No one likes to hear bad things about their child. But what if it's the truth ... and their health depends on it?

What I'm talking about, of course, is your child's weight. Studies show that of parents of overweight kids, only 39% recognized that their child was overweight while 61% believed their child was a normal weight. But should parents be told the truth about their child's weight? Some believed that telling the parents could have adverse consequences. Until now, that is. Experts are finally agreeing that it's not harmful to be honest when it comes to such a weighty subject.

It's about time, if you ask me. Parents should know that their kids face potentially fatal health risks if they don't change their habits. But that's just my opinion -- what do you think?

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Country music superstar Trisha Yearwood is singing the praises of milk, and she wants the world to know it. That's why she's signed on as the latest celebrity to sport the white mustache in the Got Milk? ad campaign.

The 43-year-old wife of Garth Brooks, mom of three girls, and cookbook author says she grew up on a farm and has been a fan of milk for her whole life.

According the National Academy of Sciences, children and adults should drink 24 ounces of milk each day. Teens should drink 32 ounces. Why? Calcium, protein, vitamin A, vitamin B-12, vitamin D, potassium, phosphorus, niacin, and riboflavin to name a few. Another reason: If you're trying to lose weight, studies show that 24 ounces of fat-free or low-fat milk every day as part of a reduced-calorie diet can help people drop pounds and burn more fat than cutting calories alone. Some people don't support these merits, arguing that milk increases cancer risk and causes a myriad of other health problems. Milk sucks, says this website. And this one lists a bunch of articles about the controversy surrounding milk consumption. Check it out and let us know what you think. Would you sport the milk mustache. Or not?

Take a peek at these milk-mustached celebrities who support the iffy dairy product -- or at least say they do.

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Are you surprised at all when I tell you American obesity rates are soaring? Probably not. I wasn't when my husband told me about this weighty article he'd read. It revealed that not one state showed a decline in obesity during the year 2006. Mississippi was the first state to crack the 30 percent barrier for obese adults. West Virginia and Alabama were just slightly behind. Colorado was the leanest state with a 17.6 percent rate. This year's report, looking at overweight children for the first time, has the District of Columbia topping the charts with heavy kids and Utah boasting the lowest rates for little ones.

Obesity is becoming an epidemic. And we need to treat it as an emergency. First step: determine where you stand. My hubby located this body mass index (BMI) calculator. I share it with you today so you can chart your own measurement. Just enter your height and weight and then calculate your BMI with one click of your mouse. If you come up with the number 30 or higher, you fit the definition of obese. If you find yourself in this predicament, you're in the right place. That's Fit offers an abundance of health and fitness tricks that can help you whittle away at your digits. If you are below the 30 mark, pat yourself on the back. And keep on truckin' in the direction of health, fitness, and wellness.

There's just one way to fix our nation's obesity problem -- plain old hard work. Each and every one of us must eat right, exercise right, and minimize our health risks. Only then can we watch our obesity statistics, like our BMIs, melt away to more perfect numbers.

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A new study was released this week that highlighted a scary disconnect in the doctor-patient relationship. Some physicians -- in fact, large numbers of them -- are failing to recognize suicide signs and symptoms in patients. These are often the neediest patients when it comes to requiring assistance, so it's distressing to hear that there is a lack of help in abundance here.

Although the study involved actresses who visited various various physicians to show signs of despair and hopelessness, many doctors failed to ask these study participants about their mental state as it related to potential suicide risk. Only 36 percent of doctors went there.

Are doctors not trained that well at probing for possible suicide risks, or are they so hurried with a flurry of patients that they just don't take the time? It's true that primary care physicians are not psychiatrists, although the study stated that 75 percent of people who commit suicide visited a primary-care provider in the 30 days prior.

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It's always a good idea to perform a little 'preventive maintenance' on your health from time to time to ensure that everything is in check and nothing comes up as a surprise later on.

When it comes to diabetes, the rates of this disease continue to march upward every year as more and more U.S. citizens become increasingly obese. What can you do to prevent diabetes? Plenty, if you dedicate enough effort to learning and doing.

One of the first ways it to lose between five and seven percent of your body weight -- and that is just for starters. Take a gander of a whole list here and see if any of these steps sounds too far out of the realm of possibility for you. My guess is that they're not for most of us.

