Today many parents are finding themselves in a difficult battle against their
child’s or teen’s obesity. Faced with few options, an increasing number of parents
are okaying bariatric surgery to help end their teen’s obesity. Dr. David Katz
warns of the dangers of this approach and offers an effective alternative.

Hilton Head, SC (November 2011)—Recent studies have shown that one in three children and adolescents in the U.S. are obese. If your teen falls into this category, you know the impact obesity can have on a young person’s life. Watching your teen suffer through failed diet after failed diet in addition to bullying and self-hate can understandably make you desperate for a quick fix. Otherwise, you’d never before have considered the drastic option of bariatric surgery.

The harsh reality is that more teens than ever are going under the knife to battle their obesity. The even harsher reality, notes Dr. David Katz, is that your teen’s obesity problem didn’t happen overnight. It’s the product of years of unhealthy living and eating, and as such, it can’t be “cured” overnight with a quick fix like bariatric surgery. To truly win the battle of the bulge, he says, you and your teen will need a more holistic approach.

“Bariatric surgery will only put a band-aid on a much more complex problem,” says Dr. Katz, senior medical advisor at MindStream Academy (www.mindstreamacademy.com), a health and wellness boarding school in South Carolina. “Yes, many obese teens need help to change their lives, but in order to do that they have to change their lifestyles. Obesity isn’t just physical. It involves emotional, environmental, and social factors—none of which is addressed on the operating table. To provide your teen with a long-term solution, you need to help them approach their obesity from all sides—mind, body, and soul.”

MindStream Academy provides exactly this kind of holistic solution. It offers a positive, safe, and caring natural environment and teaches teens proven, healthy life skills to handle the stress and triggers that lead to unhealthy habits. It provides a fully accredited middle school and high school curriculum, as well as hands-on intensive and comprehensive health coaching, including nutrition, fitness, and behavioral interventions for teens and tweens struggling with obesity and related issues.

“Keep in mind that the jury is still out on the true long-term effects weight loss surgery can have on teens,” says Dr. Katz, who is one of the leading international authorities on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of chronic disease. “But there’s no denying the long-term benefits of learning life skills that foster sustainable good health and wellness. Fighting your teen’s obesity with these skills sets him up for success in a way that surgery simply can’t.”

Read on to learn more about why taking a holistic approach to treating your teen’s obesity is much better than going under the knife.

Think about the true cost of surgery. The cost of bariatric surgery is usually upwards of $30,000. However, in addition to the monetary cost of surgery, parents should carefully consider the risks that come with the operating table.

“When warranted, bariatric surgery is a very important option,” says Dr. Katz. “But there are kids out there who might manage to avoid the operating room through a feet-and-fork approach instead. For example, one teen at MindStream lost 90 pounds in a semester, felt totally confident in the ability to continue practicing everything learned there, and went from suicidal to optimistic.”

“I understand why parents consider an option as drastic as bariatric surgery for their teen,” he adds. “They desperately want to help their child and so they become more open to options they might not normally consider. But parents should keep in mind that there are alternatives to bariatric surgery. By tackling their teen’s weight loss through fitness, nutrition, and forming healthy, sustainable habits, they can avoid the risks associated with surgery.”

Help your teen replace willpower with skillpower. Many of the nation’s obese teens lack the skills necessary for achieving and maintaining healthy living. “Many mistakenly view obesity as the result of not having the willpower to resist overeating,” explains Dr. Katz. “But it’s really an issue of skillpower. When young people learn to better manage stress, to garden, to cook fresh, delicious foods, and to actually enjoy exercise and team sports, they develop skills that will help them maintain a healthy lifestyle for the rest of their lives. It’s important for teens to have a place to learn those skills in a safe and nurturing environment. With surgery, unfortunately, rarely do these skills become part of the recovery process.”

Give your teen the ability to cope. While teens who undergo bariatric surgery can’t eat as much, eating will very likely continue to be their stress-coping mechanism of choice. Without replacing that mechanism with more productive stress reducers, your teen could have ongoing weight problems. It isn’t uncommon for those who’ve undergone weight loss surgery to reach their optimal weight and then experience an existential crisis. They realize that they are the same person, just smaller. The point is this: Yes, what your teen is eating is a part of the problem, but unless your teen can address what’s eating him and learn how to love himself at any size, along with the skills to maintain a healthy lifestyle, surgery cannot truly change his life.

