Free Republic

The Algemeiner reports: Ten overweight hedgehogs have had to go on strict diets and exercise regimes after they ate so much on the streets of Israel they struggled to curl up into a ball to fend off predators. Animal lovers found them waddling around and brought them into the hospital at the Ramat Gan Safari. Staff there said the hedgehogs had probably been snacking on food left out for pets. “A lot of people put cat food on the streets for the stray cats, which is very nice but … the problem is that there’s other wildlife that eats it,”...

A 60 Minutes/Washington Post joint investigation into the DEA's response to the opioid epidemic again finds investigators who hit a brick wall in Washington In October, we joined forces with the Washington Post and reported a disturbing story of Washington at its worst - about an act of Congress that crippled the DEA's ability to fight the worst drug crisis in American history - the opioid addiction crisis. Now, a new front of that joint investigation. It is also disturbing. It's the inside story of the biggest case the DEA ever built against a drug company: the McKesson Corporation, the...

In Malaysia — where nearly half the adult population are overweight or obese, and dubbed the fattest country in Asia — nutritionists are being financially supported by major food companies, New York Times (NYT) reported today. The report pointed at the Nutrition Society of Malaysia, whose research on local diets and lifestyle habits was not only financed, but also reviewed by Nestlé, the world’s largest food company whose malted chocolate beverage Milo is popular with consumers here. It was also revealed that the work of the society headed by the country’s leading nutrition expert Dr Tee E Siong, 70, has...

Few predicted when Mexico joined the free-trade deal that it would transform the country in a way that would saddle millions with diet-related illnesses.William Ruiz Sánchez spends his days grilling burgers and slathering fried hot dogs with pepperoni and cheese at his family’s restaurant. Refrigerators and fire-engine red tables provided by Coca-Cola feature the company’s logo in exchange for exclusive sale of its drinks. Though members of the Ruiz family sometimes eat here, they more often grab dinner at Domino’s or McDonald’s. For midday snacks, they buy Doritos or Cheetos at Oxxo, a convenience store chain so ubiquitous here that...

“Body-positive” activists are upset that reality TV star Louise Thompson titled her upcoming book “Body Positive,” claiming the actress is stealing language that’s actually meant to describe obesity-acceptance. According to the Bookseller, “Body Positive” details Thompson’s transformation from “an anxiety-ridden party girl, battling with mental health and an unhealthy relationship with eating” to a woman who found “happiness, calm, direction and self-love” through better relationships with fitness and food. Immediately after The Bookseller tweeted about the book, people took offense to the title: Made in Chelsea's @LouiseAThompson is publishing a recipe and fitness book with @YellowKiteBooks: https://t.co/saVFS88Baj pic.twitter.com/D76O3JNM7l — The...

A new report ranked 50 states plus Washington DC using 19 different metrics including obesity and overweight population and sugary-beverage consumption Mississippi ranked number one as the 'fattest state' in America for the second year in a row More than seven in 10 US adults 20 and older are either overweight or obese, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention The fattest states in America have been revealed for 2017 with Mississippi leading the way for the second year in a row. WalletHub ranked the states using 19 different metrics, including three key components, obesity and overweight prevalence,...

Yeh, yeh here we go again knife vs gun fight debate. For those that don't know the term "21 foot rule". It is well known (also called Tueller Drill) within the law enforcement and personal defense circle. This defensive drill was patterned after a Salt Lake City Police Sergeant Dennis Tueller experimentation. The Tueller drill is all about “reactionary gap” through training. Other trainers have come up with the distances associated it to the Tueller drill. This experimentation, determined that the average healthy adult male can cover a distance of seven yards (21 feet) in about 1.5 seconds. The significance...

A Florida woman is facing a murder charge after, authorities say, she punished her 9-year-old cousin by sitting on her, causing the child to go into cardiac arrest. Veronica Posey, 64, told investigators that her cousin, Dericka Lindsay, had been misbehaving, so she decided to sit on top of the child as punishment. Minutes later, Dericka said she couldn’t breathe. She was unconscious by the time Posey stood up, according to an arrest report from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.

Jennifer Lawrence revealed in a speech on Monday night that she was forced to participate in a “degrading and humiliating” lineup while naked and was told to lose weight when she was starting off her acting career. Lawrence, who was being honored at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event in Los Angeles, stood at the lectern and detailed her experience of being mistreated in the entertainment industry. “When I was much younger and starting out, I was told by producers of a film to lose 15 pounds in two weeks,” the 27-year-old actress said to a crowd that included Kristen Stewart,...

