Free Republic

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans there was a brief moment of shocked compassion before racial anxieties flooded the Internet. Victims of the disaster were quickly recast as looters, criminals, and layabouts. They were government “dependents” seeking even more entitlements now that they were bona fide survivors. Some of these hideous opinions drew on the physical “evidence” of the bad character of hurricane survivors: their size. The mostly black bodies crowding the Superdome, getting on rafts, and being carried away by helicopters, were too large for online critics. Obesity, while common in the US and over-represented in the South, was...

There is a national tragedy sweeping across America, and it promptly needs to come to an end. For some inexplicable reason, American entertainment outlets think male consumers are entertained by “plus-sized” models. They’re not. Trust me when I say that there’s a reason men read the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine, and it has nothing to do with the seemingly unending supply of bigger models. Naturally, I’m not suggesting that obese women are bad people. Obviously that’s not the case, and it’d be a lazy critique of my argument to even attempt to boil it down to that. My point is...

Life threatening obesity has become a worldwide epidemic, with 711 million overweight around the globe led by French fry loving Americans. A detailed report in the latest New England Journal of Medicine is winning alarmed attention in Washington because it finds that American children and adults are leading the obesity parade. "The highest level of age-standardized childhood obesity was observed in the United States, 12.7 percent," said the report. 1 in 5 adults in the OECD area is obese. How does your country compare? Read more in our #Obesity Update 2017 https://t.co/zej2FMV8J7 (PDF) pic.twitter.com/ofq2MwRjJO— OECD (@OECD) July 25, 2017 "The...

RUSH: Here is that sound bite from Susan Collins. She was caught on an open mic. This is following a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting yesterday. She was caught on a hot mic talking with Senator Jack Reed (Democrat-Rhode Island) about Congressman Blake Farenthold, who is a Republican from Texas. COLLINS: (muttering) Did you see the one who challenged me to a duel? REED: I know. Trust me, do you know why he challenged you to a duel? ‘Cause you could beat the s–t (bleep) out of him, trust me. COLLINS: (cackling) REED: (cackling) (muttering crosstalk) COLLILNS: That fat guy. He’s...

...Why two black pastors are suing Coca-Cola William Lamar, the senior pastor at D.C.’s historic Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, is tired of presiding over funerals for parishioners who died of heart disease, diabetes and stroke. So on Thursday, he and another prominent African American pastor filed suit against Coca-Cola and the American Beverage Association, claiming soda manufacturers knowingly deceived customers about the health risks of sugar-sweetened beverages — at enormous cost to their communities. The complaint, filed in D.C. Superior Court Thursday on behalf of the pastors and the Praxis Project, a public health group, alleges that Coke and...

A fight that broke out early Sunday morning at a Pizza Pizza and posted on YouTube began with a complaint that an order was taking too long, a witness told the Star. Paul Michael, 23, was at the restaurant when the brawl began at around 2 a.m. He said it started when a woman entered the restaurant on Queen St. E., at Broadview Ave., and complained that her pizza order was late. “They didn’t call her to tell her it was ready so in the middle of the Pizza Pizza, she started screaming how she wasn’t satisfied,” Michael said. “She...

A Dallas-based plus-size model and student who promotes body positivity has used her social media platform to share how she fought back against a body-shamer while on a flight. Natalie Hage, 30, said the hurtful ordeal happened on a recent American Airlines flight to Los Angeles when she only had a middle seat available to her. She had paid extra for a seat with greater leg room.

The global obesity epidemic continues, and a new report shows that about two billion people worldwide are overweight or obese. That's about 30% of the world's population. The new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that about a third of the global population—including adults and children—exceed a healthy weight. About 10% of people in the world are obese, according to the findings. Studies have linked overweight and obesity to a higher risk for health complications like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, respiratory problems, major cancers and more.

The former first lady says she's been hosting "bootcamps" for her friends to help whip them into shape and "be healthy together." [Snip] "When I was at the White House, I often hosted bootcamp weekends for my close girlfriends," Obama, 53, wrote. "It didn't matter that we were all at varying fitness levels. Our bootcamp weekends were a reminder that if we want to keep taking care of others, we need to take care of ourselves first."

A man is suing American Airlines for $100,000 after he was crushed by two obese passengers during a 14-hour flight and left with permanent back and neck injuries. Michael Anthony Taylor, 67, claims airline staff refused to let him change seats on the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, despite his desperate pleas to move. The Wollongong man says he was forced to crouch, kneel, brace and stand throughout the lengthy flight, which also aggravated his existing condition of curvature of the spine.