“For their weight loss to be sustainable, it is essential for overweight and obese teens to find new ways of dealing with stress and anxiety outside of eating,” says Dr. Katz. “Thanks to a process called neurobiofeedback, today we can do exactly that. As part of our comprehensive counseling (clinical, therapeutic) program, neurobiofeedback retrains abnormal brainwave patterns through a non-invasive, psychotherapeutic, and behavioral technique. We can assist the brain to function better by self-regulation exercises to keep the psychological, neurological, and biological mind-body connection in harmony. In our work with this process at MindStream, we’ve found that it helps teens learn to relax their brains, and compulsive, anxious, and depressive overeating behaviors can be curbed.”

Remember that thinner does not equal healthier. Following bariatric surgery, your teen will experience weight loss and will eventually reach a more appropriate weight. But remember, true health is much more than just being thin. If your teen continues to live a sedentary lifestyle, he’ll be in danger of gaining his weight back over time.

“Overweight and obese teens have to learn how to move again,” notes Dr. Katz. “Perhaps more importantly, they have to learn that they can move. They can do a variety of exercises. They can become physically fit, and it’s okay for them to do it at their own pace. Often, overweight teens have wracked up years of being embarrassed because of their limitations during P.E. at school. When they learn to define their own fitness path, they begin to see that it is doable, and they get to celebrate with each goal that they reach. We are constantly celebrating our students’ successes at MindStream, and I think our students are constantly surprised by just how much they can accomplish.”

Understand that getting healthy is a group effort. With bariatric surgery, your child will have a doctor, but for the most part the doctor’s focus will be on the medical side of your teen’s surgery and recovery. The medical team will probably not have much time or opportunity to give your teen the additional support he’ll need in order to make long-term health a reality.

“The saying goes, ‘It takes a village…’” says Dr. Katz. “And it absolutely takes a village to impart to teens the skills needed to create a healthy lifestyle. They, of course, need the support of their families, but they also need fitness and nutrition specialists who can help them lose weight safely—with or without undergoing surgery. They also need help healing from the emotional stress that being overweight can cause.

“With surgery, once you leave those hospital doors, your teen’s support system diminishes significantly,” he continues. “It can be overwhelming. But when you opt for a more holistic approach—such as a health and wellness school like MindStream—your teen will have a much different experience. For example, at MindStream teens have the support of their fellow students, but they also have personal trainers, dance instructors, yoga instructors, martial arts instructors, teachers, a registered dietician, an executive chef, who gets them in the kitchen to learn firsthand how to cook healthy, delicious foods, their families, and yes, via the program’s equine-assisted psychotherapy, even horses. It’s an extensive support system that provides the students with many people to lean on when they need a little extra moral support.”

Know that aftercare is critical. If you do indeed decide that bariatric surgery is the best option for your teen, keep in mind that to achieve optimal success aftercare will be key. “Bariatric surgery is just one step in a much larger process,” explains Dr. Katz. “Surgery certainly helps teens and adults lose weight. But it doesn’t help them erase the years of emotional stress their weight may have caused. To keep the weight off and to be truly healthy, aftercare in the form of counseling and fitness and nutrition education are essential. As we’ve touched on above, once your teen leaves the hospital, rarely is this kind of aftercare automatically part of the process. You will have to seek it out, and it will be essential in order for you to maximize your teen’s success and ensure his health throughout his weight loss.”

“MindStream offers an alternative to surgery for kids who can take a semester to turn their lives around,” says Dr. Katz. “But it also offers a far more intensive after-program than is otherwise available to kids who have bariatric surgery. Either way, it can meaningfully improve outcomes in this challenging group.”

“Obesity in teens and children is an issue that should absolutely be curbed as early as possible in a child’s life,” he concludes. “However, when possible, I would urge parents to consider alternatives to making bariatric surgery their solution. Taking a less invasive, more holistic approach for teens means providing them a more sustainable, and I think overall healthier, way of life.”

