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Koreans and Japanese Ranked World's Slimmest People Koreans, many of whom are experiencing a sweeping zeal for losing weight, count with the Japanese as among the slimmest people in the developed world, a study shows. According to PopNews, a study on body mass index (BMI) released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2005 shows that only 3.2 percent of Koreans and Japanese have a BMI higher than 30. A person with a BMI figure higher than 25 is considered overweight, while a reading above 30 means obesity. The U.S. is the fattest of the OECD member nations...

Bob Bittner coined the phrase “Easy as the breeze” serving up hits from the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin and the Beach Boys on WJIB. But times are not so easy now for the tiny Cambridge station, as Bittner was recently hit with huge hikes in the monthly fees he pays to play old-style hits over the air. Though WJIB-AM (740) has always turned a small profit, Bittner said, the fee hikes from music-licensing groups BMI and ASCAP have him looking for a new way to keep the station running. WJIB previously paid about $260 a month to BMI...

For every four adults in the world who are malnourished five more are overweight, 30 percent of them clinically obese, according to the World Health Organization. The scourge of obesity, bringing in its train a host of health and economic problems that could one day cripple economies, is more prevalent in some countries than others, but still constitutes a global epidemic, says WHO. A billion people out of the world's six billion population are now considered overweight, compared with 800 million who do not have enough to eat. Some 2,000 health experts gather in Boston, Massachusetts on Friday for...

May 21, 2003, 8:45 a.m. Trails Lead to SaudisA Virginia terror probe continues. By Matthew Epstein In March 2002, Federal terrorism investigators descended upon a group of Saudi-backed executives operating out of northern Virginia. The government hauled away truckloads of files and computer hard drives from the "SAAR Network," a web of dozens of related companies with interlocking officers, directors, and corporate headquarters. The Treasury Department suspected the group was laundering money for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Now over a year after the raids, many are asking whether the Justice Department will hand down indictments or clear the...

Very obese women should be denied fertility treatment, experts say. The British Fertility Society is recommending women with a body mass index of 36 and over should not be allowed access to fertility treatment. Underweight women and those classed just as obese (BMI over 29) should be forced to address their weight before starting treatment, the society said. NHS guidelines say overweight women should be warned of the health risks, but do not impose any ban on treatment. Being overweight can put both the health of the mother and child at risk through problems such as gestational diabetes and high...

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...