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Overweight and obese people should be aware that their unhealthy lifestyle could put their eyesight at risk, scientists say. It is common knowledge that expanding waistlines are linked to conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. But research shows that obesity is also linked to eye problems, which could lead to loss of eyesight. Two Israeli ophthalmologists are now warning that the prospect of eye disease should also be a powerful incentive to lose weight. Professor Michael Belkin and Dr Zohar Habot-Wilner, from the Goldschleger Eye Institute at the Sheba Medical Centre, reviewed more than 20 studies involving thousands...

Being a little overweight can kill you, according to new research that leaves little room for denial that a few extra pounds is harmful. Baby boomers who were even just a tad pudgy were more likely to die prematurely than those who were at a healthy weight, U.S. researchers reported Tuesday. While obesity has been known to contribute to early death, the link between being overweight and dying prematurely has been controversial. Some experts have argued that a few extra pounds does no harm. However, this is one of the first major studies to account for the factors of smoking...

Doctors expose BMI shortcomings Doctors have questioned a common measure of obesity after research found that "overweight" heart patients had better survival rates than those described as "normal". They say the finding exposes shortcomings in the use of Body Mass Index (BMI), which has formed the basis of defining healthy and abnormal weight for more than 100 years. Many experts now say that waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio, which indicate levels of abdominal fat, are more accurate guides. BMI, invented by ADVERTISEMENT the Belgian statistician and sociologist Adolphe Quetelet in 1869, is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms...

Aug. 7, 2006 — - Last week President Bush underwent his annual physical. It revealed he was in pretty good health, except for one thing. According to his body mass index, he's overweight. His BMI was 26, putting him in the lower range of the overweight category. He weighs 196 pounds, meaning he has gained 5 pounds since last year and his percentage of body fat has increased to 16.8 percent, which is, overall, pretty good for a man who just turned 60. (To calculate your BMI, go here). Still, the appropriate body weight range is 157 to 192 pounds...

Aug. 7, 2006 — Last week President Bush underwent his annual physical. It revealed he was in pretty good health, except for one thing. According to his body mass index, he's overweight. His BMI was 26, putting him in the lower range of the overweight category. He weighs 196 pounds, meaning he has gained 5 pounds since last year and his percentage of body fat has increased to 16.8 percent, which is, overall, pretty good for a man who just turned 60. (To calculate your BMI, go here). Still, the appropriate body weight range is 157 to 192 pounds for...

“How young is too young to start worrying about your child’s weight?” ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas asked, teasing a story by Lisa Stark about the World Health Organization’s new measurements for body mass index (BMI) on the April 27 “World News Tonight.” “Under the new guidelines for the first time,” Stark announced, “the body mass index will be used for American children under two.” Stark’s report, however, ended up a surprising departure from the media’s usual scaremongering. “I don’t think that this is another one of the millions of things that Americans need to obsess about,” said Bill Gallagher, the father...

For some, "BMI" conjures up their version of the three main food groups: Burgers, Macaroni-and-cheese and Ice cream. The government, though, takes Body Mass Index seriously. It uses the measure of relative weight to height in clinical guidelines to identify, evaluate and treat overweight and obesity in adults. Generally, the higher your BMI, the higher your predisposition to health adversities such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoarthritis, some cancers and premature death. But the Body Mass Index provides only a "best guess" of the source of these troubles -- total body fat. As such the "Body Mass Index"...

(CNSNews.com) - Fourteen miles from the U.S. Capitol, a basement-run organization with alleged ties to Hamas and al Qaeda is a crucial link in the planning of any future terrorist attacks against the United States, according to several terrorism experts who analyzed documents and other information obtained in a CNSNews.com investigation. The United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), based in Springfield, Va., is publicly identified as a Muslim think tank but has multiple ties to the terrorism underworld, according to the CNSNews.com sources, who are both inside and outside government. "UASR is a front organization for a terrorist group,"...

Air crew ordered not to wear crucifixes on flights to Saudi By Matt Barnwell (Filed: 09/01/2006) Air crew on the only British airline that flies to Saudi Arabia have been told not to wear crucifixes or St Christopher medals on flights there so as not to offend the country's Muslims. Stewardesses at BMI have also been told to cover themselves in the long abaya robes that Saudi women have to wear in public before they disembark in the capital Riyadh. In some instances, they are also advised to wear a headscarf. The airline insists that the rules are part of...

State mandates screenings, notifying parents of findings and follow-ups. “Wrestlers, football players, dancers … any kids involved in a lot of physical activity or athletics will have a muscle mass that figures into their weight and gives them a higher BMI.” Patricia Montalbano Northeast school health consultant of the State Department of Health Parents already concerned about their kids’ SATs, GPAs and PSSAs can add another acronym to the list: BMI. Starting this year, all Pennsylvania schools must start calculating and sending home the body mass indexes, or BMIs, of students, telling parents whether their kids’ weight is appropriate for...