# # #

About Dr. David Katz:
As one of the leading international authorities on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of chronic disease, Dr. David Katz is in the trenches of the war against childhood obesity. In fact, he warned us many years ago that today’s younger generation will not live as long or as healthfully as their parents. Dr. Katz is also a prolific author, having published over 120 scientific papers, numerous textbook chapters, nearly a thousand newspaper columns, and a dozen books to date. In 2009 he was nominated for the position of U.S. Surgeon General to the Obama Administration by the American College of Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, among other national and international health organizations. He is also the founding director of Yale University Prevention Research Center, director and founder of Integrative Medicine Center at Griffin Hospital, president of Turn the Tide Foundation, Inc., and editor-in-chief of the Childhood Obesity journal.

About MindStream Academy:
MindStream Academy (www.mindstreamacademy.com) is a full-service boarding school on a pristine 43-acre horse farm in South Carolina for teens and tweens who want to get healthy, fit, lose weight, take control of their lives, build self-esteem, and pursue a personal passion.

Extremely weak magnetic waves do not emit heat (which is called the non-heating effect), but they create a magnetic environment. In this electromagnetic field, the electric field that is directed toward the body is not a cause of problem, the magnetic field that surrounds the body has a noxious influence at the cellular level. According to the most recent researches made in Europe and America, “extremely weak electromagnetic fields emitted by mobile phones, personal computers and other electric devices are a danger because they weaken the immune system, and cause damages to the cells and the brain.”

The extremely weak magnetic field has an influence on the magnetism of the human body. At the cellular level, calcium and ions contained in the proteins (albumin) suffer disorders that are cause of general troubles. On the other side, the rhythm of the brain is altered, which is cause of unease and depression. Immune globulin is weakened, and so the whole of the immune system. Moreover, melatonin produced by the brain, and that protects against the cancer, diminishes.-

Image to link, Real body club

This species is native to Europe and Asia Minor, adventitia in many regions, where climatic conditions are similar to their places of origin.

Shrub up to one meter high, glabrous, slightly tomentose. Its leaves are deeply divided, with long segments gray-green. The very small flowers of yellow are gathered into chapters, in turn, are grouped in panicles. The flowers are feminine marginal chapter and the center, hermaphrodites.

The artemisia (male or mugwort) is multiplied by seeds or cuttings, semi-ligneous. In winter, you can lose some or all leaves. This species is widely cultivated in gardens as an ornamental.

Uses

•  Culinary: Its tender flowering tips are used as a condiment, it is consumed in salads and prepared balsamic vinegar, homemade or industry. The scent of sagebrush male is very similar to the lemon flavor is pungent and bitter.
•  Medicinal: The leaves and flowers of the male mugwort infusion is prepared having properties as an emmenagogue and vermifuge splendid, stimulates appetite and is an excellent tonic for anemia. Its application stimulates hair growth. Its tonic action, is not advised for pregnant women.

Image to link, Weedalogue

• Save Energy
• Save Time
• Save Money
• Protect The Environment
• Improve The Safety Of Household Appliances

A Simple Step:

One simple step to help you conserve energy in your home is to simply cook differently. You don’t have to eat out all the time, but you also don’t have to waste money, time and energy heating up a full-sized oven when you only need to cook one thing. Instead, seek an alternative, like cooking food with a toaster oven.

The Cuisinart TOB-155 is one of the latest and greatest toaster ovens around. It allows you to bake, broil and, of course, toast. In fact, you can bake a whole pizza or toast up to 6 slices of toast at a time with it. It has a lot of versatility, allowing it to perform the tasks of a large oven, but without the time, energy output or cleaning problems.