REUTERS - - More than two-thirds of people living in Mexico, Chile and Ecuador are overweight or obese, costing their economies tens of billions of dollars every year, driving rates of disease and straining health services, according to a new UN report. While the number of hungry people in Latin America and the Caribbean has halved in the past 25 years, the region is now struggling to combat an obesity epidemic. Changing diets, including more processed food that are high in salt, sugar and fat, along with more sedentary lifestyles have triggered a rising tide of obesity, experts say. “The...

Marge Swanson, a fat acceptance activist who helped pioneer the concept of thin privilege, is dead from a heart attack. She was 34 years old. Swanson championed the notion that weight and health have no inherent connection. She enjoyed dying her hair bright colors, wearing glasses and dating African American men. “It’s not that I’m thin-phobic,” she once told an audience on a college campus. “It’s just that curvy women have been enslaved and victimized by capitalists for far too long and yeah, I’m upset.” Swanson was born the middle of five children to a working class family in rural...

If you need a reason to become a dog lover, how about their ability to help protect kids from allergies and obesity? A new University of Alberta study showed that babies from families with pets -- 70 per cent of which were dogs -- showed higher levels of two types of microbes associated with lower risks of allergic disease and obesity. But don't rush out to adopt a furry friend just yet. "There's definitely a critical window of time when gut immunity and microbes co-develop, and when disruptions to the process result in changes to gut immunity," said Anita Kozyrskyj,...

Americans are the fattest people in the world. By one measure, more than 70 percent of the U.S. population aged 15 and older is overweight or obese. But such a finding should come as no surprise, considering the proliferation of fast-food establishments and increasingly cheaper grocery items that have negatively altered our diets. Unfortunately, the extra pounds have inflated the costs of obesity-related medical treatment to nearly $316 billion a year and annual productivity losses due to work absenteeism to more than $8.6 billion. But certain places are more responsible than others for tipping the scale in favor of bad...

Indian doctors said Thursday that an Egyptian who is believed to be the world's heaviest woman had successfully undergone weight-loss surgery after losing over 100 kilograms (220 pounds). Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty, who previously weighed around 500 kilos, had not left her house in Egypt in over two decades until arriving in Mumbai last month for bariatric surgery. "We are happy to inform all well-wishers that the medical team of Saifee Hospital has successfully performed the surgery on Eman Ahmed," said a statement.

President Donald Trump has become the go-to scapegoat for most things. If you’re having a bad day at the office, chalk it up to Trump. If you experienced a microaggression in college—yep, Trump’s secretly behind it. Now, Barbra Streisand says Trump is responsible for her struggles with her weight. The 74-year-old singer and songwriter said this weekend that watching the news stories about the president has made her seek solace in stuffing her face with food—emotionally eating to take away the pain of a president she voted against. Streisand is no fan of the president, having previously spoken out against...

"There's increasing evidence that adults with overweight may live as long as and sometimes even longer than normal-weight adults, making many question whether you have to take it seriously," Zhang added. Even in clinical practice, Zhang explained, treatment for overweight is typically considered only if patients exhibit two or more additional risk factors, like hypertension or high cholesterol. Another possible cause for the lax perception of body weight is the increased social acceptability. With obesity becoming the norm, many feel less pressure to lose weight, Zhang noted. One theory is that body acceptance trends on social media may have been...

Self-reported overweight people, if they were Democrats are more likely to believe genetic factors cause obesity, while Republicans who see themselves are overweight still assign eating habits and lifestyle choices as the cause, according to a new studyPeople's political leanings and their own weight shape opinions on obesity-related public policies, according to a new study by two University of Kansas researchers. Actually, Republicans -- no matter how much they weigh -- believe eating and lifestyle habits cause obesity, the research found. But among Democrats there is more of a dividing line, said Mark Joslyn, a KU professor of political science....

The first-ever cases of obesity have been recorded among nomadic Arctic reindeer herders, after they became exposed to instant noodles and other junk foods. Russian scientists are warning about the dramatic change in the Nenets and Khanty peoples on the icy Yamal peninsula in northern Siberia, who for centuries had eaten only traditional foods. A diet based on venison and fresh river fish meant that obesity was unknown among these indigenous peoples, but now outside influences are changing everything.

Newspaper publisher says community response to writer's ouster has been overwhelmingly positive. Alan Linda's column about his experience sitting next to an overweight airplane passenger will be the last one he writes for the Fergus Falls Daily Journal. The newspaper last week expressed regret for printing the column and said it had parted ways with Linda, an unpaid community columnist who has written the paper's "Prairie Spy" column for 30 years. "I've gotten an overwhelmingly positive response over the decision," Tim Engstrom, the Daily Journal's editor and publisher, said Monday. "People say it's the right thing to do." In an...