That's Fit

A research team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is pinpointing obesity as a key cause of global warming. Their argument is that it costs more in fuel to transport heavier people. Also, obese people require more food to sustain themselves.

The World Health Organization predicts that by 2015, more than 700 million people worldwide will be obese. The London-based research team feels this overweight trend will have a hefty impact on the environment as well as health.

The researchers found that people who are obese consume nearly 18% more food than their thinner counterparts. This can impact the environment by creating a higher food supply demand and by causing more food travel miles. Also, the researchers state that thin people are more likely to walk than rely on cars for travel. What do you think?

I don't think anyone has had any complaints about Prince William's body -- he always looks pretty fit to me. However, it apparently took the influence of Wils' longtime love, Kate Middleton, for him to build a gym at Clarence House.

While Kate still has her own apartment, which she shares with her sister, Pippa, she spends the majority of her time at William and Harry's residence, and supposedly asked if they would allow her to build a gym there. Now that it's been installed, she and her sister are loving it because it has all kinds of amazing equipment and it's totally private.

Kate supposedly keeps her figure fabulous by working out an hour a day, and now "she even has William and Harry doing crunches and press-ups." Something tells me those boys were no strangers to working out long before Kate requested a gym, but still, it's great to see fitness playing a real role in the life of the royals!

Most of us go to the gym to work up a sweat, but when ironically named Andy Heatman visited his regular UK gym, he got banned for sweating too much.

Chesire Lines Health Club staff claim that 15 people complained about Heatman's personal hygiene, leading them to ban Heatman from the gym on his next visit. So he took his business down the street to Total Fitness, where he was assured sweating was encouraged.

Heatman works out for two hours at a time, four days a week, so of course he's going to sweat (he also claims he showers regularly, uses deodorant, etc.). I understand it's not always pleasant to see someone sweating profusely, but come on ... isn't that what gyms are for?

What do you think -- was Heatman treated fairly or should he have been left alone to work out in peace?

After he was warned he was at-risk for bowel cancer, Neil King of Essex England took action. No, he didn't add fruits and vegetables to his diet, and there's no mention of a regular exercise routine. Instead, he started eating baked beans, six cans a day to be exact.

He eats them with rice at lunch and with a potato for dinner. The "diet" has helped him lose 140 pounds. There's nothing special about beans though, except for the fact that they are low in fat and high in fiber. His weight loss likely came from dropping his daily eight pints of lager and meals that included sausage and bacon.

Though no one would ever recommend a diet with such restrictions, some weight loss experts do say that in the beginning stages of weight loss, dieters do better when they limit their choices. The fact that he gave himself so few options may be what helped King take the weight off.

5 rules for cheating on your diet!

Giran Jobe, a grunting weightlifter, had some disgruntled neighbors who felt he was too loud when lifting his weights. And, it turns out he probably was too loud, as he has now been fined, given a noise abatement, and taken to court.

Before you get too upset, you should know that the noise coming from his top floor flat was measured last June, and found to reach 100 decibels, the level of noise typically found at a rock concert. He was ordered to keep the noise down. Then, only a month later, the neighbors lodged another complaint, so the the Council implemented some noise recording devices.

If you drink water from a municipal water source (not well water), then chances are good that fluoride has been added. It's a common practice in the U.S. to protect teeth from decay. British Health Secretary Alan Johnson wants the practice to become widespread in England -- only 10% have fluoridated water there -- but he's getting resistance from people who question the safety of fluoride and who also say it's their right too choose what goes into their water.

Some studies show that an excess of fluoride can actually pit the teeth and may affect bone health. But health experts say the benefits far outweigh the risks and that children who drink fluoridated water have 15% less tooth decay than those that don't.

I hate to be a holiday jumper, but I have to bypass Thanksgiving for this one. Trust me, it's worth it.

It seems that our friends across the pond have decided that Christmas needs a makeover this year. In efforts to provide children with a more positive and healthy role model, a shopping mall in England is putting their holiday Santa Clauses through fitness boot camp!!