Using Technology:

Of course, you may also want to utilize some of the latest and greatest technology to reduce energy emissions in your home. First, though, you should understand some of the top reasons for wasted energy in the home. Those include:

• Faulty Wiring
• Faulty Electronic Devices
• Forgetting To Turn Off Devices
• Inconvenient Or Inefficient Placement of Devices And Switches

Computers:

Computers, for example, are a huge inconvenience to turn on and off all the time. However, there are some important things that you should know about them. Those facts begin with knowing that a computer in “sleep mode” wastes far less than a computer that is actually on. However, having your computer totally shut off saves the most energy, of course. So, you should always shut your computer off when you aren’t using it for a prolonged period of time.

Peripherals:

You also need to consider a computer’s “peripherals. For instance (on average):

• An Old CRT Monitor = 80 Watts
• A New LCD Monitor = 15 – 70 Watts
• Cable Modem = 7 Watts
• Router = 5 Watts

Those are all rough estimates that will vary with make, model and age, but the point is the same. Electronic devices can use a lot of energy over time, if left on. And using newer technology such as a LCD or LED over a old CRT can save you alot of energy.

Use Devices To Stop Devices:

Ironically, you can actually use some new electronic devices to reduce your energy consumption from standard electronic devices, like computers. Here are some examples:

Glowing Outlets:

Sometimes we don’t recognize just how much energy we waste. One of the greatest new gadgets to help with that is the glowing outlet. The glowing socket consists of a very simple LED light that glows whenever that socket is in use. The light will also glow dimmer or brighter, based on how much energy is flowing through the socket.

That may sound a bit silly, but it’s amazing how much energy you’ll save when you have a light to remind you to unplug things that aren’t in use. After all, we can’t actually see energy flow, normally. That makes it hard to control.

The Power Aware Cord:

The Power Aware Cord is the next step up. It was designed by Anton Gustafsson and Magnus Gyllensward. It’s for the truly unaware or forgetful. The entire cord glows with a bluish light when it’s in use. Not only that, but the Power Aware Cord changes in light intensity, based on the energy output.

Light Timers And Automatic Sensors:

Finally, there’s the matter of light timers and automatic sensors. These days, you can pre-program almost anything in your house to go on or off at a certain time of day or after a certain amount of time. That can be great for lights and certain appliances. In fact, it’s also excellent for those on busy schedules who often forget to shut off the lights.

If you’re like some people, though, you don’t use your lights and appliances at the exact same time every day. If that’s the case, just get yourself some sensors that tell your lights to turn on when you enter a room and off when you exit. Motion sensors are great energy savers.

U.S. researchers analyzed 25 commonly used scented products, and found that they emit an average of 17 chemicals each. Of the 133 chemicals detected in all the products, nearly one-quarter are classified as toxic or hazardous under at least one federal law.

More than one-third of the products emitted at least one chemical classified as a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But only one of the 133 chemicals emitted by these items was listed on a product label, and only two of the chemicals were publicly disclosed elsewhere.

Federal law doesn’t require companies to disclose ingredients used in fragrances, even though a single fragrance can be a mixture of several hundred ingredients, according to lead author Anne Steinemann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of public affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“We analyzed best-selling products, and about half of them made some claim about being green, organic or natural,” Steinemann said in a university news release. “Surprisingly, the green products’ emissions of hazardous chemicals were not significantly different from the other products.”

Image to link: CSN

Inspection Information Catlin Arctic supports the new consensus view that the Arctic will be ice-free in about 20 years.

The expedition traveled 435 kilometers of ice earlier this year and led by the explorer Pen Hadow and measurements taken indicate that the average thickness of ice floes is 1.8 m thick formed during the previous winter and more vulnerable to thaw.

According to Wadhams, quick navigation, easier access to oil and gas reserves are some of the benefits of short-term thaw.

But in the long term this could lead to accelerated warming, a change in the circulation of the oceans and atmosphere and may have unknown effects on ecosystems by acidification of the oceans.

Hadow admitted that the importance of the issue is that it represents one more step to better understand key issues in the Arctic.

Image to link: Mind of dan

Between 30 percent and 60 percent of the Amazon jungle, home of 40 000 plants and 427 species of mammals, could become savanna, said WWF in a report published in Paris.

The Valdivian forest in Chile and Argentina, where grows larch, a tree not widespread that can live 3000 years, is also threatened, according to Greenpeace.

