL GERSON Washington Post Writers Group
National Post
27 Feb 2009

There is now a minor but raging academic debate taking place over the effect of an economic downturn on your health. In the traditional view, unemployment can cause a kind of recession flu — a funk that leads to stress-smoking, unhealthy comfort foods…read more…

Tech Tags: National Post newspaper Issues & Ideas

‘The Heart Truth’ for both men and women

Unilever, the maker of Becel margarine, would like us to believe that Becel is a health food; the more you eat the better. To that end Unilever contributes $millions to various cardiovascular and dietetic organization who reciprocate by putting the Becel logo on their literature and web sites.

There is no such thing as a healthy refined fat. Both margarine and butter are junk food, naked calories. Besides, pure fat is tasteless. The taste in butter and margarine comes only from their salt content. Obesity is the major nutritional problem and refined fats (butter, margarine or oil)are the most concentrated form of calories and should have no place in a healthy diet.

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The Heart Truth’ for both men and women
Margaret McKellar, brand manager, Becel.
National Post
26 Feb 2009

Re: Barbara Kay, Apparently Men No Longer Have Heart Disease Or Strokes: That’s The Message From Becel Margarine And The Heart And Stroke Foundation, Feb. 16. I have had personal experience in dealing with loss due to heart disease and stroke. My…read more…

 

 

Tech Tags: National Post newspaper Letters

Weight-loss programs scamming Canadians: Journal

There is no mention of the biggest weight loss scam, bariatric surgery. Unlike diet scams, surgery can kill. There has never, ever been a sham-operated controlled trial of bariatric surgery. Until there is, all bariatric surgery should be prohibited.

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Weight-loss programs scamming Canadians: Journal
SHARON KIRKEY CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
The Gazette
17 Feb 2009

Scams and programs that promise fast and easy fat loss are swindling Canadians desperate to lose weight, Canada’s top medical journal says. The Canadian Medical Association Jour nal, in an editorial published this week, says most commercial…read more…

Related:
Regulate weight-loss industry: CMA

Tech Tags: The Gazette newspaper Montreal

The wrong food fight

Very well written. But the biggest nutritional problem is not finding cheap brown rice but obesity, too many calories from all sources, resulting in many disastrous consequences, like Type 2 diabetes. If the population cut calorie intake by an average of 20% we could save $billions in food, waste disposal and medical costs. And the best way to do that is to ditch the junk food. However, I note that Becel margarine is a “founding sponsor” of the HSF. If there is any food junkier than margarine I would like to know. So the HSF can’t risk condemning junk food and losing it’s main sponsor.

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The wrong food fight

National Post
11 Feb 2009

We feel awkward questioningthe judgment of the Heart and Stroke Foundation (HSF) when it comes to cardiac health issues, but their new and much-trumpeted report about the supposed costs of healthy eating seems deranged. The foundation blasts grocers…read more…

 

 

Tech Tags: National Post newspaper Editorials

Hospital food is junk

Elaine Creighton is confusing health care with disease care, a common misconception. The medical system, i.e. hospitals and doctors exist solely to treat disease. An optimally healthy population needs much less disease treatment and many less hospital bureaucrats and doctors. So the latter have absolutely no incentive to promote health. The ideal situation for hospitals and doctors is a breathing but chronically sick population that needs constant disease care. Not so long ago there were cigarette machines on every floor or most hospitals and they were some of the last organizations to get rid of the disease dispensers. Junk food vending machines are a big source of revenue for the disease care system by both direct sales and by the disease they cause.

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Hospital food is junk

The Gazette
08 Feb 2009

The Lakeshore General Hospital should follow the Gatineau arenaâ€�s plan to eliminate junk food from its premises. During an eight-hour wait in emergency, choices to nosh on were chips, pretzels, and sugar-filled fruit-flavoured drinks that we decided to…read more…

Tech Tags: The Gazette newspaper Insight

Keeping the crescent fat

By stripping down during the Big Jump one source of the water shortage problem is revealed. For a “region in virtual lockdown”  these guys are managing to stay plump. Here is something “practical” and “bottomup” they could do. If those obese mayors and their fellow citizens ate less they would need a lot less water for their gardens, animals, cooking etc. Why should precious water be wasted generating excess human fat?

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Keeping the crescent fertile
VANESSA FARQUHARSON
National Post
05 Feb 2009

Water doesn’t recognize borders. The Jordan River in the Middle East, for example, runs freely without a passport all the way from the Golan Heights down to the Dead Sea, flowing through Israel, Jordan and Palestine. Despite the river’s inherent…read more…

 

 

 

 

 

Tech Tags: National Post newspaper Footprint

The Atherogenic Football Diet

Who are the coaches and “nutritionists” that advise football players to eat atherogenic, obesogenic , diabetogenic, hypertensogenic diets just so they can trample the opposing team? They should be banned from the game.

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By Madison Park
CNN

(CNN) – Football players guzzle protein shakes, down steaks and lift weights. They train and gain weight, hoping to build mass under the careful eye of the team’s coaches, nutritionists and gurus.

“It was a scripted lifestyle where they tell you how to eat, how to take care of yourself, how much body fat you should have,” said Chuck Smith, a former defensive end for the Atlanta Falcons and the Carolina Panthers.