The 12 commissioned Santas have already begun their one-month boot camp training sessions with their trainer, according to mall's property manager. Guests of the mall can watch the Santas as they perform such exercises as the "Santa Sack Lift" (I swear I'm not making this stuff up), helping to tone-up and trim down the soon-to-be svelte Father Christmas. Whether the children will respond favorably to this newer and fitter version of Santa remains to be seen, but what is certain is that Santa Claus will have much less difficulty sliding down chimneys this year.

The world is a big place and it seems like we get news items and magazine articles all the time about which nations are the healthiest or most-fulfilled. If you've ever wondered about how people in different locations around the globe stay fit and happy, this piece is pretty fun and interesting.

It includes tips and secrets from people as near and far as Florida, Mexico, South Africa, Ireland, Japan, England and France on how to maintain a healthy mind and body. I don't imagine these people are experts or anything but sometimes it's nice to take advice from people based on personal experience.

Some of the secrets doled out include doing a water fast once every couple of weeks (Japan), get ting outside and walking as much as possible (Ireland) and breathing to lower stress (South Africa). If you're interested in all of the tips and the perceived benefits then read the piece in full.

Have you got any health or wellness tips you can share?

It's though that there are a number of causes that can lead to depression, and here's another one: Studies are showing that there is a very strong link between depression and damp, moldy homes. Researchers from Brown University had initially set out to prove the opposite -- that depression is a result of other factors -- but they were forced to concede that the home plays a big role. Mold can be responsible for a number of physical ailments as well, and it's thought that this plays a role in depression -- if people feel chronically ill, they will be depressed about their health.

This doesn't bode well for people who live in damp climates -- could possibly explain why England is thought of as such a depressing, dreary place?

(Via Cranky Fitness)

While the majority of cities in North America have butted out over the past few years, many places in the world are currently counting down the days until smoking is no longer allowed in any public spaces. England is one of the next places on the list and, knowing how many smokers there are over the pond, I think it will be interesting to see how things go down on July 1, the day the ban comes into effect.

I have somehow ended up visiting a number of cities in the days leading up to their own imminent smoking bans, and in each one, the major concerns were expressed by pub and bar owners. Many seemed to think that smoking customers would choose to stay at home rather than smoke outside on a night out and business would sink like a cancerous lung. However, I think that in most cases, the draw of going out and socializing has far outweighed the inconvenience of having to move outside for five minutes to go for a quick ciggy. No matter how much fuss both smokers and bar owners made, in every place I've been in the aftermath of a smoking ban, the pubs are still full and there are still lines out the door at the nightclubs. Even in tiny, rural prairie villages, all of the local farmers and oilfield workers head outside for their nicotine fix.

So what is the plan in England, where there are approximately 60,000 pubs and even more bars and nightclubs? Having worked in a pub in London where customers were notorious for trying to "wind up" -- aka tease -- the staff about everything, I really don't see things going as smoothly as they have in other places. According to this, at least 200 publicans (owners and managers of pubs) are planning on flouting the ban on the first day, and continuing to do so as long as patrons still want light up. Some are claiming that it's not about health issues but rather about personal freedom issues. They say that smokers should have the right to smoke wherever they'd like without having Big Brother telling them to butt out. But what about all of the non-smokers out there who would like to enjoy a night out without breathing in toxins from cigarettes?

Where do the rights of one group begin and the other end? I think that as a bartender in a London pub, I had the right to not have customers lean over the bar and blow smoke in my face (which happened constantly) and I think the owners of the 19th-century pub I worked at had the right to not have cigarettes put out on the pub carpets and upholstered furniture. I suppose in the end it doesn't matter which side you're on if the British Government is serious about enforcing the new law, as other governments have been. No matter how big a fuss the public has kicked up in other cities and countries, the smoking bans have held. So what do you think? Is this simply a healthy issue or is it a matter of personal freedoms at risk?