According to health experts, obesity causes more than 100,000 cases of cancer every year in the United States. Based on this fact, experts worry that as obesity rates continue to climb, so will cancer rates. Cancer is currently the second-leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease, and approximately 1.4 million people are projected to be diagnosed this year.

According to a new report from the American Institute for Cancer Research, maintaining a healthy weight could reduce cases of breast cancer by 17 percent, or approximately 33,000 people. The institute also estimates that maintaining a healthy weight could reduce the incidence of endometrial cancers by one-half, esophageal cancers by one-third, pancreatic and kidney cancers by one-quarter, gallbladder cancers by one-fifth, and colon cancer by one-tenth.

Hillary Wright, a nutritionist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, commented: "The most beneficial thing a woman can do to help prevent breast cancer or help it from recurring is to work on keeping her weight under control and exercising."

(Source: wbctv.com)

Labels: obesity, cancer, healthy-weight

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

Germany's most popular fashion magazine, Brigitte, announced that it will no longer use ultra-thin professional models. The magazine plans to feature only "real women" from now on.

The editor, Andreas Lebert, says that the magazine made the decision in response to readers' complaints that stick-thin models promote unhealthy body standards for girls and women. Readers said they were tired of seeing the models' protruding bones.

"We will show women who have an identity -- the 18-year-old student, the head of the board, the musician, the football player," Lebert said. "We will pay the same fee as we would for professional models."

The magazine has invited readers to send in portraits and photos of themselves to be considered for photo spreads.

(Source: news.sky.com)

Labels: media, model, healthy-weight

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

According to a recent article appearing in USA Today, media hubbub over Jessica Simpson's apparent weight gain is angering nutritionists and health experts. Simpson's current weight is estimated to be between 130-135 pounds. At 5'4", this puts her in the middle of the healthy weight range for her body frame, say health experts. Nutritionists point out that media and tabloids are calling the young star fat, when the average weight for a woman who is 5'4" in the United States is 164 pounds.

Nutritionists and health experts blame media scrutiny and the impossible standards imposed by the media culture for the ubiquity of eating disorders among young women today. Sharon Lamb, a professor of psychology at St. Michael's College in Vermont, commented to USA Today that the media is subjecting Simpson to a "public shaming for putting on a little weight."

Lamb, who is also the co-author of Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes, believes that the media sends mixed and potentially damaging messages to young women in the way that they "criticize stars who have anorexia, which is a disorder, and then in the same issue they shame a star who puts on a little weight." (Source: www.thecelebritycafe.com)

Labels: media, healthy-weight, body-image

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments