tsaunders | March 12, 2010Photo by Kamshots.
Regular readers of Obesity Panacea will know that I am a huge fan of active transportation (e.g. walking or cycling to work, rather than commuting by vehicle). I just can't say enough good things about it. It often takes about the same amount of time as commuting by vehicle, plus it ensures that you're getting at least some physical activity on even the busiest days. Even just taking transit instead of driving yourself increases your chances of meeting the daily physical activity guidelines, since transit trips almost always involve some walking on either end of the…
tsaunders | March 11, 2010Something to help Friday morning pass a little quicker...
"Piled
Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham
www.phdcomics.com
Apologies for the small size - click here for the full sized version. Hat tip to fellow uOttawa grad student Jonathan Gravel for sending me link.
Travis
tsaunders | March 11, 2010
Image by Pauladamsmith.
So it appears that ScienceBlogs are once again celebrating Pi Day (March 14) by throwing a pie making contest called the Pi Day Pie Off. ScienceBloggers can take part, but fortunately for us, so can their readers (this is where you come in). I know that a lot of our friends and readers are foodies (I'm looking at you Summer Tomato), so I wanted to let everyone know about it while there is still time to enter. It can be any kind of pie (dessert, meat, pizza, or otherwise), so be creative. Details on contest entry are below the fold.
To enter, just send us an…
pjaniszewski | March 10, 2010
If you go to your physician's office and inquire about your weight status, he or she will measure your height and weight to derive your BMI (weight in kg divided by height in m squared). Then they will compare your BMI to that of established criteria to decide whether you are underweight (<18.5 kg/m2), normal weight (18.5-24.9 kg/m2), overweight (25-29.9 kg/m2), or obese (>30 kg/m2) . Often times, this measure alone determines whether or not you receive lifestyle treatment. But how useful is this measure anyways? What does it tell you about your health? And finally, how helpful is it…
pjaniszewski | March 9, 2010I just came across this photo on Fail Blog, and I tend to think that rather than a escalator FAIL it portrays a HUGE WIN for promoting physical activity. You trick people into thinking they'll get an easy escalator ride, only to find out they actualy have to use their legs to get to the next floor. Brilliant!
Peter Janiszewski
tsaunders | March 8, 2010
Image by atomicjeep
I came across a very interesting article in the Ottawa Citizen this weekend, unpleasantly titled "For Canada's obese, exercise alone isn't going to cut it". The crux of the article is this - exercise will not help you lose weight. Every few months it seems that this issue pops up, including a cover article in TIME magazine last year, which Peter has previously dissected. This is a complicated issue, and given the sensational title, I wasn't expecting much from the Citizen article. But the article is actually very well written, and includes interviews with a number…
pjaniszewski | March 7, 2010
In this post we take a look at the top 10 worst gym personalities, as a means to help you clearly identify and classify inappropriate gym behavior, and to help you steer clear from inadvertently falling into one of these categories as you embark on your fitness journey.
In no particular order, here is a list of the most annoying gym goers that I have personally come across over the years. Many workouts have been ruined on their account, so please allow me to vent my pent up frustrations in the cathartic swell below.
1. The American Idol: It is increasingly popular…
tsaunders | March 7, 2010
Photo by Todd Huffman.
One of the great things about this site is that people often bring products or research to our attention that we otherwise might have missed. This occurred yesterday in the comments section of Peter's recent post on Acai berry scams, when one of our readers brought up the use of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) in the treatment of obesity. The website that we were provided smacks of weight loss gimmickry - notably the promise of an obesity "cure" and "near 100% success rate", but we thought it best to review the evidence before making a judgement one way or…
tsaunders | March 7, 2010
Photo by pugetsoundphotowalks.
Regardless of your shape or size, physical activity has been shown to add years to your life, and life to your years. But believe it or not, the benefits of physical activity are not restricted to exercise performed in the gym. In fact, one of the easiest ways to improve your health may be through increasing the amount of low intensity physical activity you perform throughout the day. For example, simply increasing the number of steps that you take each day is very likely to reduce your risk for diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It's still…
pjaniszewski | March 7, 2010
As an obesity researcher, there is nothing that makes the blood boil more than an infomercial pedaling another fat-loss gimmick. The ridiculous claims made on such adverts have ruined many of my weekend mornings and were actually the impetus behind the development of this blog.
While eating my oatmeal and channel surfing on a fine Saturday morning, it took mere minutes before I was transfixed - jotting down notes on a pad of paper while enduring the mental torture of the 1 hour Slender Shaper infomercial (segments of which you can watch here). In short, according to the manufacturer, the…