Word: bmi
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...Obesity is a major public health crisis in the land of the free, and it brings with it a host of undesirable complications and hidden costs. In 2007, almost two-thirds of all American adults were either overweight or obese, and about 30 percent had a body mass index (BMI) of over 30, generally considered the threshold for clinically significant obesity. This epidemic has been associated with a wide variety of high-risk side effects, including ischemic heart disease, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Medical obesity leads to a 200 to 300 percent increase in the risk...
...claims of the so-called “fat acceptance” movement, obesity has a real impact on the American economy and creates a large public burden for the entire country. Obesity cuts into the American labor force’s productivity—Californians with a BMI greater than 40 took twelve times as many days off as their thinner counterparts in 2005. It also creates a large economic burden on all of American society—a recent study demonstrated that almost 10 percent of all medical expenditures can be directly attributed to obesity...
...efforts are noble in intent, but lack the essential incentive so critical to the decision-making processes of the average American: the prospect of cold, hard cash. The easiest way to get Americans to lose weight is to offer a $1,000 tax credit to adults who sustain a BMI between 18.5 and 25—the range considered to be healthy by most medical professionals...
...researchers also discovered a subgroup of volunteers who had two copies of the heavy FTO variant, but still managed to avoid being fat. Their simple trick? Exercise. Rampersaud found that the most physically active men and women in the study were able to stay within a normal BMI range, despite their genetic predisposition; other people with the same gene variants, who were relatively inactive, were overweight. "This is the first time that we can show the direct gene-environment interaction for a gene related to obesity," Rampersaud says. "It re-emphasizes the role that physical activity plays in our daily...
...study's lessons aren't useful. In a previous Danish trial that studied a more urban population that was slightly less active than the agrarian Amish, scientists found that those with the obesity-prone copies of FTO did not have to exercise that much to reduce their weight and BMI. Notes Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, the current study, which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, highlights a critical new understanding in the relationship between genes and our lifestyle. It's long been known that we can compensate for our genetic makeup...