-Caveat Lector- Print Edition Ha'aretz Wednesday, January 01, 2003 Tevet 27, 5763 Israel Time: 04:10 (GMT+2)
Studies: Americans fatter and drunker By Reuters CHICAGO - For the bleary-eyed able to stomach a tidbit of health news after ringing in the New Year, more Americans are getting fat and drunk each year, with sometimes deadly results, researchers said yesterday. More than one in five American adults could be classified as obese in 2001, up almost 6 percent from the year before. And more than one in four Americans engage in bouts of binge drinking - defined as five or more drinks at one sitting with the goal of getting drunk - up 35 percent from 1995. "I guess you could say we're fat and drunk," said Timothy Naimi, a researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, summarizing a pair of studies based on a huge telephone survey of more than 200,000 adults. "We're a society that is somewhat taken with excesses," Naimi said. The studies' publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association was timed by the journal to coincide with the revelry associated with New Year's Eve. U.S. driving fatalities more than double on New Year's Day as celebrants take to the roads. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an average of 393 people died in traffic accidents after midnight on New Year's Day over the past three years, more than half of them alcohol-related. That compares to the daily average of about 115 traffic deaths - roughly 42,000 a year - 40 percent of them blamed on alcohol. Bingeing - whether on alcohol or food - is a potentially fatal health problem, CDC researchers said. Abuse of alcohol kills roughly 100,000 Americans a year, the third-leading cause of preventable deaths after smoking and physical inactivity. Binge drinking accounted for roughly half those 100,000 deaths, Naimi said. Obesity is another killer, and its prevalence among U.S. adults nearly doubled in the past decade to 21 percent of adults, the CDC researchers said. Obesity has been declared a global problem by the World Health Organization, and 45 percent of adults in some oil-rich Persian Gulf nations are obese, according to the study © Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