The Chihuahuan desert between Mexico and the United States, habitat of about 3 .500 different plants (cactus, yucca, etc.) and leading animals (jaguar, bighorn sheep, black bear), is another place on red alert.

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia also may make history, because with the rising temperatures would go to death whitening.

Similarly, the scaly sea turtles of South American and Caribbean coasts are at risk.

In the Arctic, where warming occurs twice as fast that  in most of the planet, Alaska salmon are those who would take the brunt.

In Asia, the main threat concerns the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest,betwen India and Bangladesh, with the famous Bengal tiger in its limits.

In China, WWF cites the upper Yangtze River, one of the only two regions where the panda lives in the wild.

In the Himalayas, home to more glaciers than anywhere else on Earth except the poles, the ice can melt at such a rate that would be serious consequences.

Finally, the foundation is concerned about the forests of the eastern coast of Africa, from Kenya to Tanzania and Mozambique.

Image to link: NPS

The picture of the damage to the waters begin by pesticides, which are insecticides, fungicides and herbicides used by the agricultural industry.

Decades ago, talk about the possible end of the water, to negotiate with the resource, implement strong laws for their preservation and to see it packed in a bag or a jar, it seemed outrageous. Today the world is concerned about reducing pollution levels and provide a long life to the liquid that seemed inexhaustible.

At international level there is no consensus on the volume of water should be consumed to meet the necessities of life, however, the World Health Organization will manage data ranging from 40 to 100 liters per person per day.
According toa study , with data calculated in 2005, a family of six strata consume on average 33,000 liters of water per month, while one of level 1 consumes 12,000, if we assume that this group is composed of four people.

The problem

From the agricultural, industrial, domestic and even the drug trade, water sources are pollutants.

The water damage  starts with pesticides, which are insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, used by the agricultural industry.

We can also mentioned as major pollutants, metals such as mercury, cadmium, lead and chromium, used and emitted by different industrial sectors, the cyanide, the product of gold mining, the discharge of organic matter, especially nitrogen and phosphorus from water from untreated municipal water systems and agricultural activities with fertilizers, and oil spill caused by accidents or damage to pipelines.

Deforestation in the course of rivers causes loss of natural barrier, thus provoking flooding. What causes this problem are the illicit crops using natural areas set aside for their plantations. In addition, the drug industry uses different acids for the production of coca paste, whose chemical process wastes are dumped into rivers.  For years this liquid was seen by many as a garbage dump.

Image to link: Estonia free press

The list of the places, in no particular order is:

1 Riachuelo Basin, Argentina

The Riachuelo Basin is a waterway whose name is synonymous with pollution. More than 3,500 factories operate along the banks of the river, a landscape that also includes 13 slums, numerous illegal sewage pipes running directly into the river, and 42 open garbage dumps.

2 Yamuna River, India

The Yamuna is the largest tributary of the Ganges River. Where it flows through Delhi, it’s estimated that 58 percent of the city’s waste gets dumped straight into the river. Millions of Indians still rely on these murky, sewage-filled waters for washing, waste disposal and drinking water.

3 Chernobyl, Ukraine

Chernobyl is the town in northern Ukraine home to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Once home to more than 14,000 residents, the town remains mostly uninhabited and unsafe today due to extensive radioactive contamination.

4 La Oroya, Peru

La Oroya is a soot-covered mining town in the Peruvian Andes. Ninety-nine percent of the children who live here have blood levels that exceed acceptable limits for lead poisoning, which can be directly attributed to an American-owned smelter that has been polluting the city since 1922.

5 Haiti

The nation of Haiti was once 60 percent covered in forest. Today, only 2 percent of the country still has standing trees. This picture shows an aerial of the border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic (right). Haiti has cleared almost every tree right up to its borders.

Other toxic places are:

6 Citarum River, Indonesia

7 Linfen, China

8 The North Pacific Gyre

9 Rondônia, Brazil

10 Lake Karachay, Russia

11 Kabwe, Zambia

12 Appalachia, West Virginia

13 Dzerzhinsk, Russia

14 Vapi, India

15 Earth’s orbit

Image to link: MNN