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Cosmetic medical procedures are becoming more and more commonplace everyday as technology advances, but there are still serious risks associated with even the simplest of procedures. Permanent makeup, which is basically just tattoos, is one that can easily have serious and devastating side effects. Studies have shown that certain shades of the tattoo ink used for permanent makeup cause allergic reactions in a significant number of patients, with redness, swelling, and even permanent bumps in the skin called granulomas resulting. The especially scary part is that it's possible to develop an allergy to the pigment at any time -- even in a tattoo you've had for years!

I for one would never want something permanent like this on my face, with or without the chance for nasty side effects, but for those who like the idea -- is it worth the risk?

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Since the United States does not have federal smoking control legislation and each individual state must determine legislative bans, only about half of Americans are covered by a smoke free ordinance of some degree. Efforts to ban smoking have been developing since the early 1990s when research showed that secondhand smoke not only was an annoyance to nonsmokers, but actually was contributing to their death from lung cancer.

So I know some of you feel this subject is beat up but I have to speak out as a cancer survivor and also someone who is presently battling cancer and I am not a smoker. This is my two minutes. Moving back home to Virginia was nice to be around family members and old friends, but it has put a damper on how many times I will actually go out to eat or even go enjoy bowling or other social events. Because it means breathing second hand smoke. Going to a bar or even to a coffee shop to listen to live music is even a health risk and I just won't do it. As a songwriter and performer if I want to get paid shows in this state I have to breathe the smoke that comes with the places I would perform like restaurants, bars, or coffee shops. Could it be the fact that the largest manufacturer of cigarettes, Phillip Morris, is located in the state capital of Virginia in Richmond?

And coincidence or not, to even go south of me 15 minutes into North Carolina is not any relief either because North Carolina is the home of R.J. Reynolds tobacco company located in Winston Salem and legislation to ban smoking in public places has not passed in that state either.

When people talk about freedoms and being able to smoke in public, I think somebody else's freedom ends when it enters my lungs and causes serious health risks and forces me to give up the freedoms of going to places that I enjoy or need to work in to survive. Looking at research it seems for people to escape smoking in public places they have to move to northern states or to the west coast. The R.J Reynolds website states "Adults who smoke should avoid exposing minors to secondhand smoke." Well what about adults? See a map of the states with smoking bans by clicking here.

80 percent of all cancers are due to identified factors according to the National Cancer Institute. Which means a lot of cancers can be preventable. So why is the disease increasing and why don't Americans pay more attention to the facts?

30 percent of cancers are due to smoking. Up to 50 percent of cancers are due to the foods we eat. Drinking excessive alcohol raises the risks for breast, mouth, pharynx, and esophagus cancers. Drinking alcohol and smoking makes cancer risks skyrocket as well as raises the risks for stomach, liver, and colon cancers.

In my humble opinion the following basic food facts should be taped to every refrigerator in this country.

Some vitamins in plant foods are known to be cancer inhibitors and dietary fat is known to be a promoter in cancer by helping the abnormal cells grow quickly. Especially animal fat. The best diet for cancer prevention points to a low fat, high fiber diet that includes a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans and also minimizes or excludes alcohol and eliminates smoking. The best diets are pure vegetarian diets.

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Science is almost equally as dangerous as it is helpful. Prescription medications, for example, all too often turn out to have deadly side-effects that are seemingly unrelated at all to what they were originally intended to do.

But until we develop other methods, a big part of the learning curve for scientists is watching what happens once a new drug has been approved for general human use. There's just no way they can reproduce that kind of research in a lab setting, and they learn new things about old drugs all the time.

Medications for heartburn, blood pressure, breast cancer, and osteoporosis all have risks that you may not be aware of -- like an increased chance for breaking a hip or developing diabetes. Read this article for the latest on these 4 common prescriptions, and consider talking with your doctor about any new findings on other meds you may be taking.

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Although there are certain risks associated with any surgery, gastric bypass has become common enough that it's considered one of the "safer" ones, right? Well maybe not, according to new research. I just covered an article yesterday that went into some of the potential risks of weight loss surgery, and now it seems nerve damage may be a bigger problem than previously thought.

The scary part is that the nerve damage isn't caused by the actual surgery itself, but by a lack of nutrients that slowly builds up over time afterward. Patients may not even know they have a problem until it's too late and there's permanent damage. To battle this, doctors will begin to adjust their post-op approach by encouraging and teaching patients to take supplements and teaching them about the early signs of neurological damage. Hopefully this risk can be all but eliminated or at least reduced to treatable cases only with some increased awareness and education.

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