EthnicMajority

(MedicalXpress.com) While all obese women are less satisfied with the weight-related quality of their lives than women of 'normal' weight, black women report a higher quality of life than white women of the same weight. In addition, black women appear to be more concerned about the physical limitations resulting from their obesity, than by the potential psychological consequences of being overweight or obese. These findings by Dr. Tiffany L. Cox, and her team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Neuropsychiatric Research Institute in Fargo, ND, and Obesity and Quality of Life Consulting in Durham, NC, are published online in Springer's journal Applied Research in Quality of Life.

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(Reuters) U.S. children and teenagers are seeing far more soda advertising than before, with blacks and Hispanics the major targets, as marketers have expanded online, according to a study released on Monday.

The report from the Yale University Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity also said many fruit and energy drinks, which are popular with teenagers, have as much added sugar and as many calories as regular soda.

"Our children are being assaulted by these drinks that are high in sugar and low in nutrition," said Yale's Kelly Brownell, co-author of the report. "The companies are marketing them in highly aggressive ways."

Children's and teens' exposure to full-calorie soda ads on television doubled from 2008 to 2010, fueled by increases from Coca-Cola Co and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc, the report found.

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(Huffington Post) September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, and organizations such as the National Council of La Raza, the Leadership for Healthy Communities and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation are taking a closer look at the challenges Latino children in particular face.

According to the National Council of La Raza, there are more than 16 million Latino children under the age of 18 living in the United States. The number of Latino children has increased by 30 percent since 2000 and doubled since 1990, making them one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. And as of May 2010, 38.2 percent of Hispanic children ages 2 to 19 were overweight or obese, compared with 31.7 percent of all children, according to the Leadership for Healthy Communities.

The National Council of La Raza reports that one out of two Latino children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes. "That is the statistic that should be our wake-up call,” said Jennifer Ng'andu, deputy director of the council's health policy project, where she oversees efforts to improve the health status and outcomes of Latinos through national policy change.

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(Chicago Tribune) Being obese and having a larger waist may be linked with a higher risk of dying for African American women, a study finds.

Body mass index and waist circumference were examined in 33,916 women who were part of the ongoing Black Women's Health Study and had never smoked and didn't have cardiovascular disease or cancer at the beginning of the study.

In 13 years of follow-up, researchers found that for women who had a BMI of 20 or higher, every five-unit rise in BMI was linked with an 18% increase in the risk of death during the study period. A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal weight, while 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight, and 30 and above is considered obese. For overweight women the risk of death from cardiovascular disease was two times higher, and for obese women it was three times higher compared with normal-weight women.

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(Examiner.com) Phoenix Latino civil rights groups Chicanos Unidos Arizona, Nuestros Reconquistos, and Take Back Aztlán met at the Phoenix Public Library Monday morning to support Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity efforts . There has been some backlash against her efforts, but Cecilia Maldonado of Chicanos Unidos Arizona feels Michelle Obama is doing the right thing.

“Latino children need to learn about the negative effects of obesity, especially since they are already discriminated against because of their skin color. Michelle Obama has pledged to help get the message to Latino children and we praise her for that.

Manuel Longoria of Nuestros Reconquistos believes that places like McDonalds, Taco Bell, and other fast food restaurants should be banned. “These fast food places have caused millions of heart attacks and are bad for children of all races.”

(AOL Health) Despite the fact that obesity rates are on the rise in the U.S., many women, in particular, often think their weight is healthy even when it’s not.

And a new study out of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston shows that such misperceptions about one’s weight could be a deadly error, leading women to continue to eat poorly, gain more weight and eventually develop the complications of obesity, including diabetes and hypertension.

Researchers report that almost 25 percent of overweight women of child-bearing age don’t believe they’re overweight, or at least not to a degree that is dangerous. On the other hand, 16 percent of normal weight women also misperceive their body weight, often leading them to pursue dangerous and unnecessary dieting habits. The researchers’ data is published in the December issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

“We were not surprised by the study results,” corresponding author Dr. Mahbubur Rahman, assistant professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology and Center for Interdiscliplinary Research in Women’s Health, told AOL Health. That’s in part because as the nation’s obesity rate grows, it becomes more socially acceptable to be overweight and the truth can become more obscured.

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(Babble.com) A new study shows that breastfeeding for even one month lowers mom’s lifetime risk for Type 2 diabetes. Previous research has shown a correlation between breastfeeding and reduced diabetes in mothers, this study confirms and extends those findings.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburg looked at data from over 2000 women in Kasier Permenente’s healthcare system aged 40-78. They found that women who gave birth but did not breastfeed were twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes compared with women who breastfed or never gave birth.

The reduction of diabetes risk may be related to the way breastfeeding women lose weight. Breastfeeding can help women lose “visceral” fat– the kind stored around the stomach and organs, and the hardest to lose. But it could also be that lactation improves glucose metabolism– diabetic women usually require less insulin when they are breastfeeding.

Though breastfeeding is often talked about in terms of benefits for the baby- including reduced risk for obesity, allergies, asthma and infections– there are benefits for the mother, too. Breastfeeding is associated with reduced reproductive cancers, arthritis, heart disease. Though the studies supporting these claims show benefits only for mothers who breastfeed for more than several months. (You can read more about these benefits here.)

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(USA Today) While some research suggests that the incidence of childhood obesity may be leveling off, a new study finds that for certain racial groups the rates may actually be getting higher.

The study, to be published in the September issue of Pediatrics, finds that black, Hispanic and American Indian girls have two to three times higher odds of having a high body-mass index (BMI) compared to white girls.

What’s more, although rates of obesity peaked for Hispanic girls in 2005, they have kept on rising for American Indian and black girls.

“What was encouraging was that we saw some decline in obesity, (but) we saw an increase in the racial disparities. So, whatever policies we’re putting in place probably aren’t having the effect we want for all groups,” said study author Dr. Kristine Madsen, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Unfortunately, today’s policies may be increasing the disparities in childhood obesity, and we need to target the communities that get left behind,” she said.

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(WebMD) Obesity rates among children appear to be dropping for some groups, but not for all, new research suggests.

An analysis including more than 8 million California children and teens showed encouraging declines in obesity following a peak in 2005 among Asian and white boys and girls and among Hispanic boys.

But obesity continued to climb among African-American and American Indian girls and remained stable for Hispanic girls.

And public health efforts aimed at addressing the obesity epidemic do not appear to have had much impact for the heaviest children — those with body mass indexes (BMIs) in the 99th percentile.

The findings can be viewed as both an encouraging and troubling report card on these efforts, researcher Kristine Madsen, MD, MPH, of the University of California, San Francisco, tells WebMD.

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(Kansas City Star) It may take an Oprah-like TV personality to get people to turn away from bad eating and other habits to set the U.S. population on a healthier course.

The data for obesity, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and heart disease don’t look good — particularly for African-Americans. The death rate for them is among the highest, with no sign of changes to prevent a premature demise.

But Mehmet Oz, a physician and host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” told the National Association of Black Journalists convention last month in San Diego that a change of strategy has to occur to get people to adopt healthier habits. Doctors, health care workers and government officials have to appeal to folks’ “feelings” instead of hitting them with mind-numbing data.

The numbers are a turnoff. People have to “turn on” to change because it “feels” like the right thing to do.

This was the second national black convention in a month to put health concerns at the top of the agenda. The first was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s meeting in Kansas City.

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