But once their glory days are over, they have the same problem as millions of other Americans: They’re fat.

Football Team

“When I trained, they told us to eat all you can eat,” said Smith, who played in Super Bowl XXXIII with the Falcons. “Drink beer, eat peanut butter to gain weight. All those eating habits were great for football. But when I got done, no question I had to make adjustments.”

Without scheduled practices, meals, and games on Sunday, it became tougher to keep in shape.

When players were younger, they had the opposite problem.

Many tried to gain weight, believing that bigger is better. But as they age and retire from football, many are seeing that “big” is causing problems.

Smith, who weighed 274 pounds during his professional days, often had four plates of food in one sitting “to keep my weight up.” After retirement, Smith had to unlearn those habits.

“I had to retrain my thinking,” he said. “I don’t need to be full. I don’t have to stuff myself to feel comfortable. That took a long time. You stuff yourself to gain weight, then you get out of shape.”

Smith learned he had high cholesterol (he had to take Lipitor), and his blood pressure was climbing, too.

“I had to take the bon-bons out of my mouth,” said Smith, 39. “I had to empower myself. Strength coaches, nutritionists aren’t going to take care of me. Guys have to empower themselves to take care of themselves.”

Smith is now a fitness trainer at Defensive Line Incorporated, where he works with football players. Through healthy foods and workouts, he trimmed his body fat, lowered his cholesterol and shed 50 pounds.

Some players understand the risks, said Dr. Archie Roberts, a former National Football League quarterback and retired cardiac surgeon.

“They understand that if they stay 250, 300, 350 pounds as they age, that’s going to shorten their life span and cause them more health problems,” he said. “Others don’t get it and they’re unable — for whatever reason — to lose the weight, and they will suffer the consequences, just like anybody else in the general population carrying too much weight.”

Diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol are all cardiovascular risks associated with obesity.

Roberts heads the Living Heart Foundation, a nonprofit promoting health for former football players. For five years, he has conducted research to determine whether former football players are at added risk for heart problems (they’re not).

After left tackle Bob Whitfield retired from the New York Giants in 2007, he gained 20 pounds. The 37-year-old Pro-Bowler is trying to lose 40 pounds, which would bring him to 290 pounds, the lowest he has weighed since ninth grade.

“You don’t want to be the person at the buffet and people look at you crazy,” Whitfield said. “Overall, you want to have a healthier lifestyle. It doesn’t mean you want to be muscled up. … I don’t want to be the biggest man in the room anymore.”

Looking back at his career, Whitfield doesn’t think his size made him a better player.

“When that mass gets too heavy, you decline, you can’t accelerate, you don’t have as much force,” he said. “I never felt that being bigger gives you a competitive advantage. I put it on flexibility, the explosive nature of your movements.”

Several decades ago, 300-pound players were a rarity; now, the league has more than 500, Roberts said.

Decades ago, the Washington Redskins’ offensive line was known for its size and dominance.

“They had the largest line in the NFL, called the Hogs, 20 years ago,” said Dr. Ben Levine, director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, and professor of medicine. “If you go back and look at their size, they’re about the size of the running backs today. The impression was these guys were massive, huge. They couldn’t play in the NFL today. They’re too small.”

Smith said he wasn’t forced to gain weight, but perceptions exist on how a player should look based on his position. That “needs to change in the NFL,” he said.

Being faster, stronger and more aggressive is more important than size, Smith said. He drew an analogy to airline stewardesses: “We want her to be tall and slim so she can walk down the aisles. Now is there really a difference between a 135-pound woman and a 150? Well, maybe a little bit different in the hips, but the same effectiveness happens when she does her job.”

He added, “I’m a classic example that size doesn’t matter.”

But that’s not what young, aspiring players think.

Jackie Buell, director of sports nutrition at Ohio State University, said she encounters players who seek to gain as much as 30 pounds by next season and seldom care whether it’s fat or muscle.

Buell’s research examined 70 college linemen and found that nearly half have metabolic syndrome, meaning that the players have at least three of the five risk factors of developing diabetes and heart disease. Her next project is to explore whether junior high and high school football players are developing metabolic syndrome.

“My fear is, these young men have this metabolic profile, what happens when they stop working out intensively?” Buell said. 

Trying to Stop Prison drug dealing

If it takes at least $30 million per year and 30 Xray machines to make a dent in drug dealing in federal prisons housing 153,000 inmates or 0.13% of the adult Canadian population by extrapolation it would take at least $23 billion per year and 23 thousand Xray machines to control the drug trade in the whole country and that would be a lot harder than in a very confined prison population. Ergo, forget about trying to stop the drug trade by attacking the distribution. Legalize all drugs and deal with addiction, the same way we do with legal addictions to tobacco, alcohol and junk food which kill orders of magnitude more people than all the illegal addictions combined.

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Tories take aim at prison drug dealing
CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
The Gazette
01 Feb 2009

OTTAWA – Organized crime may be about to lose its grip on one of its most profitable markets as the Harper government moves to put an end to drug smuggling into penitentiaries. In this war on drugs, Ottawa will spend $120 million over the next four…read more…

Tech Tags: The Gazette newspaper Nation