<p>A task force of federal agents has ratcheted up a two-year-old antiterrorism investigation aimed at several Virginia-based Islamic charities suspected of diverting millions of dollars to terror network al Qaeda and other militant radicals.</p> <p>Led by agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI, the task-force probe has targeted a number of people tied to several private companies and interrelated Islamic charities operating out of business fronts in Herndon and Falls Church.</p>

Islamic charities based in Northern Virginia and sponsored by the government of Saudi Arabia invested millions of dollars in a company suspected of funding al Qaeda and the Islamic Resistance Movement, the government alleged for the first time yesterday. An affidavit made public in federal court in Virginia contends that the Muslim charities gave $3.7 million to BMI Inc., a private Islamic investment company in New Jersey that may have passed the money to terrorist groups. The money was part of a $10 million endowment from unnamed donors in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, according to the affidavit filed by David Kane...

CHICAGO (AP) - It's no secret that size matters in American gridiron football, but a new study suggests that a whopping 56 percent of players in the National Football League would be considered obese by some medical standards. The NFL called the study bogus for using players' body-mass index, a height-to-weight ratio that doesn't consider body muscle versus fat. The players union said that despite the sight of bulging jerseys, there's no proof that obesity is rampant in the league. How fat is the NFL? NFL has height issues too Summary ...

RALEIGH -- These days, sirens such as Beyonce and J-Lo might pack a little too much back to win the Miss America pageant. Marilyn Monroe might be considered too curvy to appear as a Playboy centerfold today. A pair of researchers at Meredith College have the numbers to prove that America's ideal female body is a silhouette that has morphed from curvaceous to cigar-shaped in the past half-century. They've figured that out by using the height and weight of two sets of trademark red, white and blue beauties: Miss America winners and Playboy centerfolds. The study suggests that America's obsession...

This morning's New York Times features a widely respected university professor and obesity researcher (in fact, the man who discovered the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin) decrying the distorted perception that Americans' waistlines are exploding. Dr. Jeffrey Friedman sharply criticized debates surrounding the national girth as "so political, so rife with misinformation and disinformation." In an effort to fight this particular obesity myth, Friedman points to a CDC study of the changes in American's body weights from 1991 to today, which shows that it's obesity hype -- and not the average American -- that's startlingly bloated. The Times reports that the CDC...

<p>A now-defunct New Jersey firm that offered investments to wealthy Muslims, including housing developments in suburban Maryland, raised millions of dollars for what law-enforcement authorities describe as a "who's who" of international terrorists and Islamic extremists.</p> <p>BMI Inc., founded by Soliman S. Biheiri, an Egyptian convicted of immigration violations, reported more than $25 million in projected revenues and leases as early as 1992 in a business that solicited real-estate investments and offered leasing services for Muslims in what authorities said was a scheme based in Virginia and Maryland to raise cash for terrorists.</p>

  Press Release Source: Pennsylvania Department of Health PA Health Department Study Shows 18 Percent of 8th Graders OverweightWednesday February 4, 4:20 pm ET  HARRISBURG, Pa., Feb. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- PA Health Secretary Dr. Calvin B. Johnson today announced that 18 percent of the eighth graders who were studied in a recent assessment were overweight and another 17 percent are at risk of being overweight. The assessment was done to determine the prevalence of overweight children and youth in Pennsylvania and in recognition of the growing national problem of childhood overweight and obesity. Nationally, childhood obesity has been associated with...

AUBURN - A gym teacher's tests of fourth- through sixth-graders' body fat at Webster Intermediate School have triggered complaints by parents who say some children were upset and embarrassed by the results."It didn't give any explanation," said Jane Clavet of the slip of paper her sixth-grader received. "It just gave a number. You're fat or your not," she told the Sun Journal of Lewiston.The furor began about two weeks ago when gym teacher Mary Jo Hodgkin measured students' body mass index, or body fat compared to height and weight, using new laser equipment that the school system had purchased...

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both adult men and women. Enter your height and weight using English measures. Click on the "Calculate BMI" button, and your BMI will appear. BMI Categories, according to the National Institutes of Health: Click on the link, the results will surprise you. Underweight = Less than 18.5 Normal weight = 18.5 - 24.9 Overweight = 25 - 29.9 Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

"Lammentations of a Dieter" Posted by Doc Farmer < http://www.chronwatch.com/site_search.asp?auth=90 > Saturday, May 24, 2003 I've made no secret of the fact that I'm fat, bald, and ugly. For those who think I'm putting myself down, though, I'm not. There's a difference between that and simple honesty of self. If I can't be honest with myself, how can I be expected to be honest with anybody else? That said, though, I don't like being fat. Bald is okay, mind you (thank God for the Gillette Mach 3) and ugly keeps me from being mistaken for a Hollywood type. But fat...