There have been two more deaths in our lives. Our name sake's twin sister died on Friday before midnight only hours before the family reunion. Today before writing this blog we learned that a young man died from a heart attack that one of us had known. What ties this together with what we do here is that their children preceded them in death. Although their sons' deaths were untimely the young man's death which could have been prevented.
Our favorite former female governor and secretary of HHS reported today about the need to protect our children and save the suffering health care system by addressing the issue of obesity. "...(E)nding obesity would save our health care system fifty percent more dollars than curing cancer." At the Weight of the Nation conference Kathleen Sebelius added that we're saying we want to lose weight but: "Only three in ten Americans said they were actually trying to lose weight. And only one in ten said they had a specific plan to do so."
I'm over weight and before her death Aunt Pearlie was inactive and while neither of us were obese we didn't and I don't do enough to stay fit. (Mamie her twin lived a life as a slim and trim woman.) So what can we do to fix our fat behinds America well not much according to the Recommended Community Strategies and Measurements to Prevent Obesity in the United States. Anything that's not our fault and doesn't take any additional effort on our part we love. Their suggestions and causes of our weight gain: "Environmental factors (including lack of access to full-service grocery stores, increasing costs of healthy foods and the lower cost of unhealthy foods, and lack of access to safe places to play and exercise) all contribute to the increase in obesity rates by inhibiting or preventing healthy eating and active living behaviors."
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