Army Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the Army's chief of staff, administers the oath of enlistment to 26 recruits in New York City, April 1, 2009.The military is facing a growing recruiting crisis: 71% of Americans between 17 and 24 can’t meet the minimum criteria for service, which places the burden of service on an ever-small and shrinking pool of troops with a family history of joining the military. At an Oct. 12 Heritage Foundation panel in Washington, D.C., Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and former Air Force one-star general told attendees “the single most important ingredient to readiness...

Even the kids in America's fittest state are too fat to fight their nation's wars, a pro-military nonprofit argues in a new study. The military has long bemoaned America's tubby youth, and the Council for a Strong America says Colorado is part of the problem, with more than 27 percent of the state's children categorized as overweight. "Low levels of physical activity and the obesity epidemic are contributing to an unprecedented readiness problem for our armed forces," the nonprofit said. Those extra candy bars compound a complex problem for military recruiting. Between other health issues, criminal records and other troubles...

Praise the power of potatoes. This man says he ate only potatoes for a year and lost 110lb as a result. Whoa. We’ll be honest – we were more than a little skeptical when, back in the heady, carb-loving days of 2016, Andrew Flinders Taylor announced the launch of the Spud Fit project, which would see him eating only potatoes for a full year. He originally announced the mission by explaining he wanted to take control of his eating. ‘I wanted to change the way I thought about food so that it’s not really controlling my life,’ Andrew said at...

World's heaviest woman, Eman Abdul Atti, died at Abu Dhabi's Burjeel Hospital today. According to a statement by the management of Burjeel Hospital, Eman at 4:35 am. Her death was due to an intestinal shock with dysfunction of the body organs including kidney failure. The statement added that during her stay at the hospital, Eman has been supervised by a team of more than 20 doctors. They added that her health had been steadily improving since her arrival in the UAE however it took a turn for the worse this morning. Eman had earlier been treated by a doctor in...

Study compiling data from every country finds people are living longer but millions are eating wrong foods for their health. Poor diet is a factor in one in five deaths around the world, according to the most comprehensive study ever carried out on the subject. Millions of people are eating the wrong sorts of food for good health. Eating a diet that is low in whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds and fish oils and high in salt raises the risk of an early death, according to the huge and ongoing study Global Burden of Disease. The study, based at...

Gabrielle Deydier’s book about being obese has ignited her native France. She tells Stefanie Marsh how her life has been a battle against ‘grossophobia’, discrimination and verbal abuse – until nowIn August 2015, 37-year-old Gabrielle Deydier went for a job interview which she passed with flying colours. The job was for a position as a teaching assistant at a Parisian special needs school and the interview panel, including the school’s headmaster, had been so impressed with Gabrielle that they even told her they were worried in case she left for a better-paid job. There had been only one uncomfortable moment:...

Editor’s Note: I have no idea why Heather Heyer died of a heart attack. It does seem strange though. She isn’t one of the people we see flying through the air in these videos. The mom says she died of a heart attack in an NBC interview: Heather Heyer’s mom said in an NBC interview she died of a heart attackhttps://t.co/23UpWuARQk — Hunter Wallace (@occdissent) September 5, 2017 I found her. https://t.co/Tw81iMAAkb that pic i posted, you can see the antifa doing cpr on her. Read the article. 100% confirmation. — The Cat Is Awake (@thecatisawake) September 5, 2017 Heather...

Americans continue to get fatter and it’s delivering a huge blow to the country, both in higher health care costs and undercutting military recruiting, according to a huge new study. The 14th annual State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation bluntly reported that 70 percent of the nation is obese or overweight. And while the rate of obesity growth is leveling off, the costs aren’t. The report, for example, said additional health care for obese adults and children is $150 billion a year and billions...

While a third of American adults and one in six children are obese, a report Thursday suggests the rate of increase could be stabilizing in some states. Citing statistics collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the report by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said West Virginia had the highest obesity rate at 37.7 percent. Mississippi was second at 37.3 percent and Alabama and Arkansas were tied for third at 35.7 percent. The report says the adult obesity rate increased between 2015 and 2016 in Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and West Virginia,...

An Arizona State University professor was distressed to discover in a recent study that her female peers do not desire "the stigma of extreme weight gain.” Professor Breanne Fahs, a self-described “fat woman,” recently published an article in the Women’s Studies International Forum in which she declared that “the fear of fatness is far more extreme, exaggerated, and terrible than the lived realities of living in a fat body.”

A handful of walnuts may be an effective weight loss tool. Walnuts are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and other substances and, in moderation, have been linked to reduced risk of obesity and diabetes. They may also efficiently reduce appetite. Researchers now may have found out why. They had nine hospitalized obese patients drink, on five consecutive days, either a smoothie containing 48 grams of walnuts (1.7 ounces, or about 14 walnut halves and 315 calories) or a placebo smoothie identical in taste and calorie content. Then, after a month on their regular diet, the patients returned for a second...